For us here in the Land of Round Doorknobs, Ebola was something that happened long ago and far away, as it always had in the past, to people about whom we knew very little and about whom we cared even less.
There were some headlines last fall when one or more posturing politicians saw an opportunity to profile themselves against what was already an ever-enlarging pack of potential Presidential candidates, with mixed results.
Whenever I see Mr. Perry with glasses (what did become of his candidacy for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, anyway?) I always think of lipstick on a pig. Oh. As if I'm the only one? Just me, really?
I've always loved that image and not just because I'm one of the six men in North America who never married Kim Kardashian, though attempting to be serious if only for a moment, perhaps it's because we're insulated and isolated by large oceans, or have great neighbors to our North and South so that the last large war fought on our own soil was against one another from 1861-1865, but we really never grasped, and still don't, the horrors of infectious diseases that spread like the types of plagues Western Europe saw in the Middle Ages.
So it's time for a small cheer for Barnabas and his mother whose circle of family and friends was decimated and shattered by Ebola while so many advanced nations shook their heads in dismay.
And if that reminds you, even a little bit of the reaction to the immigration situation right now engulfing Mediterranean refugees, where First World Nations are softly sighing and saying 'if there were only something we could do." If only we had a worldwide outreach that could help.
If you want to help, you'll find a way; if not, you'll find an excuse. What can I say? Something about shoes, how they fit, who walks in them and who walks alone.
-bill kenny
No comments:
Post a Comment