Current Events

I decided I wanted to start jotting things down here that are going on in the world today, so that I can look back and remember. To sum up... the economy was crappy for a while, but the recession is officially over! Things were bad, I guess the worst they've been since the Great Depression of the 1930s... although, maybe I'm just fortunate, but it didn't seem THAT bad to me.

Two other big things stick out in my mind right now. One is the spread of H1N1 around the United States right now. It's a virus nicknamed the "swine flu" because it is usually found in pigs, but occasionally mutates and becomes infectious to humans.¹ It is a harsher version of the flu, so I hear, and can be much harder to treat.

A friend of ours has a brother who is married to a Chinese woman, and apparently he traveled to China recently to visit relatives and was quarantined at an airport in China because he had a slightly high fever - he was taken away in an ambulance full of personnel in haz-mat uniforms! Crazy, but this thing really has people panicked.

The biggest thing I think that is important to share is that our president, with whom I have the utmost respect, Barack Obama, is currently working on a plan for universal healthcare. There are many reasons people are for or against this policy. I, personally, am for it, but Rod is against it. He, as many others do, feels that we should all have to work to afford healthcare for ourselves and our families, and that if you don't work hard, you don't deserve a handout. However, Obama made it clear to me in his addresses to the nation over the last several months that it will improve healthcare for those of us who already have it, as well as offer it to those who cannot afford it, whether because they're lazy and don't work or because (and more likely) they can't afford it for a reason that isn't really their fault. Not only that, but Obama makes a good point in reminding us that our taxes pay for uninsureds' medical bills, so universal healthcare will benefit us in that way, as well.

Anyway, that's what's going on right now.