Substitute “Anthrax” for “Boba Fett,” and you have the media’s reaction to, well, the Great Anthrax Scare of 2001.<\/p>\n
Now, I really <\/i>hope I don’t eat these words. But it really seems like the media is so desperate for something to report on other than godawfully grainy night shots of Kabul being bombed that they are engaging in the worst sort of scare-mongering and panicking in the streets over this.<\/p>\n
Some facts, bearing in mind that this is in a nation with a population of some 275 million:<\/p>\n
Fact: One person has died from Anthrax.<\/p>\n
Fact: A couple more people have tested positive for it.<\/p>\n
Fact: Several more people have tested positive for antibodies to it.<\/p>\n
Fact: More people are seeing mysterious white powder these days than are seeing Elvis. <\/p>\n
Either Anthrax is the worst possible “biological warfare” weapon in the world, or the folks ostensibly spreading this stuff around have chosen the worst delivery vector in the world. Because, frankly, in the event of a real biological warfare attack, you’d see dozens, hundreds, thousands of folks dying.<\/p>\n
What we’re seeing instead are dozens, hundreds, thousands of folks crowding ERs, demanding antibiotics.<\/p>\n
Now, arguably, if there are terrorists behind all of this, then they may be having their desired impact by creating such a foofoorah. But in the process, the media are at least complicit. Anthrax has replaced Sharks as the Most Dangerous Thing Out There And We Have The Stock Footage To Show You, You Bet!<\/p>\n
Call me when the smallpox epidemics break out ….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Substitute “Anthrax” for “Boba Fett,” and you have the media’s reaction to, well, the Great Anthrax Scare of 2001. Now, I really hope I don’t eat these words. 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Boba Fett? Where?"","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 5-May-16 1:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Apparently Boba Fett was lined up for great things before Lucas' franchise fatigue and the Sarlacc got to him. Originally shared by +Les Jenkins: Star Wars: Boba Fett Was Originally Return of the Jedi\u2019s Main Villain In a shocking revelation, it seems that legendary bounty hunter Boba Fett was originally\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129344,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/05\/rip-the-original-voice-of-boba-fett.html","url_meta":{"origin":1120,"position":1},"title":"RIP, the Original Voice of Boba Fett","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 5-Jan-16 7:28am","format":false,"excerpt":"Jason Wingreen, the original (uncredited) voice of Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back (before Temuera Morrison was retconned into the DVD releases after Attack of the Clones came out) has passed away. Wingreen did a ton of TV work starting back in the 50s and peaking in the 70s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":156214,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2022\/02\/10\/tv-review-the-book-of-boba-fett-2021-22.html","url_meta":{"origin":1120,"position":2},"title":"TV Review: “The Book of Boba Fett” (2021-22)","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 10-Feb-22 1:17am","format":false,"excerpt":"The lovely parts are far greater than the muddled, poorly-structured whole.","rel":"","context":"In "Star Wars"","block_context":{"text":"Star Wars","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/star-wars-media-movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/book-of-boba-fett.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/book-of-boba-fett.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/book-of-boba-fett.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/book-of-boba-fett.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/book-of-boba-fett.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1116,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/15\/anthrax_sanity.html","url_meta":{"origin":1120,"position":3},"title":"Anthrax sanity","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 15-Oct-01 12:06pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Anthrax Sanity At last someone notes, in calm tones, that the media have no clothes on this one. Not to mention that, \"Why are we panicking over a single anthrax...","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":889,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/11\/05\/who_needs_to_go.html","url_meta":{"origin":1120,"position":4},"title":"Who needs to go see Monsters, Inc.?","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 5-Nov-01 9:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Off here in California, they showed the Episode II (anyone else think it's amusing that we don't even have to name the movie?) trailer on the evening news. Not that...","rel":"","context":"In "Media & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Media & Culture","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":828,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/11\/11\/its_not_anthrax.html","url_meta":{"origin":1120,"position":5},"title":"It’s not Anthrax …","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 11-Nov-01 3:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"... it's Amerithrax!!! The FBI -- yes, the FBI -- hasn't caught the Anthrax mailers yet. But they have managed come up with a new watchword (and logo!) for the...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"It's the Patriotic Bioterror Weapon!","src":"\/blog\/images\/amerithrax.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}