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A New Commentary Each Wednesday May 21, 2014
WORLDWIDE PTSD
Psychologists have concluded that if we confront fear often enough without suffering trauma, we can overcome anxiety. On the other hand, how much fear can we as a society absorb without each of us suffering a certain amount of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?
A few global concerns come to mind: Dictator Putin's slow-motion annexation of the Ukraine, the centrifuges that keep grinding out weapons-grade fissionable material for Iran's arsenal, Assad's reluctance to speedily divest himself of all chemical weapons and the never-ending dispute between Israel and its neighbors.
This week, the world is focusing on the kidnapping of nearly 300 girls by an insane group of extremist Islamists in Nigeria who call themselves "Boco Haram". I looked it up and read that it means figuratively, "Non-Islamic education (is a) sin" in the Hausa tribal language. I expect them to soon have their own Facebook page, if they don't have one already - just one of the non-benefits of the "wired-together," world.
Now that we've survived several waves of Avian Flu pandemics and the feared Ebola virus, there are two more biological challenges that have made their way to our shores: Chikungunya fever, a mosquito borne virus, now brought to Florida from sources in the Carribbean and something else called Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or MERS.
Chikungunya is not usually deadly, but it can cause a very bad headache, fever and joint pain. MERS is far more troublingly. The virus is believed to have originated somewhere on the Arabian Peninsula, having now made the mutational leap from sick camels to humans. It is deadly. Of the 572 cases documented so far, there have been 173 deaths.
MERS is reported to have spread to a dozen countries as widespread as the Netherlands and Malaysia. As of this writing, two travelers have recently reportedly brought it to the United States. It is a severe respiratory illness, often accompanied by gastrointestinal problems and kidney failure.
It is spread by human to human contact, the same as the common cold. There is yet no vaccine available for it.
Always lurking in the background of all of these fears is the impact of climate change: drought, mammoth fires, the proliferation of swarms of storms year round and rising tides. Sorry Mr. Limbaugh, this is not all just leftist propaganda that we are viewing on nearly every newscast. It is devastation of an order that has not been experienced since the last Ice Age, 110-thousand years ago.
It's nice to know there are things about which we no longer have to be concerned, because there is little we can do about them.
Why bother to cut down on the burning of fossil fuels? India, China and Turkey are developing more coal burning generating plants and obtaining more vehicles faster than we can reduce pollution by all means at our disposal.
Iraq and Afghanistan are regressing into failed states.
And, then there is Monica Lewinsky. Erase that thought.
-Phil Richardson, Observer and Storyteller.
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