[Newspoetry] Oh Canada

[emerick at chorus.net]

U.S. Officials Say Ill Cow Is Linked to Alberta Herd
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON
The Holstein infected with mad cow disease was imported into the U.S. from Canada, federal investigators tentatively concluded.  -- NYT Sunday:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/28/national/28CANA.html?th

Let's see if the recent story pattern holds up, in the Mad Cow case.

Bad event occurs.

Industry spokespeople pop up to "calm the people",
assuring everyone that the bad event is not all that serious,
that it's well within the pattern of variations that they routinely handle,
that they'll quite competently soon have normalcy restored to one and all.

As further negatives become known and reactions widen and deepen,
showing an ostensible rift between the official sop and the ensuing story,
revisions and corrections begin to pop up, in odd places,
but these are generally little noticed because the official theme changes,
from what has happened to the agency of causation: who can we blame?

And, in recent bad cases, who has been the most frequent culprit?

Canada, of course!

Why did we first try to blame Canada
for the summer power outage, for instance?
Because their denials wouldn't be believed.

Why did we solve our prescription drug price crisis
by blocking access to lower cost drugs from Canada?
Because there are too many socialists there,
and we don't want Americans thinking about
that a good health care system affordably provides
both drugs and services to 100% of the people:
by preventing rapid concentration of wealth
in the medical industrial complex's coffers.
(The "cheap" imitation health care system
recently adopted is a form of sympathetic magic;
belief does not equate to effective medicine.)

And, so, on the 3rd or 4th day of the Mad Cow case,
I have no been surprized to discover the cow is Canadian.


Joke of the day, in foreign embassies:
How do you know Americans are lying,
when they explain a problem?
Punchline: They mention Canada, Dr. Y.

Of course, on Christmas eve, the lidless wonder,
Homeland Security Secretary General, aka Tom,
or Agent Orange as he is known in intelligent circles,
tried the French twist on the blame Canada case:
"We have specific credible evidence that
AlQaida will seize aircraft, flying from France,
and hit targets, causing more damage than 9-11."
The French frankly complied with American requests:
they stopped the flights, searched the luggage,
interrogated the passengers, rounded up all the no-shows.
Nothing was found: nada, not even a hairy crumb.
As the story goes, I heard a commentator say,
"The Homeland Security office expected the flights
to be boarded en route, intermediate destination,
by AlQaeda...."
Where was the "intermediate" stopping point?
Canada!  How ever did guess it, correctly!
Moreover, the next trailer story on all this
moves on to "report" that border security
has been beefed up, because a dirty bomb
could be smuggled into the US from -- Canada,
by those will'o'wisp AlQaeda operatives there...