This Just in!

Last night, after ingesting one too many minutes of news, I commented to Joe that this whole world sucks and I could not believe what we’re up against. There is so much to be down about these days that it is a miracle we don’t all have to be medicated for depression. In an effort to stave off boredom, I will touch upon just three stories – two of which are really in the white, hot light of our unified nucleus.

As of the last week or so countless news stories have grappled for the headlines, each trying to outdo the other for shock value, offensiveness, or just plain sickness. No, really…plain sickness has hit the front page, the lead story the ‘teaser’.

Not since the early days of AIDS have we been forced to be alarmed by an illness. Not even the Bird Flu of recent memory took such a place of honor on our totem pole as today’s latest potential death sentence – the Swine Flu. Not since any of these has it been a good thing to be in the business of surgical mask sales. For all you knowledge freaks (among whom I count myself), Swine flu refers to influenza caused by any virus of the family Orthomyxoviridae, that is endemic to pig (swine) populations (Wikipedia). Some animals carry a strain that is also able to infect humans and people who work closely with animals are more likely to contract the illness.

The core of this latest threat seems to have originated in Mexico, where people are reportedly dropping like flies in the affected areas. Swine flu was carried to our parts north courtesy of the young host carrier students of Saint Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows, Queens. When I lived in Queens, I used to drive by that school all of the time. I loved its rounded shape and how it hung a curve off Francis Lewis Boulevard and the Long Island Expressway. It’s not looking so fancy right now.

Students from the affluent school were said to have traveled on a school trip to Mexico during Spring Break. Aside from a little sand and sunburn, some of the students seem to have also brought back another souvenir: the Swine Flu. Ah, such is the life of the privileged…

Wait a minute…a school trip to a completely different country?

Call me crazy, but the most exciting and distant trip I took during my nostalgic high school years was to Bear Mountain in Upstate, New York. Granted, my parents’ bank accounts could never rival the bank accounts of some of the students who attend St. Francis, but still! This is not the safest world. Hello? Did we all forget Natalee Holloway’s little 2005 spring break trip to Aruba? Still waiting for her to come home.

But let’s get back to our Quirky Queens kids’ Big Mexican Adventure. To be comfortable enough to pay (a sum I am sure was not pocket change) for your child to cross borders into countries with little economic stability, high crime rates and those notorious for having ill will toward the United States is just, well, insane! And now the end result of all that insanity is that our borders have been compromised and our collective health has been put at risk, along with that of our neighboring planetary inhabitants. Plus, with the inclusion of more and more countries and with cases popping up globally, the World Health Organizations (WHO) is starting to throw around the possibility of a new label for this current state. That label is ‘Pandemic’.

WHO has moved its alert level for swine flu closer to pandemic status as the illness has spread to more countries in Europe and additional cases have been confirmed in the United States. “Given the widespread presence of the virus, … containment of the outbreak is not feasible. The current focus should be on mitigation measures,” according to a statement by the WHO after an emergency meeting Tuesday.

The illness has been confirmed in the United States as well as Mexico, Canada, Spain, Scotland and New Zealand, with a potential case in Hong Kong, according to news reports. (Denver Business Journal)

Holy crap! This is scary! An emergency of pandemic proportions would indeed be devastating! Webster’s describes pandemic as something occurring over a wide geographic area and affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the population. I don’t know about you, but being part of the “population” is losing its appeal.

Oh great! Just as I was thinking I am glad not to know anyone who could possibly be affected, my brother tells me he has to send one of his employees home because he is showing flu-like symptoms. They are in Queens right now - the Ground Zero of the Swine Flu! This is what I wanted to hear!

We’re going to have to play this one out, hopefully with minimal consequences. After all, the world has survived other panics, usually armed with more primitive measures to deal with it – famines, plagues, wars and the like. We’re still all here, well, the planet is here, anyway. I will just have to sit back and remain positive, along with my fellow globe residents, because really, what else is there to do, panic? That really serves no purpose.

Another tidbit of hammered information now saturating the media outlets is that of so-called Craigslist killer, Philip Markoff. In case you have been under a rock the past two weeks, or you purposely choose to ignore all manner of news and information at your disposal, then allow me to summarize.

Earlier this month, police arrested 25-year-old Philip Markoff for the alleged murder of Julissa Brisman, an aspiring New York City model and sometimes-erotic masseuse who advertised on the popular classifieds site, Craigslist and the abduction and robbery of another young woman. There are countless elements to the Markoff story that make it sucking candy for the public; I’ve named just two.

For starters, Markoff’s appearance is deceiving. His upbringing, background and station in life make him the least likely candidate to be picked out of a line up. The preppy, poised and seemingly ‘good’ Boston University medical student brings back memories of another notorious clean-cut killer, Robert Chambers. Chambers, the original Preppy Killer was accused, then convicted of killing upper crust New York City girl, Jennifer Levine, in what Chambers described as ‘rough sex’ in Central Park. That idiot couldn't stay out of trouble and is back in the slammer, after having served his sentence and then some, for charges unrelated to the murder. Both Chambers and Markoff have clean-cut, boy-next-door images, both have (had?) friends, decent popularity and a seemingly positive future.

The similarities end there. One of the major differences between the two is that Robert Chambers is the son of a working class single mother who was living the life of (and partying like) a wealthy NYC urbanite, while Markoff is closer to the real deal, minus the hard partying. Markoff is a native of upstate, NY. He attended SUNY- Albany and was now attending Boston University pursuing a medical career. He was engaged and set to marry his college sweetheart, an equally upper middle class young woman, this August. But on his darker side, Markoff also had mounting debt, no job prospects, an addiction to gambling, somewhat crude attitude toward women, and, as information continues to leak out, a predatory nature and a penchant for collecting souvenirs from his known victims and having the forethought to hollow out a copy of the medical text Grey's Anatomy in order to hide his weapon, a gun.

Officials investigating the crimes believe they will uncover other, possibly more heinous crimes that they can attribute to this baby-faced alleged killer and Markoff himself was recently quoted as telling his loved ones to “forget him and move to California” because “more was to come”. Great! Sounds like an innocent man to me! Yes, I know this is America and we are innocent until proven guilty, but if the ‘innocent’ party makes a statement like that, well…I’m not a rocket scientist, but…

As I said before, this has all of the elements of media candy. Clandestine meetings set up through the Internet, erotic massages, pretty, young things looking to make a few bucks, secretive gambling debts hidden from upcoming fairytale weddings, wealth, affluence, education and good looks. All of the makings of a Hollywood screenplay, right down to the ugly parts – the parts that turn it into a rated R film when the good boy turns bad and the victims are found in pools of blood, or battered or worse. This is the kind of story that will feed the Media Monster for another three to six months – if it’s lucky.

File this last little news byte under wholly moronic actions taken by the government. Try not to laugh. A poorly cleared, poorly publicized , poorly planned photo-op yesterday of Air Force One flying over New York City caused a near panic when the large jet was seen by New Yorkers on the city’s lower east side. The eerie sight was enough to make still-traumatized post September 11 urbanites run for cover. When all was said and done, after callers flooded the 9-1-1 systems, it was discovered that we were not under attack, but instead, we were getting some good shots for some pretty pictures. Yeah, I am pissed off about it, too. Punks!

Well, that is all the rant I have in me…for today. I chose to focus on just three of the countless stories in our heavily burdened newsrooms these days. I refuse to take on the monstrosity that is the current state of our economy, President Obama’s heavily scrutinized First 100 Days, the current housing market, of which I am a personal victim, or the other seemingly endless tales of woe. This here is just a little vent-fest I gave myself. I share because that’s what I was taught to do. Hope you liked the ride.