THE EBOLA GAME HAS CHANGED. Sort of

How seemingly apropos for Ebola to strike, deep in the heart of Texas, just as the season of the witch begins.. Halloween is a time for fear, costumes, and wild assertions that the veil between the here and there is thinning. In Texas, at a hospital, the veil is quite thin right now..  Undoubtedly protective Halloween costumes of a real sort are being used in connection with the unnamed man who returned home from Liberia. We don’t know what he was doing there, and we don’t know why he went, but we certainly know he was in a hotspot of death and the cruel nature of humanity.. Ebola has ripping parts of Liberia to shreds..

In America, we pride ourselves we rarity when it comes to disease outbreak.. we vaccine our children from the moment they are seconds old.. Some also do their finest to ostracize parents who don’t go down the same adventurous vaccine highway. That’s why when diseases pop up, like the latest respiratory virus and polio-like paralysis hitting kids, we get freaked.

I will be interested to see how we deal with Ebola.

Unless this goes airborne—we should all pray it does not mutate into a monster of that nature—we can control Ebola in the United States. Even Nigeria is able to end their outbreak, so we can too.. It will take common sense.

Now instead of immigration being front and center on Texas news stations, Ebola has taken over.. Today, a Houston radio station is giving listeners and readers online some safety tips.. everything from washing your hands to ending your practice of eating bush meat. Also avoid traveling to places that have an Ebola outbreak. Also steer clear of the bodily fluids of people who are suffering from the later stages of Ebola.

Let’s be clear: The doctors who returned to the United States with Ebola have now been immersed back into civilization without it. Healing is possible.. The death rate is often higher in countries that have less development.

Last night I heard about a village in Liberia that slaughtered aid workers because, when the workers showed up to inform people how to properly wash hands, the villagers assumed they were from satanic origins and coming with the disease to kill them.

That will not happen in the United States, or developed places in Africa.

It will take some faith in humanity—and luck, luck in the sense that, to repeat an earlier statement, this does not go airborne. If that should happen, the game changes again.

I will be fascinated to see how the public devours the latest news. There is no more talk of “when it happens here.” It did. Even Chris Matthews took an indirect shot at the man who once gave him shivers down his legs by saying  'Obama Said It Was Unlikely. It Has Happened. It's Here'. There are things that even the Presidents cannot control. Disease outbreak is one of them.

Will the populace panic?
With the citizens weep?
Will we wash our hands?
What company will we keep?

Will the news cause fear?
Will the events displace?
What else will we hear?
Hope no medical disgrace.

Ebola is on our shores,
It’s been over there before,
The world has gone on,
America’s an open door.

So now we join the world,
In disease and natural scars,
So don’t run and hide,
And least this isn’t SARS.

Happy hand washing, America.