| 28 June 206 Benign Infection The rains have stopped, for now, and most of the flood is beginning to recede. The yammering news last night claimed this was the worst spate of rain in three hundred years, according to the records that were not wet. It is curious that the Federal buildings that are closed this morning include the IRS, who will tax us to pay for the inundation, and EPA, who will assess the pollution released, and the Justice Department, who should begin the hunt for the guilty. The best news is that the Agencies and Departments had an opportunity to exercise their Continuity of Operations plans. As we continue preparations for hurricane season down south, it is a stark reality that we are not ready for a big storm swinging up the East Coast. There is no preparation adequate to meet the rising water. It severs roads, fills tunnels, undermines foundations and mocks the works of man. The 12th Street tunnel where I normally wait in the morning congestion had five feet of standing fetid water, choking trucks, cars attempting to back up in horror as the water in the tunnel began to rise up the door panel, more cars flowing in from behind, pressing forward inexorably. We are not ready here, and the Justice Department should be notified when they come back to work. I'm glad Big Pink is constructed near the high ground. This part of the county was known as the Arlington Line, and once boasted earthworks from the Chain Bridge south to Alexandria to keep the Rebels at bay. The Union forces swarmed across the river at the start of the war like white cells, multiplying to protect the host against the contagion of rebellion. You can argue that things really did not change until the decades after WW II, when the swollen government became permanent, and the enclave became a refuge from the chaos of the District. Or you can just sigh, and realize that being dry is only a temporary luxury if the job is washed away. With the skies clearing there is enough time to worry about other matters. The matter of the captive Israeli corporal is just confirmation that the situation in what used to be Palestine is truly insoluble. I think most people, Palestinians and Israelis alike, would prefer some sort of peace. There are hardliners who cannot permit that. I have to give the momentary moral high ground to the Israelis, though that will probably change. Abandoning the strategic settlements was a class act, and helped put the Wall they are building into context. But the radicals could not tolerate détente, and immediately began a rocket campaign into the Jewish state from the vacated lands. That, of course, incited prompt retaliation by air and sea, and predictable collateral damage among the civilians, and the crippling of the Gaza economy, Which led to the spectacular military operation by the radicals, who tunneled hundreds of feet under the new old border to undermine and surprise an IDF check-point. Two Israeli soldiers were killed outright, and the corporal grabbed. The kidnapping, or military operation, was a bold departure from the ritual slaughter that has marked the Palestinian belt-bomb campaign against bus riders and pizza parlors. There will be much more activity before this moment is resolved. This morning it was tanks and a power plant, and tomorrow it will be something else before the Corporal is rescued or slaughtered. Which will only create more of them. Carl Zimmer wrote a story in the New York Times that surprised me, since it betrayed not a single national security secret. There are really scary things out there in the world of infectious disease. The scariest of them, like Eboli, are so lethal that the flesh of the victims literally melts, and the internal organs disintegrate. The point is that things that lethal tend to kill themselves off before spreading very far. Carl highlighted a little known parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. He says it is resident in over half of the world's population, and in over 50 million Americans. I looked down quickly to see if I might be one of them, but in vain. The infection has no overt symptoms. It is scary, in a benign sort of way, being able to infect most warm-blooded creatures, and has a nexus of distribution through the common house cat. Toxoplasma is swift and efficient. Once it gains access to a host, it can be in the heart and internal organs. Within a day it is well established in the brain. Swedish scientists made heroic efforts to figure out how fast it was. They grafted a gene from fireflies onto the parasite, injected it into mice and placed them in a darkened box. The Times says the mice actually emitted light as the toxoplasma spread. I don't know which was more frightening, the pace of infection, or the idea that science can put a payload on the parasite that could be much more than benign. It gives a certain macabre flavor to the phrase “glowing with good health.” Additional study on the benign infection is on the menu, since some scientists think that there may be some nasty side effects to toxoplasmic infection. Although the only effect a human may notice is a vague flu-like feeling, in rats the parasite has been known to totally eliminate the fear of cats. That could have some real consequences for the rodent community, and is actually a key mechanism for transmitting the parasite back to the host-nexus to be processed and spread further. I'm not advocating the introduction of the firefly gene marker into toxoplasma for human study. But Considering how many of us apparently are also infected, I think we might want to study this thing a little more closely. I have a great idea about a great place to open a clinic. Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |