marburg virus outbreak

yeek! there's been a partic'ly nasty outbreak of the marburg virus in angola.

Negative stain image of an isolate of Marburg virus, showing filamentous particles as well as the characteristic "Shepherd's Crook". Magnification approximately 100,000 times.

the scary bit? two confirmed marburg sufferers left the hospital and haven't been found. frelling nightmare innit.

here's a link to the CDC infosheet on marburg & here's what the BBC has to say:

Angolans die from Ebola-like bug
More than 90 people have died in the past five months in Angola after an outbreak of a haemorrhagic fever in the north caused by the Marburg virus.

The World Health Organization says the disease, which has particularly affected children under five years old, is from the Ebola family.

The symptoms, similar to Ebola, include vomiting, bloody discharge and fever.

The nature of the outbreak was discovered after blood samples were sent to the US for analysis.

The Marburg disease, which was first recognised in 1967, affects humans and primates.

Fled hospital

Mr Van Dunem said 101 cases of the illness had been reported in a hospital in the city of Uige.

Ninety-three people have died and two have left the hospital without being properly discharged, he told reporters.

"We are engaged in an effort with the community to find the two patients who fled the hospital and to detect new cases," he said.

WHO has suggested Angolan figures may include other deaths and said last week that at least 39 people have died.

WHO has had to cope with several outbreaks of Ebola in Africa since 2000.

The biggest was in Uganda four years ago, when hundreds died.

It passes quickly from person to person, through bodily fluids such as mucus, saliva and blood.

yaar, it's worse than lyme 4 sho'. remind me not to visit anywhere where they have haemorrhagic fevers no more. (i've been to places where they are endemic, and it's not an encouraging experience.)

morrissey

i know maybe i'm oldschool for this, but i really like the new morrissey album.

and one of the best songs on the album? all the lazy dykes.

All the lazy dykes
cross-armed at The Palms
their legs astride their bikes
indigo burns on their arms

One sweet day - an emotional whirl
you will be good to yourself
and you’ll come and join the girls

All the lazy dykes
they pity how you live
just somebody’s wife
you give, and you give and you give
and you give…

One sweet day - an emotional whirl
you will be good to yourself
and you’ll come and join the girls

Touch me, squeeze me
hold me too tightly
and when you look at me
you actually see me
and I’ve never felt so alive
in the whole of my life
in the whole of my life

Free yourself
be yourself
come to The Palms
and see yourself
and at last your life begins
at last your life begins
at last your life begins
at last your life begins

ahhhhhh....

i have...

i have mostly abandoned this blog, but not entirely. last night i revamped the entire look and made it pleasing to the eye. one post a month, each on annoying subjects, is insufficient to keep up a blog. maybe this is a place i will post, then.

personal notes: i have...
... moved to cambridge and got away from those ghetto bitches.
... done significant blogging over at waitingfordorothy on non-personal issues
... been building a home for myself here in the lovely northeast
... missed my friends from west coast days
... enjoyed being around new england rain, snow, sun, people, places & stores
... relished having access to harvard library again

i'm sure there have been others. i'll try to focus and talk about things. perhaps after breakfast, though.

ugh

i was just searching the web for something and ran into a website that carries fucking nazi news network.

no, like real nazis. the good ol' american kind. i think nearly every third word i saw before i managed to navigate away from the site was "jew".

i'm going to get some coffee to get this taste out of my mouth, then watch tonari no totoro and then bound to get those images out of my head before i'm forced to go and "curb" some skinhead bitches.

nota bene: link to interactive map of hate groups active in the us and in massachusetts. in case you feel motivated to do something useful.

music edification

today i went out to get my meds. it were hard for me. sometimes it's still hard to do normal things (like take a bus). there was a reason, some meds i'm on make me feel like crap. also they make me crave... something. i dunno what it is, it's driving me crazy. but to reward me for being brave, i stopped and picked up three CDs.

it might seem extreme but i haven't bought music in ages and they were on sale.

and now i'm just in musical orgasm - got a perfect circle's new cover album, mos def's new album & the soundtrack to that movie about new jersey.

man, that mos def just knows how to throw down, don't he? there's a picture of him inside dressed in blackface, and his lyrics are just as confrontational - and brilliant. i bin listening to it all evening long.

a perfect circle is dark evilness, and this album is all about war and peace. hearing them perform john lennon's "imagine" is just as wicked as their take on led zeppelin's "when the levee breaks". tool was great, a perfect circle just carries on that tradition.

remember that album? my favourite tool song of all time has to be "prison sex". that shit is just hardcore - and you can sing along.

word. that's the word for the evening: word.

hedging it all

please note on your maps and atlases that i now officially reside in the united states of evangelicals. our ruling party? the ameritaliban. quick, veil your women! (we are trying to secede... but canuckistan won't have us.)

ah, boston. i love being an american silesian peceneg-off-rez eastern cherokee-dubliner scots-irish. even my ethnic origins are each hedged. i can't just be german: nope, my matri-nana's family are ethnic turks who fled before jingghiz qaghaan in the early middle ages and are dialectal german speakers from what is modern poland and the czech republic. my mom's dad is eastern cherokee, but off-rez from kentucky. and my 'irish' side were anglicised scots-speaking protestant kiss-royal in the pale. *sigh* all these names are so confusing innit.

CVS, suck my cooter

today i went to buy cat food.

this drunk fuck inhead fra us were staggering, weaving in the dusk. oh. i was gettin angry la, he walk past a black man an say some dren. fucking nigger. oh. drunken honky with merikkkan flag hat. my roomie she have nervous body language, speak fast an not like this man inhead of us. an i want to beat him with a red brick fra the sidewalk we all walk on.

fuck him. i start singing, loud, theme song from team america: world police. roomie join in; now two dykes walkin behind drunk merikkkan whitey thug screamin, 'it has a hefty fuckinnn price! freedom isn't free! cos' a dollar-oh-faaav!'

we split off at the corner, cross the street. now drunk fuck, he spend the last block while we sing trynna lite his damn cig cos he are a real man a. but two female ass pass, he double back, subtle as drunk shambling stagger like him can, and my roomie don't notice.

i watch him follow us direct to the store. i haul her aside, tell her to look at the magazines. he stop, confused, then she turn and go into the store. seein her walk direct at him, he stumble. don't know what to do - stalked one approach him now. he ask for a dime.

i glare at him onna way in - no beggar ask for ten cents. they ask for help. caught in my headlites he bolts.

laughin i enter the store.

c.v.s.

fuckin hate this place. smell like a hospital, rude fuckin cashiers, long lines. an when we get up to the cashier, the manager look at me, turn to his female coworkers an i hear:

mira, mira este chica e, say important manager. es un hombre.

no mood for this, me. i give him stare i used on drunk marine who want to bash me; this stare stop him in his tracks. now i use this stare on the manager.

que dices? i axe him. but this self-important fuck don't see me. he full up with himself. this third-world fuck never heard the king's spanish, only ghetto-bitch inbred dominican redneck shit. he don't understand i speak spanish to him.

he repeat. women ignore him. he repeat.

then he see my eyes. lo sabi, he say. lo sabi, lo sabi, lo sabi.

i raise the volume. habl'español, motherfucker!, say i in sweetest whiplash iberian accent i can muster. creamy accent. like native. easy to do in phrase.

now he are outraged. what did you say? - in english, of course.

without breaking eye contact, i hook round to the door.

HABLO ESPAÑOL, MOTHERFUCKER!

bitchass motherfucker. guess i learnt more things back in san diego than i knew.

like i take my bizness elsewhere now, fucker.

an fuck you, asshole.