May Day observance - "Dirty Hands" episode

Television, Movies Games and Books BSG-2003
#1

hey all,

if you had listened to RDM’s podcast from Dirty Hands, you would learn that he was a student of international relations back in college. “Dirty Hands” was just an excuse for RDM to let loose his political leanings on labour relations (without getting too deep into it).

I’d like to re-start another discussion thread here in the mood of May Day; and juztapose that against the backdrop of wall street crooks who are slowly getting back what they used to earn in 2007.

Meanwhile, we are on the brink of a global pandemic. I just learnt today that they’re changing the name from “swine flu” to “mexican flu”

#2

I’m all for watching Dirty Hands again :slight_smile:

Changing the name to “Mexican flu” in no way contributes to racism or xenophobic attitudes towards immigrants in the US, of course. /sarcasm. What I read is that we’re now calling it H1N1 Influenza A.

#3

That one raises my hackles (I remember the Hong Kong Flu not being an issue) but I guess if people are ignorant enough to associate Swine Flu with pork, then it makes sense.

Seriously, have we just gotten stupider over the past thirty years?

#4

Yes. (Nevertheless, I’m going with “fine flu”. My college exiled daughter has advised that she is going with “spine flu” to see how often she says it before someone corrects her.)

#5

My school sent out a letter about swine flu. Apparently one of the symptoms is crying without tears.

So yes, we have just gotten stupider over the past thirty years.

#6

I’ve had a bad case of the ‘wine’ flu on more than one occasion…

#7

So say we all. (Or at least many of us.)

#8

Part of my issues making friends as a child was that I thought everyone else was too stupid to be worthwhile.

(The Mexican flu bit bugs me particularly since the Israeli health minister suggested that calling it ‘swine flu’ was offensive to Jews and Muslims who don’t eat pork, and thought that it should be called “Mexican flu” instead… so many problems with that, and my ride to dinner is here…)

#9

I know the feeling. Though now that I look back on it, I may have been notoriously Sheldon-esque (Big Bang Theory)

#10

Or just less in touch with our feelings?

#11

oh, I failed to elaborate on this minor, but priclkly point - over here, we’re not calling it swine flu because Muslims can catch it too and they don’t eat pork. Calling it swine flu would carry an innuendo that you had eaten pork.

Calling it Mexican flu is merely a reference to the location of first infected person - a young boy who caught it, quite literally, in a pool of crap outside his village.

#12

So using the same logic having Mexican flu implies that you’ve recently eaten enchiladas?

#13

hey, I don’t make the rules :o I read in the news that Israel is also NOT calling it swine flu. There’s a big diplomatic hoo-haa over what to call it. I think H1N1 is the best bet. :cool:

#14

Agreed. The criticisms I’ve read about calling it “swine flu” - well it sounds like it would be a pretty good deterrent, if you don’t eat pork! Though eating pork isn’t related to the transmission of the disease, insofar as we’ve been told so far. Particularly in parts of the world (ahem, the US) where calling someone/something “Mexican” is usually derrogatory (and completely racialized), calling H1N1 “Mexican flu” plays into the fallacious idea that immigrants with brown skin (here legally or not) are dirty and disease-ridden. Problematic.

So - let’s call it H1N1! :slight_smile:

And I envy the rest of the world that has a holiday today… I don’t even get labor day off in September.

#15

I love it ! Good for her !

#16

H1N1, yes.

Anybody remember the tune to L’Internationale?
All those happy Communists singing in the Worker’s Paradise?
Anybody remember the May Day Parades from Moscow on TV?
Anybody remember the Cold War?
It blows me away that sometimes I also forget it all. Weird.

#17

hey, wait a minute! There’s a labour day in september? :confused:

#18

In the US. May 1st isn’t a holiday here, our Labor day is the first Monday in September every year. According to wikipedia, it’s been that way since the 1890s.

I vote for celebrating both :slight_smile: