What a week for the misanthropes, eh? They’ve got to be hoisting a few glasses of grape (bitter as they may be) this holiday weekend and smugly toasting their own validation from recent events. Whether it’s the de-evolution of the rule of law into the law of the jungle in a major cultural center in just 48 hours (how’s that for “punctuated equilibrium”) to fear and rumor stampeding people to their deaths or to gas lines, it’s a great time to be smarter than everyone else. Ah, human nature – you gotta love it!

And as if the main course isn’t satisfying enough, there’s also the floor show — a cavalcade of finger-pointing, ass-covering and political hay-making all high-kicking across the room — all while bodies still bob in the waters of Pontchartrain. Human nature, again!

For that matter, they may still be pulling bodies out of the Tigris. The disaster in Iraq was one of those things that happens around the world, like a famine or an overloaded ferry capsizing, that makes us, in our human nature, say “I’m glad nothing like that can happen here” — until Americans riot over cheap computers or the levee breaks.

When it happens close to home there is nothing so predictable as the cries that that the whole situation was, itself … predictable. Yesterday Jeff Jarvis tapped his baton on an operetta entitled “More than a tragedy – a scandal“, launching commenter choruses of “they should have seen it coming” (they did, but – darn that human nature – didn’t leave), global warming (it was a hot day in Galveston in 1900, too) and “Bush was on vacation” (as was Congress and 90% of the French, for that matter, which is every bit as relevant) and it’s all Bush’s fault (because we can’t get troops and supplies into place overnight in a disaster area the size of Britain that has little functioning infrastructure). Of course, that’s all human nature, too.

Just as it is human nature for certain criminal elements to always try to get away with whatever they can — even in ideal conditions — when they think no one is watching or can do anything about it. How shocking is it, then, to see this sort rise up and run amuck in the absence or abdication of most controls? It does make one wonder, however, if missions to feed and deliver supplies to the weak in New Orleans will resemble our efforts to get food past the warlords and to the hungry in Somalia.

Hurricane Katrina is a large-scale natural disaster exacerbated by the usual dark comedy of human error. The current situation is not a Republican or Democratic Party failing (it would even happen to the Green Party if they ever get their hands on the levers, which they will no doubt use this event to try and do). It is a failing of our human nature that leads us time after time to choose short-term gain or convenience over the long-term benefit even when faced with a demonstrably “when” not “if” scenario. You know, scenarios like a sub-sealevel city in a hurricane zone, or a densely populated major metropolitan area resting on a fault line … or the implosion of the Social Security system.

All in all, it’s enough to make you pull the covers over your head and wait for God to hit “reboot” … except for the better angels of our human nature that draw us together and lead us to pray and to give, to go out of our way to help the suffering. It’s what drives the majority of us to say, “What can I do to help?”

Granted, there will also be the minority who ask, “What can I get out of this?” or who delight in celebrating how much like animals we humans are, or can be. I guess I understand their point … hearing or reading them tends to make me start to feel a little hairy myself.

NOTE: Earlier I mentioned the Comments section to the Jeff Jarvis post. While there was a lot of nuttery going on there, responses by people identified as Eileen and Petro were excellent and bear reading for their insight and ability to focus on the real issues at hand. Along that line, please read this link from that section that provides an insider’s detailed explanation of the logistical hurdles an operation of this kind entails.

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I’m working on a longer post on another topic that I hope to finish tonight. In the meantime, a couple of interesting news stories (click the links to read the entire article):

“Camp Reality” sets up across from “Camp Casey”

Military families disturbed by a sea of crosses erected by anti-war protesters near President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, have removed crosses bearing the names of their fallen children and transferred them to another site to show support for American troops in Iraq.

Anti-war protesters “never asked for my permission to put up a cross for my son for their cause,” said Gary Qualls, whose son was killed in Iraq. “They are not respecting our sons and daughters.”

… Also, starting today, about 500 yard signs that say “Support Our Troops” and “Bush Country” will be placed on property directly across from Camp Casey by a group called GrassFire.org.

“We will also unfurl a huge American flag” to fly at the site, which is being called “Camp Reality,” said Steve Elliott, president of GrassFire.org. He said his group has collected 400,000 petitions supporting both Mr. Bush and U.S. troops.

Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rules 11-2 in favor of Nebraska town’s Ten Commandments display.

PLATTSMOUTH, Neb. (BP)–In the first major Ten Commandments decision since the U.S. Supreme Court had its say, a federal appeals court Aug. 19 upheld the constitutionality of a large granite Decalogue monument that has stood in the city of Plattsmouth, Neb., for 40 years.

The 11-2 decision by the full Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals comes nearly two months after the Supreme Court issued a split decision in two separate cases, allowing a Texas Ten Commandments monument to stand but ordering the removal of a Kentucky Ten Commandments courtroom plaque. The ruling by the Eighth Circuit reversed an earlier 2-1 decision by one of the court’s three-judge panels.

There’s also this:
Anti-war protestors target wounded at Walter Reed

Washington (CNSNews.com) – The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the current home of hundreds of wounded veterans from the war in Iraq, has been the target of weekly anti-war demonstrations since March. The protesters hold signs that read “Maimed for Lies” and “Enlist here and die for Halliburton.”

The anti-war demonstrators, who obtain their protest permits from the Washington, D.C., police department, position themselves directly in front of the main entrance to the Army Medical Center, which is located in northwest D.C., about five miles from the White House.

Among the props used by the protesters are mock caskets, lined up on the sidewalk to represent the death toll in Iraq.

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Today the Strib ran an article headlined “World unprepared for next influenza pandemic: health experts.” The article covered what a panel of experts – including the U’s own Dr. Michael Osterholm – had to say about the likelihood of a catastrophic global avian flu pandemic. Dr. Osterholm’s succinct statement: “We’re screwed.”

Unfortunately, the article did a pretty poor job in putting into context why this threat is significant and what is already being done, so allow me to fill in the gaps. This is a topic I’ve been focusing on for business and personal reasons, and I’ve offered a lot more details, perspective and updates here and here. (Each post also features links to more information from highly credible sources).

The article doesn’t describe why this strain has experts so concerned. Here are the salient details:

Update:

KARE 11 did a more in-depth story on this recently, including more Minnesota angles. You can read the text of the report here.

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Several weeks ago I posted an overview of the potential threat that the avian flu in Southeast Asia posed to the world population and economy. This post was based on information and interviews I’d gathered from credible sources as part of my regular job. Since this flu is genetically very similar to the deadly 1918 Spanish flu, my report included estimates by the Department of Health and Human Services of 1.7 million deaths in the U.S. alone if avian flu infected and killed the same percentages of Americans as the 1918 pandemic.

At the time of that post, the avian flu virus still needed an autogenic mutation that would allow it to be passed from human to human. There are now reports that this critical mutation may have taken place and the virus has broken out in seven clusters in and around Haiphong in northern Vietnam. You can read “Has the Next Flu Pandemic Started?” along with other updates at this blog, Avian Flu – What We Need to Know, which is devoted to aggregating reports on this virus.

By the way, the magazine article I was editing and referenced in my original post appeared in the April 15 issue of Risk & Insurance magazine and is reprinted in its entirety here. It includes a table showing projected deaths by age group in the U.S. One of the co-authors of that story, Dr. Michael Osterholm (director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and a professor of public health at the University of Minnesota), also wrote an article last week for the New England Journal of Medicine describing the critical gaps in our global ability to contain such an outbreak. This article is also on the avian flu site and can be read here.

Keep in mind that the concerns of influenza experts are based on the strong similarities of the avian flu to the 1918 strain and the current logistical handicaps we would face in the event of an outbreak. Projections are still just projections, and the severity of the avian flu strain, if it has mutated, may be less depending on whatever other transformations also may have occurred in the last mutation. As the story in the second link above indicates, those who have been infected so far by presumed human-to-human contact have all recovered, so the strain may not be as lethal as its animal-to-human transmission variant.

That story also points out, however, that the 1918 pandemic also began with relatively mild cases in the spring, but by fall had envolved into a killer. If this topic interests you, I suggest you bookmark the Avian Flu blog.

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