Who is Man? Left and Right Respond

From the most recent issue of Literary Review. I've thought this for a long time and am tickled to find others writing about it:

The Left, ever since Rousseau, has seen man as essentially good, in chains only on account of the institutions of a cruel and corrupt society. Loosen his chains, strike off his fetters, and the natural benevolence of his nature will be free to flourish.

For the Left the Golden Age is still to come.

The Right, however, sees our nature as essentially flawed. ‘I cannot but conclude’, Gulliver is told by his master in Brobdingnag, ‘the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.’ This miserable creature must therefore be subjected to order. The Right values tradition because, to quote Burke again: ‘We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages.’ So the Golden Age is always in the past.

Left-wing artists, however angry, are optimists; right-wing ones, however serene or witty, are pessimists. Yet the same man may be of the Left in his politics, opinions, and daily life, but of the Right in his Art. Graham Greene is a good example: politically on the Left, nevertheless on the Right in the view of man’s nature which informs his novels.

We few, we happy few...

On this, St. Crispin's Day, I present to you the speech of the same name in Shakespeare's Henry V. Hear the speech here. This has got to be my favorite movie moment of all time. Although, to this Virginian, the opening credits to Gods and Generals was profoundly moving as well.

Whether its the words, images, or the soundtracks in these bits of film, I don't know. But somehow, each taps something deep within humanity and plays with incredible passion upon the heart strings.

Of Cultural (un)Awareness

Hilarious.

Dear Jay,

As long as you're collecting tales of cultural gaffes — "Da Vinci" instead of "Leonardo" — try this one.

I'm 20 years old, ignorant as a post about classical music, but have been given two tickets to a concert by our local orchestra and figure, here's my chance to really impress a rather more sophisticated girl I've had my eye on for some time. I pop the question to her over the phone. Would she like to come to the concert with me?

"Perhaps," she answers. "Do you have any idea what music they're going to be playing?"

Uh . . . Furiously scanning both sides of the tickets for any hints, I try to sound offhand as I say, "Oh sure, I think they're going to be playing something by Mezzanine."

She laughed, but God bless her, she went on the date with me.

From Jay Nordlinger's mailbag.

Jefferson: Constitutional Originalist

From the Corner:

From a reader, remarks on the Constitution by Thomas Jefferson:

"The Constitution on which our Union rests, shall be administered by me [as President] according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people of the United States at the time of its adoption--a meaning to be found in the explanations of those who advocated, not those who opposed it, and who opposed it merely lest the construction should be applied which they denounced as possible."

"Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure."

Hamilton, Justice Story, and now Jefferson. To take seriously the original intent of the Founders, I begin to see, is to take seriously the importance they placed on common sense and the plain language of the Constitution.

The National Review's Best Non-fiction of the 20th Century

A fascinating list compiled in May, 1999. The list is a bit too political in nature, however. But I guess it comes with the territory--the list was compiled by NR. Anyway, more than a few of the books on this list just fount their way onto my amazon wishlist.

Considered Opinions vs. Tested Opinions

Was just reading re: Hariet Miers over at Prof. Bainbridge's blog, when I read this--a bit of a missive sent by a Harvard law prof:

If Harrier Miers has to study and reflect, now, in order to develop a personal theory of the Commerce Clause, how can we possibly have any confidence that she'll remain committed to that theory five, ten, or twenty years from now? First impressions are often wrong, even when we've put lots of thought into them. Unless and until Miers has publicly defended her theory against aggressive testing by very smart people who take a different view, we can't know have any confidence that she can do so -- and, thus, that she won't abandon it somewhere down the road. And therein lies the problem -- or at least one of the problems.

The truth contained in this short paragraph is profound, and it's really true of opinion in general, regardless of the field. Theology is what I'm thinking about in this case. Considered opinions must be submitted to, and survive, energetic critique before their holder can really say that it is what he really and truly believes. Adversity is the true test of how deeply held an opinion is. How many people out there believe something simply because they have never been challenged about it? In other words, how many opinions are actually intellectual defaults as opposed to formed opinions.?

Computers vs. Learning

A fascinating article at Orion Online (via Arts & Letters Daily). Here's a snippet:

...The teacher explained that her students were so enthusiastic about the project that they chose to go to the computer lab rather than outside for recess. While she seemed impressed by this dedication, it underscores the first troubling influence of computers. The medium is so compelling that it lures children away from the kind of activities through which they have always most effectively discovered themselves and their place in the world.

When we have kids, I'm not sure I want a computer accessible to the kids at all times. In fact, maybe we'll restrict it to like 1 hr a day or something...like TV (which we don't have).

Bird Flu (5): Romania

I've casually learned that China, Mongolia, Khazakstan, Vietnam, and Russia have reported cases. Romania now joins the list. The NYTimes reports that 11 countries in total have reported cases.

Bird Flu (4): The Bush Plan and Related Scenarios

From the NYTimes:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 - A plan developed by the Bush administration to deal with any possible outbreak of pandemic flu shows that the United States is woefully unprepared for what could become the worst disaster in the nation's history.

A draft of the final plan, which has been years in the making and is expected to be released later this month, says a large outbreak that began in Asia would be likely, because of modern travel patterns, to reach the United States within "a few months or even weeks."

If such an outbreak occurred, hospitals would become overwhelmed, riots would engulf vaccination clinics, and even power and food would be in short supply, according to the plan, which was obtained by The New York Times.

The 381-page plan calls for quarantine and travel restrictions but concedes that such measures "are unlikely to delay introduction of pandemic disease into the U.S. by more than a month or two."

The plan's 10 supplements suggest specific ways that local and state governments should prepare now for an eventual pandemic by, for instance, drafting legal documents that would justify quarantines. Written by health officials, the plan does yet address responses by the military or other governmental departments.

The plan outlines a worst-case scenario in which more than 1.9 million Americans would die and 8.5 million would be hospitalized with costs exceeding $450 billion.

It also calls for a domestic vaccine production capacity of 600 million doses within six months, more than 10 times the present capacity.

On Friday, President Bush invited the leaders of the nation's top six vaccine producers to the White House to cajole them into increasing their domestic vaccine capacity, and the flu plan demonstrates just how monumental a task these companies have before them.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration's efforts to plan for a possible pandemic flu have become controversial, with many Democrats in Congress charging that the administration has not done enough. Many have pointed to the lengthy writing process of the flu plan as evidence of this.

But while the administration's flu plan, officially called the Pandemic Influenza Strategic Plan, closely outlines how the Health and Human Services Department may react during a pandemic, it skirts many essential decisions, like how the military may be deployed.

"The real shortcoming of the plan is that it doesn't say who's in charge," said a top health official who provided the plan to The Times. "We don't want to have a FEMA-like response, where it's not clear who's running what."

Still, the official, who asked for anonymity because the plan was not supposed to be distributed, called the plan a "major milestone" that was "very comprehensive" and sorely needed.

The draft provided to The Times is dated Sept. 30, and is stamped "for internal H.H.S. use only." The plan asks government officials to clear it by Oct. 6.

Christina Pearson, a spokeswoman for Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt, responded, "We recognize that the H.H.S. plan will be a foundation for a governmentwide plan, and that process has already begun."

Ms. Pearson said that Mr. Leavitt has already had one-on-one meetings with other cabinet secretaries to begin the coordination process across the federal government. But she emphasized that the plan given to The Times was a draft and had not been finalized.

Mr. Leavitt is leaving Saturday for a 10-day trip to at least four Asian nations, where he will meet with health and agriculture officials to discuss planning for a pandemic flu. He said at a briefing on Friday that the administration's flu plan would be officially released soon. He was not aware at the briefing that The Times had a copy of the plan. And he emphasized that the chances that the virus now killing birds in Asia would become a human pandemic were unknown but probably low. A pandemic is global epidemic of disease.

"It may be a while longer, but pandemic will likely occur in the future," he said.

And he said that flu planning would soon become a national exercise.

"It will require school districts to have a plan on how they will deal with school opening and closing," he said. "It will require the mayor to have a plan on whether or not they're going to ask the theaters not to have a movie."

"Over the next couple of months you will see a great deal of activity asking metropolitan areas, 'Are you ready?' If not, here is what must be done," he said.

A key point of contention if an epidemic strikes is who will get vaccines first. The administration's plan suggests a triage distribution for these essential medicines. Groups like the military, National Guard and other national security groups were left out.

Beyond the military, however, the first in line for essential medicines are workers in plants making the vaccines and drugs as well as medical personnel working directly with those sickened by the disease. Next are the elderly and severely ill. Then come pregnant women, transplant and AIDS patients, and parents of infants. Finally, the police, firefighters and government leaders are next.

The plan also calls for a national stockpile of 133 million courses of antiviral treatment. The administration has bought 4.3 million.

The plan details the responsibilities of top health officials in each phase of a spreading pandemic, starting with planning and surveillance efforts and ending with coordination with the Department of Defense.

Much of the plan is a dry recitation of the science and basic bureaucratic steps that must be followed as a virus races around the globe. But the plan has the feel of a television movie-of-the-week when it describes a possible pandemic situation that begins, "In April of the current year, an outbreak of severe respiratory illness is identified in a small village."

"Twenty patients have required hospitalization at the local provincial hospital, five of whom have died from pneumonia and respiratory failure," the plan states.

The flu spreads and begins to make headlines around the world. Top health officials swing into action and isolate the new viral strain in laboratories. The scientists discover that "the vaccine developed previously for the avian strain will only provide partial protection," the plan states.

In June, federal health officials find airline passengers infected with the virus "arriving in four major U.S. cities," the plan states. By July, small outbreaks are being reported around the nation. It spreads.

As the outbreak peaks, about a quarter of workers stay home because they are sick or afraid of becoming sick. Hospitals are overwhelmed.

"Social unrest occurs," the plan states. "Public anxiety heightens mistrust of government, diminishing compliance with public health advisories." Mortuaries and funeral homes are overwhelmed.

Presently, an avian virus has decimated chicken and other bird flocks in 11 countries. It has infected more than 100 people, about 60 of whom have died, but nearly all of these victims got the disease directly from birds. An epidemic is only possible when a virus begins to pass easily among humans.

WFB

Peter Robinson on The National Review at 50:

Gstaad, Switzerland, the winter of 1988. In need of someone to help research and edit a book, William F. Buckley Jr. had arranged for me to take a two-month leave of absence from my job as a White House speechwriter. He and I worked in the enormous cellar of the Chateau de Rougemont, a medieval monastery that a century earlier had been converted into a vast residence, WFB at a desk at one end of the room, I at a table at the other. (Although the cellar was a bare, simple room, the rooms above proved magnificent — high-ceilinged and wood-paneled, hung with superb paintings, and graced with magnificent views of the Alps. Not that the Chateau, which the Buckleys rented each year, met the exacting standards of Mrs. Buckley even so. When Pat arrived from New York, she strode into the study, and, unaware of my presence, threw her fur onto the sofa, performed a slow turn, and said, "This heap.")

WFB's routine proved invariable. At his desk by 7.30 each morning, he would work until noon, pausing only to change LPs on the record player — classical music only — and take telephone calls. (Contesting the New Hampshire primary, both Jack Kemp and Bob Dole called for advice.) At noon WFB would break for lunch, inviting me to join him either in the dining room upstairs, where guests regularly included Taki, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Roger Moore, or in a nearby restaurant, where we would often meet James Clavell. After lunch, skiing — but never for more than 90 minutes. Once, halfway down Videmanette, WFB stopped, then waved me to his side. "Peter," he said, "in more than four decades of skiing in these mountains, I have never seen more utterly perfect conditions." For once, I supposed, he would wave the time limit. Instead, he peeled back his glove, glanced at his watch, an announced that it was time to quit skiing and get back to work.

After skiing, WFB would spend another three hours at his desk, intently writing and editing until 6:00. At that hour, a servant would appear to serve us each a kir and a cigar. (In self-defense, I soon arranged for my drink to consist of flat soda water and just enough crème de cassis to look like a kir.) Half an hour later, dinner. If dinner was served in the Chateau, then WFB, Pat, and I would greet guests for a drink in the study, process into the dining room for dinner proper, and then adjourn to the sitting room for nightcaps. When WFB decided the evening had run its course, he would seat himself at the piano to play "Good Night, Ladies," a gesture that had become so famous in Gstaad that his guests — including, one evening, Princess Benedikte of Denmark and her husband, Prince Richard of Wittgenstein — always gracefully took the hint to depart.

Often, however, we would go out, visiting the chalet of Roger Moore, perhaps, or stopping at the Palace Hotel. (At the Palace one evening, WFB seated me across from the designer Valentino, then wandered off, leaving me to attempt conversation about haute couture.) Preparing to go out, WFB and I heard Pat shout down the Chateau's circular staircase. "Bill, hurry. The Goulandrises have invited the King of Greece, and according to protocol we all have to be there before the King arrives." WFB smiled. Then, in a voice too low for Pat to overhear, he said, "You'd think poor Constantine had never been deposed."

After dinner, even dinner with the King of Greece, WFB would repair to the cellar, seat himself at his desk, and return, once again, to work. His only concession to the hour: He would no longer play classical LPs, but jazz. WFB would remain at work until at least 11.00.

WFB and work. I witnessed his wit, his glamour, and his immense talent for friendship. But what impressed me most was the ceaselessness with which he worked. In the two months I spent in Gstaad, WFB composed some 24 newspaper columns; wrote a play based on Stained Glass, one of his Blackford Oakes novels; returned to New York to tape half a dozen episodes of Firing Line; completed the book on which we were collaborating (On the Firing Line would be published the following year); and edited four issues of National Review.

"Bill," I finally said one day, "you were born wealthy and you've been famous for thirty years. Why do you keep working so hard?"

WFB looked at me, surprised. "My father taught me that I owe it to my country," he replied. "It's how I pay my debt."

That is what I think of when I think of National Review. A payment on our debt to America.

Bird Flu (4): Reconstructed 1918 Virus Hits the Market

From the Guardian:

Scientists have recreated the 1918 Spanish flu virus, one of the deadliest ever to emerge, to the alarm of many researchers who fear it presents a serious security risk.

Undisclosed quantities of the virus are being held in a high-security government laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia, after a nine-year effort to rebuild the agent that swept the globe in record time and claimed the lives of an estimated 50 million people.

The genetic sequence is also being made available to scientists online, a move which some fear adds a further risk of the virus being created in other labs.

...Publication of the work and the filing of the virus's genetic make-up to an online database followed an emergency meeting last week by the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, which concluded that the benefits of publishing the work outweighed the risks. Many scientists remained sceptical. "Once the genetic sequence is publicly available, there's a theoretical risk that any molecular biologist with sufficient knowledge could recreate this virus," said Dr John Wood, a virologist at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control in Potters Bar.

Well, it's good to know that scientists are on the case. But let's hope that Dr. Wood's "theoretical risk" doesn't realize itself and become a truly horrible nexus of terrorism and disease.

Bird Flu (3): Source of 1918 Pandemic Reconstructed

...And guess what? It was a strain of bird flu. The Financial Times has the scoop:

The virus responsible for the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which killed an estimated 50m people worldwide, has been reconstructed by genetic engineering in a high-security US laboratory.

Preliminary studies show that it is an avian flu virus that mutated to spread quickly between people just as many experts fear will happen soon with the current H5N1 strain of bird flu in Asia. Details of the project are published today in the journals Science and Nature. The US National Institutes of Health approved the research, despite its apparent risk, because it will help scientists find new treatments for the most dangerous types of flu.

The Centres for Disease Control laboratory in Atlanta made a live virus with the full genetic sequence of Spanish flu, using an engineering technique called “reverse genetics” developed at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

“We felt we had to recreate the virus and run these experiments to understand the biological properties that made the 1918 virus so exceptionally deadly,” said Terrence Tumpey, head of the CDC team. “We wanted to identify the specific genes responsible for its virulence, with the hope of designing antivirals or other interventions that would work against virulent influenza viruses.”

The key genetic data for the experiment came from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington DC. Over the past eight years scientists there have pieced together the entire Spanish flu genome, from viral fragments isolated from preserved lung samples of patients who died in 1918 and from a female victim whose body was fortuitously frozen in Alaskan permafrost.

Many of the flu viruses circulating today were descendants of the H1N1 strain that swept the world in 1918 so the population still had some protective immunity against it, said Jeffery Taubenberger, leader of the AFIP team. “It is unlikely that a1918-like virus wouldbe able to cause a pandemic today.”

The research suggests that Spanish flu arose in a different way to the viruses that caused the other two 20th century pandemics. In 1957 and 1968 an existing human virus underwent genetic mixing with a bird virus to produce a new “reassorted” strain in one step.

In 1918, however, an entirely avian virus gradually adapted to function in humans through a sequence of mutations. Although the analysis is incomplete, about four to six mutations seemed to have taken place in each of the eight viral genes, Dr Taubenberger said.

Ominously, the H5N1 strain currently circulating in Asia is undergoing similar humanising mutations though it has not accumulated as many changes as Spanish flu.

■ Health officials in Jakarta and Hong Kong on Wednesday said tests had shown H5N1 virus in apparently healthy chickens in Indonesia. Until now it had been thought that chickens quickly sickened and died when infected with H5N1. The presence of infected but symptomless chickens could complicate the fight against bird flu.

Bird Flu (2): Bush Responds

Whadya know. Yesterday at his press confrence, Bush was asked about the spread of avian flu and answered very enthusiastically. It seems he's put a lot of personal thought into this (perhaps more thought than he did into selecting Harriett Miers for the Supreme Court). As he talked, he answered a number of the questions I asked in my last post. Here's the reporters question and his answers (transcript source: the Whitehouse):

Q Mr. President, you've been thinking a lot about pandemic flu and the risks in the United States if that should occur. I was wondering, Secretary Leavitt has said that first responders in the states and local governments are not prepared for something like that. To what extent are you concerned about that after Katrina and Rita? And is that one of the reasons you're interested in the idea of using defense assets to respond to something as broad and long-lasting as a flu might be?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Thank you for the question. I am concerned about avian flu. I am concerned about what an avian flu outbreak could mean for the United States and the world. I am -- I have thought through the scenarios of what an avian flu outbreak could mean. I tried to get a better handle on what the decision-making process would be by reading Mr. Barry's book [link] on the influenza outbreak in 1918. I would recommend it.

The policy decisions for a President in dealing with an avian flu outbreak are difficult. One example: If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country, and how do you then enforce a quarantine? When -- it's one thing to shut down airplanes; it's another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu. And who best to be able to effect a quarantine? One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move.

And so that's why I put it on the table. I think it's an important debate for Congress to have. I noticed the other day, evidently, some governors didn't like it. I understand that. I was the commander-in-chief of the National Guard, and proudly so, and, frankly, I didn't want the President telling me how to be the commander-in-chief of the Texas Guard. But Congress needs to take a look at circumstances that may need to vest the capacity of the President to move beyond that debate. And one such catastrophe, or one such challenge could be an avian flu outbreak.

Secondly -- wait a minute, this is an important subject. Secondly, during my meetings at the United Nations, not only did I speak about it publicly, I spoke about it privately to as many leaders as I could find, about the need for there to be awareness, one, of the issue; and, two, reporting, rapid reporting to WHO, so that we can deal with a potential pandemic. The reporting needs to be not only on the birds that have fallen ill, but also on tracing the capacity of the virus to go from bird to person, to person. That's when it gets dangerous, when it goes bird-person-person. And we need to know on a real-time basis as quickly as possible, the facts, so that the scientific community, the world scientific community can analyze the facts and begin to deal with it.

Obviously, the best way to deal with a pandemic is to isolate it and keep it isolated in the region in which it begins. As you know, there's been a lot of reporting of different flocks that have fallen ill with the H5N1 virus. And we've also got some cases of the virus being transmitted to person, and we're watching very carefully.

Thirdly, the development of a vaccine -- I've spent time with Tony Fauci on the subject. Obviously, it would be helpful if we had a breakthrough in the capacity to develop a vaccine that would enable us to feel comfortable here at home that not only would first responders be able to be vaccinated, but as many Americans as possible, and people around the world. But, unfortunately, there is a -- we're just not that far down the manufacturing process. And there's a spray, as you know, that can maybe help arrest the spread of the disease, which is in relatively limited supply.

So one of the issues is how do we encourage the manufacturing capacity of the country, and maybe the world, to be prepared to deal with the outbreak of a pandemic. In other words, can we surge enough production to be able to help deal with the issue?

I take this issue very seriously, and I appreciate you bringing it to our attention. The people of the country ought to rest assured that we're doing everything we can: We're watching it, we're careful, we're in communications with the world. I'm not predicting an outbreak; I'm just suggesting to you that we better be thinking about it. And we are. And we're more than thinking about it; we're trying to put plans in place, and one of the plans -- back to where your original question came -- was, if we need to take some significant action, how best to do so. And I think the President ought to have all options on the table to understand what the consequences are, but -- all assets on the table -- not options -- assets on the table to be able to deal with something this significant.

He directly or indirectly answered most of my questions. I only wish he'd talked a bit more about securing the borders. But with his policy on immigration being what it is, he probably didn't want to ruffle any feathers. Ironic how he would talk about quarantining whole regions of this country (unpleasant, but perhaps necessary) but not talk about securing the borders against it in the first place (unpleasant, and surely necessary). The worst thing about politics is the politics. Anyway, props to Mr. Bush for staying on top of this.

Then today, I found this article on Drudge--it talks a bit about how the military's hands are tied (with re: police work) within the borders, etc.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush asked Congress on Tuesday to consider giving him powers to use the military to enforce quarantines in case of an avian influenza epidemic.

He said the military, and perhaps the National Guard, might be needed to take such a role if the feared H5N1 bird flu virus changes enough to cause widespread human infection.

...Experts fear that the H5N1 bird flu virus, which appears to be highly fatal when it infects people, will develop the ability to pass easily from person to person and would cause a pandemic that would kill millions.

"And I think the president ought to have all ... assets on the table to be able to deal with something this significant," Bush said.

He noted that some governors may object to the federal government commandeering the National Guard, which is under state command in most circumstances.

POLICE DUTIES BANNED

"But Congress needs to take a look at circumstances that may need to vest the capacity of the president to move beyond that debate. And one such catastrophe or one such challenge could be an avian flu outbreak," Bush said.

The active duty military is currently forbidden from undertaking law enforcement duties by the federal Posse Comitatus Act.

That law, passed in 1878 after the U.S. Civil War, does not prohibit National Guard troops under state control from doing police work. But, unless the law is changed, it would keep them from doing so if they were activated by Washington under federal control.

While the law allows the president to order the military to take control and do police work in an extreme emergency, the White House has been traditionally reluctant to usurp state powers.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters he was not aware of any current planning by the military to help respond to a flu pandemic.

But he noted that after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf region, Bush had asked Congress to consider giving the military control over initial response in dealing with major natural or other domestic disasters.

"Obviously the (Defense) Department has a tremendous amount of capability in a lot of areas. And we are a large force," Whitman said, noting also that the military had deployed field hospitals to Louisiana after the hurricanes.

Health experts are working to develop vaccines that would protect against the H5N1 strain of flu, because current influenza vaccines will not.

And countries are also developing stockpiles of drugs that can reduce the risk of serious disease or even sometimes prevent infection -- but supplies and manufacturing capacity are both limited.

Bush said he was involved in planning for an influenza pandemic, which experts say will definitely come, although they cannot predict when, or whether it will be H5N1 or some other virus.

Anyway, that's that. I'll keep following the story as I have opportunity.

Speaking of the Black Plague

I do believe that the roses on the right side of my front stoop have Black Spot. To the store I go for the requisite chemicals before (note, before) a localized problem becomes the my personal Great Black Spot Plague of 2005.

The Great 2006 Avian Flu Epidemic?

I've been worried about a massive outbreak of Avian bird flu recently. It's been a long time since we've have a pandemic--too long a time. Then I read this story from the Telegraph (via: Acyyx).

Up to 150 million people could die in a global avian flu pandemic if action is not taken to prevent it being transferred from human to human, the United Nations has warned.

Dr David Nabarro of the Geneva-based World Health Organisation said preparations for an expected mutation of the virus enabling it to spread from human to human must be carried out.

"I am almost certain there will be another pandemic soon," Mr Nabarro added.

Dozens of people have died from the virus, mainly in Asia, after it was transferred from birds to humans. So far, there have been no reports of it spreading between humans.

UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has asked Mr Nabarro to head up a worldwide drive to contain the current bird flu pandemic and prepare for its possible jump to humans.

If the virus spreads among humans, the quality of the world response will determine whether it ends up killing five million or as many as 150 million, Mr Nabarro added.

The last flu pandemic, which broke in 1918 at the end of the First World War, killed more than 40 million people.

Mr Nabarro warned it seemed very likely the H5N1 bird flu virus will soon change into a variant able to be transmitted among humans and it would be a big mistake to ignore that danger.

Some governments and international organizations have already started joining forces to begin preparations.

Millions of birds have been destroyed, mainly in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, but the virus has also been found in birds in Russia and Europe.

But once humans have caught it, the virus has shown it has the power to kill one out of every two people it infects.

Until now, the effort to contain the spread of the virus among birds and prepare for a possible shift to humans has been led by the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health, the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation and the WHO.

Mr Nabarro said he would head a new UN system-wide office in New York that would begin mobilising governments, international agencies, health workers and the pharmaceutical industry.

Once the virus began spreading among humans, it would be only a matter of weeks before a pandemic was underway, so a rapid response would be crucial, he said.

Two challenges will be governments' traditional desire to ignore threats until they become real dangers, and their reluctance to publicly admit they have a problem once the disease starts spreading, he added.

A vaccine would be the best way to counter the virus and several drug firms around the world are working on one. But production is slow and the immunisation must match the strain that is actually infecting people, so it is not possible to make them up before a new strain emerges.

It's been time for the government to get serious about this for a long time. Some steps to prevent the spread:

Get working on a vaccine, like, yesterday. If there's something to throw government money at, it's this kind of national, indeed international, threat. This is exactly what the government is for--the protection of it's people from foreign invasions, whether by land, sea, air, or virus.

Get serious about protecting the borders. If a pandemic breaks out, do we have the resources available to close the borders? We can't do it now, so I can't imagine we'll be able to do it then unless we get serious about border protection. Right now the US-Mexico border is a joke. And crossing the US-Canada border can't be that much more difficult, especially if you want to hike in.

Start developing a plan on how to deal with millions of sick and dying: Morbid, I know, but necessary. Maybe we'll dodge the bullet, but bullet-dodging is risky business with low odds the dodger. What if the flu strikes? What will you do? Do you have a plan? A place to go? Plans for the family? For your property? What will the federal government do once the flu hits? Is there a strong medical plan? A strong military plan (there may be a role for it to play). How about state and local governments (though I don't know how much local governments can do in this case, except cooperate hand-in-glove with higher authorities)?

Learn from the past: Ok, think about it. New Orleans was caught out with Hurricane Katrina on a colossal number of levels. Not only was the government unprepared, but the everyday guy on the street was unprepared. On the governmental side, everyone (in the private sector, too) knew that the Big One was coming sooner or later, and that the Big Easy was asking for a bruising, but that didn't keep state and local governments from diverting federal money earmarked for levy-strengthening, etc., from being diverted and mis-spent. In a sense, the Feds did what they could beforehand, and state and local officials dropped the ball--and lost the city. In the case of the flu, the Feds have got to step up and prevent problems before they happen. I know this is hard in a national bureaucracy that oftentimes works through state and local bureaucracies, but there's got to be a way to do it, and a way to do it FAST.

Take responsibility for you and yours: Like I mentioned above, regardless of what the government does, it's not going to be the panecea, literally or figuratively. Each of us needs to develop a plan to protect ourselves and our families, property, etc. If this means stocking up on stuff and holing our family up in the house, or moving into the hills, or whatever, then that's what it means. We can't just sit around like sheep waiting for the government to tell us what to do. In many cases, the government will likely drop the ball, and it will be upon us to provide for ourselves.

I know this all sounds eschatalogical and all, but, hey, these pandemics sweep the globe with alarming regularity. Ever heard of the Black Death? How about the Influenza Pandemic of 1918. This source compares each of those plagues with the other, as well as with WW1, and has this to say: "the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351." In case you were wondering, the bubonic plague, which was the most commonly seen form of the Black Death, had a mortality rate of 30-75% and killed, in some cases, 90% of a local population (see more below). Two other forms of the Black Death--The pneumonic plague and the septicemic plague--had much higher rates of mortaility--90-95% and near 100% respectively. Although the latter two forms, the last particularly, were rare, one can imagine that Europe was not a nice place to live, or die, mid way through the 14th century.

At the expense of rambling, Wikipedia has a lot of cogent information that deserves attention:

Estimates of the demographic impact of plague in Asia are based on both population figures during this time and estimates of the disease's toll on population centers. The initial outbreak of plague in the Chinese province of Hubei in 1334 claimed up to 90 percent of the population, an estimated five million people. During 1353–54, outbreaks in eight distinct areas throughout the Mongol/Chinese empires may have caused the death of two-thirds of China's population, often yielding an estimate of 25 million deaths.

It is estimated that between one-third and one-half of the European population died from the outbreak between 1348 and 1350. As many as 25% of all villages were depopulated, mostly the smaller communities, as the few survivors fled to larger towns and cities. The Black Death hit the culture of towns and cities disproportionately hard; some rural areas, for example, Eastern Poland and Lithuania, were so isolated that the plague made little progress. Cities were the worst off because of the population densities and close living quarters making disease transmission easier.

The precise demographic impact of the disease in the Middle East is impossible to calculate. Mortality was particularly high in rural areas, including significant areas of Palestine and Syria. Many surviving rural people fled, leaving their fields and crops, and entire rural provinces are recorded as being totally depopulated. Surviving records in some cities reveal a devastating number of deaths. The 1348 outbreak in Gaza left an estimated 10,000 people dead, while Aleppo recorded a death rate of 500 a day during the same year. In Damascus, at the disease's peak in September and October 1348, a thousand deaths were recorded every day, with overall mortality estimated at between 25 and 38 percent. Syria lost a total of 400,000 people by the time the epidemic subsided in March 1349. In contrast to some higher mortality estimates in Asia and Europe, scholars believe the mortality rate in the Middle East was less than one-third of the total population, with higher rates in selected areas.

Anyway, that's a lot to process. I'm not going to make any attempt to sum this all up, because I'm the only person who reads what I write. Anyway, time for me to take some action and perpare for the eventual outbreak.