The Swine Flu Love Memories • 10.13.09
Today I can say with full confidence that in addition to living the hardest and most complexly simple and complex life within myself, I am also living the hardest and most complex life externally. The Swine Flu. What a beautiful name to a mysterious thing. The Mexican Flu. The H4561 flu. Whatever it is called, it is the final sign that anyone alive today, 2009, faces the biggest epidemic risk from a natural disease that we have seen so far in our life in the media, and on a massive scale. No longer do we have to listen to stories that start with “Back in the day, we had people left and right getting sick” in order to start realizing the meaning of everything. It is happening today, here, right now. One day you may be telling friends, family and strangers about the Swine Flu “back in the day.”
This article, including the above part, was written on April 30th, 2009, around 1am. It was lost in the catacombs of The Reasoner trenches that are wanting to see the light of the day until today, when Katie noticed it on my computer and told me to go ahead and post it. So here it is, unedited in its writing.
We have pneumonia. We have aids. We have cancer. We have bird flu. We have Teletubbies flu. We have everything. Today. Right here. Right now. If you want to get infected with a disease and die soon, chances are you can find a way to make it happen within a month. Or maybe 3 months.
Mexico was the keyword in all the newspapers till yesterday. And now, United States is in the start of a growing panic mode because of the small child that died in Texas to be deemed the first death from Swine Flu in the United States. In the Middle East, Israel wants to call the flu “Mexico Flu” instead of “Swine Flu“ because the Holy Land of the Muslims & Jews do not eat pork and it is considered unhealthy for them, but that is being protested by Mexico. Korea also wants to call the flu the “Mexican Virus“, much again to the protest of the Mexican government.
Mexico has issued respirators for everyone. They look cool. I want one too please. Never before has the idea of being confronted with a virus looked so real, and so scary. Is it all a hype? Is this just like any other flu, with the only difference being that this is a new outbreak and thus the news is playing up the hype? Still, I want a cool respirator please. I will wear it everywhere. Why not? San Francisco police is said to be officially going to start having all San Francisco Police Force to wear the Swine Flu Respirators within a week. Today, supposedly, the Zodiac’s identity was revealed in San Francisco. “The Zodiac has come to San Francisco.” What a cool quote. I have a better one: Move aside, Zodiac. The flu has come to San Francisco.
The economy is bad. The feelings with the outside world are bad. Our internal systems of businesses are bad. And now, even the micro organisms hate us. Or maybe they hate each other. I am not sure. No one is sure. How must the parents of that child must be feeling today? We feel and talk about that child more because he is in America. Yes. Hundreds of Mexican deaths can all be described numerically. But this child has to be discussed in detail in order to show how serious we should be towards paying attention to the media. Or is it real? I am not sure. What was the child’s name? What kind of toys did he like? Who are his parents? Are they ok now? Did the child have any brothers or sisters? How is his overall family? Did he suffer? What did he go through? I don’t know. Does anyone care outside of the media paper and page the news was on?
Not everyone in America wakes up thinking “I want America to be the biggest super power on the planet!” Not everyone in America wakes up thinking “Hah! Those Mexicans are always dirty and thus they are getting these diseases.” No. Majority of us, the majority that is now shown on the news, wakes up thinking “Ohhhh, so sleepy, need coffee, and then need to get to work” or “Hmmm ohhhh, so hungry, need to relax and then decide what to do.” We are humans, just like you. I am human, I hope. I feel like a human, but if I am not a human, how can I be sure I am a human to feel like a human? No one knows. Though we say we are.
Many people think Americans have no emotions. Americans include citizens, visitors living here for decades, illegal immigrants living here permanently, and all the animals and Bigfoot too. All of us do have emotions. Some show it in both extreme and non-existent ways like on this site. Others do not show it, like on this site also, while some others show it all the time and with full force, also like on this site. Regardless, we are doing everything we already were before the Swine Flu entered our vocabulary with such devotion. We are still going to the movies, and we are still having ice cream. We are still tweeting, and we are still walking around in the dark looking for new hiking routes. Some of us are still idiots, while some of us are still better. Some of us are still moronically selfish and manipulative individuals, while some of us are crying and wondering daily why we are being manipulated. Still, some of us just wake up, go to work, and come home and sleep. And if you did not realize it, every mention of the term “we” in this paragraph referred to all the human beings in this world.
People I know in Europe & Middle East are being advised to not come to the United States. I agree. Don’t panic, but avoid coming if you can. I do not know what it feels like to lose a son, but I know what it feels like to lose someone young. You decide. I am going to keep on doing everything. I am going to travel, going to go around taking pictures, going to meet people, going outside, and going to live. I am also going to try to get the respirator. Maybe because it may save my life. Or maybe because it looks very nice and I want to feel a respirator once again in life, after 18 years of not wearing one. Maybe the respirators are different than gas masks. In such a case, any respirator now may be my 2nd one. Otherwise, it would be the 3rd mask on my face in my life which may stay on for a while or during an emergency. Who knows.
It is now 2:24am. Not a single smiley in this article so far. Maybe it’s because I’m relaxed and tired at the same time. Let me go ahead and put a smiley –> 
. The World Health Organization WHO has labeled the Swine Flu a level 5, meaning it is one step short of becoming a worldwide plague in action. Level 5 means it is already on its way to becoming level 6. Let’s have 5 smileys–>
Forget about being associated with a certain culture or a certain country. Focus on humanity, and focus on yourself first. Wake up, and feel alive. And then feel that everything is hyped up or just an obstacle that you will either overcome or co-exist with. Not everything can be defeated. But you can try to keep on living in many weird situations.
Bird Flu. Cookie Flu. Swine Flu. Pig Flu. Mexican Flu. North American Influenza. Whatever the name may be, we keep on living. 10 years from now, articles like the Wikipedia entry on the Swine Flu will make it look like the entire world was crying and weeping on April 30th, 2009. No. 99% of us are not weeping over this flu. Our own President was getting applauds and joking around earlier today. This is just another news. The show must go on. We must go on. The difference between the show and us is, the show is there to get attention. We have to go on in order to keep on living and in order to co-exist with this new beginning.
So maybe this is how people felt in the 70’s when the previous Swine Flu outbreak was. Wikipedia article, once again, shows it as being kind of a big thing that caused millions of people’s lives to change drastically and immediately. Of course, Wikipedia also portrays the same impression about today’s 2009 Swine Flu outbreak, though I don’t notice anyone’s life changing drastically in California because of this. Has your life completely changed? Hmmmm.
The good thing is to see how your life has changed, and how the media says your life has changed. Then we can try to decide whether it is the flu that is the real outbreak, or the media. And we have the necessary power to deploy forces in any part of the world within 24 hours. But we do not have enough injections or medicine necessary to give to the entire population for the next 6 months. Brilliant! Clap with me please!
*If you’re dumb dumb and would like to be called a dumb dumb clap your hands! CLAP CLAP* – Bes
To everyone dying in all parts of the world, and their families, and their neighbors, and their friends, and their enemies, and their fellow human beings, do realize that there are others that realize what life is too. And they are living it also. And they have their own life and ideas too. Many of us have not forgotten you, nor disrespected you, on purpose. We may have our life to think about, the way you have your life to think about. We may just have other sidetracking things going on at the same time, like life itself. Even if it is at 2:42am.
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You see them everywhere. They tell you to perform an action. They tell you to associate yourself with a certain brand name in order to get benefits. These things are signs, signs of different kinds telling you to create accounts and memberships on different websites so that you can be able to post comments and view private content. Whether they are images with the words “Sign up!” or written words saying “Create a free account“, the signs to entice you into signing up are everywhere. 
“go to FILE/EDIT MY OOvOO CARD/ Once there please remove any personal information, your picture (by replacing it with something else), and your email address (enter a bogus one). Please also change your display name to “inactive”. Click “Save”, and then just abandon the account. This will close it.” –
As for me, I am off to e-mail the wonderful 
Is checking an employee’s or potential job applicant’s online social accounts, if those accounts are not related to work, the same as stalking and cyber-stalking someone? Many entities think that spying on people is an acceptable behavior. An example of this on a massive government level is the case of 
If you disappear from the public view in the offline world, people may notice. Those that want to know where you are, or how you are, may call you or visit your home in person. In the online world, however, unless you have listed your offline contact information, the only way to contact you is through the online world. 
One sole use of the services like Death Switch and Legacy Locker could indeed be to share your passwords with someone, because, as Elinor Mills for Cnet reported, 
Now comes a very important question. What happens to your Facebook account after you die? What happens to your 
Lately, I seem to have been spending more time hopping around the Bay Area than I do in the city I live in, including my home. Because of this, I sometimes feel like a tourist in my own home, wondering if I have to turn on the kitchen light before I open the fridge, or if I have to put my shoes on before I pick up my keys. I wonder if I am a tourist in my own home sometimes, or if I am becoming comfortable with it for the first time. This makes me wonder about the idea of feeling like an outsider, like a tourist, in the online world.
In the online world, many people know what e-mail is, so the concept of talking about basic e-mail technologies is very simple and normal for many people. What if, however, we run into someone online who does not know anything about e-mails? Will we treat them as a tourist? Will we treat them as being someone who do not know common things? Does the concept of not knowing something mean that we need to learn it completely, or does it mean that we can act like tourists? Is it possible for us to behave in some specific manner online that can create an impression that we are outsiders, that we do not belong there?
Unless otherwise noted, observed, analyzed, and verified, the sole purpose of any company that sells any product or service of any kind is to make money. In order to make money through a sale, a company has to convince their potential customer that spending a certain amount of money on a product or a service is going to produce more results for the customer than would the money itself if it just sat there. In order to convince the customer to actually spend the money, a company has to take actions to show the benefits of a product or a service to try to create a response reaction in the potential customer. That last step is where the concept of using the word “virtually” has become an almost normal element to create a more incentive ad or presentation for the customer. I have been thinking if such an element if being used in a kind of an unfair manner.
In one changed sentence, you have simply shown the entire competition to be behind you, and have simply stated that your shoe stays dry in the water, “virtually“, without specifying a time limit. That is one of the way the word “virtually” is used today. It is not direct deception, yet it is also not a directly accurate and open representation of the product unless explained further. The consumer, the actual customer, can see and decipher the words “virtually stays dry” to mean that the shoes stay dry in the water, period. Because of replacing the actual time with the word “virtually“, you have given the impression, without saying it, that your shoes stay dry without a time limit. What happens if someone decides to sue you in the future? No problem. Add a clause in the terms and conditions stating the actual time limit for the stay-dry-in-water feature of the shoes. The word “virtually” stays in the main headlines, and the actual limitations explanation stays in the terms and conditions hidden in smaller text or separate pages for those who actually look for it.
Similarly, Microsoft 
What is your opinion on this? Should there be more explanation of the word “virtually” and its related uses in the open that clearly explain every restriction or real benefit when such a word or a similar concept is used? Do you think there is some kind of an ethical situation in this topic? Do companies need to think about their strategy when using the word “virtually” to describe something? 
During the past 3 months, I’ve twisted microblogging and similar treats to my own liking, posting everything from random thoughts to my food adventures to crazy findings and more. While majority of the social networking platforms, which are mainly modifications and upgrades to the concept of socialization and blogging, appear to bring in a lot of visitors to my profiles and my websites, and a regular flow of new friend-add requests from friends, strangers and other creatures alike, I am beginning to wonder if I’m leaving behind some kind of an online excess waste for my ownself. The idea of having multiple social networks is awesome. The idea of jumping onto multiple social networks and using them at the same time for the same exact content is what I am pointing out with this question.
With several social networking accounts, I usually have similar kinds of posts on many of such accounts. It is like a book: If I write a single book with a single cover and name, and sell it on different platforms, my single content source, the book itself, will get read and be my own creation that is easy to manage and identify with. If I produce the same content under different book names and editors and covers, with each book having the same content inside but different formatting and names and covers on the outside, I will confuse myself and it may be harder to manage all such book types, even though from the inside the book is exactly the same. I wonder if participating with the same content on multiple social networks can be viewed along the same lines.
While 
I microblogged, if that’s the funny new standard word for expressing my thoughts in a briefly brief manner, about this idea of online excess waste on 
Everything I am leaving behind online can act like a history book for now, before and later. If I post "Wow!" on 3 different social networking sites at the same time, not only do those 3 areas become a historical record of me feeling or expressing or writing "Wow!", but hey also become a record and a historical account of me saying that on 3 different sites. The message, and the entire action of posting that message on 3 different sites, becomes the historical accounts in their own perspectives and in combination too probably.
I am also, however, creating a duplicate paper trail for myself. I have the same exact text in more places. I have the same exact pictures in more than one place. If I blog or if I am online for money, having more exposure in such a fashion can be extremely good for me. However, I am not online solely for money, so such a trait makes me wonder if it is a habit that needs more observation. Or maybe it is a habit that needs less restraints?