Vulnerability to various viruses and other poisonous ooze
The re-introduction of cholera to Haiti — the US and Dominican Republic — is a huge step backward in a century long effort to corner, contain, and eliminate the highly infective and deadly disease. The precise cause of the outbreak is not yet known, but experts have said the simple absence of hand soap has considerably accelerated the spread of the bacteria that causes the disease.
This week for the first time in seven years a human case of Avian Influenza was confirmed in Hong Kong. But already this year there have been 22 confirmed cases and nine deaths in Egypt and seven cases and two deaths in Vietnam. Most epidemiologists continue to consider the world past-due for a serious pandemic. The Avian H5N1 virus is thought to be the most likely source.
Last year’s Swine Flu or H1N1 pandemic should have been – and in some ways was — a fantastic real-world exercise for pandemic preparedness. We were lucky the particular virus was fairly low-grade. Our weaknesses were exposed, but the consequences were modest. But from what I can see, the less-than-dire consequences of H1N1 may have suppressed personal and institutional preparedness for H5N1 or other potential strains of pandemic influenza.
Wednesday a series of cyber specialists told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the Stuxnet Wormhas viral capabilities. “What makes Stuxnet unique is that it uses a variety of previously seen individual cyber attack techniques, tactics, and procedures, automates them, and hides its presence so that the operator and the system have no reason to suspect that any malicious activity is occurring,” according to Sean P. McGurk, acting director of the DHS National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center.
But while Stuxnet is visciously sophisticated once it infects a system, prevention measures are classic. According to PC Magazine these include, ”Deploy an anti-malware solution; watch out for vendor security notifications and alerts, and apply patches; ensure that users are updated via security education and awareness programs; and be aware of their assets.” Attention and discipline are the most important preventive measures.
A Russian biologist, Dmitry Ivanovsky, discovered viruses in the late 19th century. The word virus has a Latin origin that usually referred to a poisonous ooze.
Virus is closely related to the Latin virulentus. The English “virulent” also means poisonous, but today is probably more often used for anything that is extremely infective and rapidly spreading. Especially in this context, it has made sense to use the biological term for malicious computer code and now for anything digital that is rapidly consumed.
The John Tyner — “don’t touch my junk” — video and narrative has certainly gone viral. I am disgusted by it. The combination of a puerile wanna-be passenger and a couple of aggressively bureaucratic TSA agents has certainly produced a poisonous ooze of invective going every which way.
Like soap in Haiti and disciplined attention with our computers, a reasonable dose of recognizing the humanity of one another might have avoided the entire drama.
In regard to transportation security, there are meaningful issues of privacy and security that deserve serious consideration. In their Tuesday post Chris Bellavita and Dee Walker outlined several. Most persuasive to me is that TSA is too often preoccupied with going through the motions. They need our help, as informed and active citizens, to focus on delivering real security value.
But John Tyner is no Rosa Parks. Neither are the two slightly obnoxious TSA agents a latter day Sheriff Clark and Governor Wallace. John Tyner missing his plane is no Bloody Sunday.
What I perceive in most — not all — reactions to the John Tyner incident is an epidemic of self-righteous rage. I saw similar symptoms yesterday on the streets of Baltimore. I can’t always flip the channel quickly enough to miss it on television. I hear it on radio talk shows and in the halls of Congress. I don’t know the epidemic’s source, but the destruction caused is easy enough to see.
I can understand the rage of some Haitians – ten months after the earthquake, two weeks after being flooded out of their tents and shanties, and now told the water on which they depend is deadly — in some moments I share their rage.
But how do we diagnose — or treat — the rage of the well-fed and warmly housed? There seems to be some virus attacking our sense of relationship with one another, of being Americans together, of our shared humanity.
In 1992 the rap metal band Rage Against the Machine wrote what seems to have become the angry anthem of those from the left, right, and plenty in the middle:
I’ve got no patience now
So sick of complacence now
I’ve got no patience now
So sick of complacence now
Sick of sick of sick of sick of you
Time has come to pay…
Know your enemy!
It is an epidemic: virulent, poisonous, and just as deadly as any other infection.
