So I’m on a roll. Another let’s-beat-up-Arnold-evening, but what can I say? The man is pissing me off big time and I used to be a real fan of his. I admired the work he’s done with children, and I do admire that he has not reneged (so far) on his promises not to sell out California on environmental issues.

But for God’s sake, Arnold, leave the damn nurses alone. They’re not protesting just because they have nothing better to do. I dare you to spend one day as a nurse, working under the ratio that you think is just fine and dandy. Better yet, go be a patient–an ordinary schlep without any special privileges–and see how well your nurse is able to attend to your needs. Go do it, Arnold. Put your health and well being where your mouth is.

Anyway, here’s another tidbit, which caused the rant that I just made. According to the Sacramento Bee, Gov. Schwarzenegger had this to say about protesting nurses in California:

“They are becoming now more and more part of the set dressing,” he said in an interview this week. “It’s kind of like the extras when you do a movie and you need extras in the background. That’s what they’ve become. That’s fine with me.”

Set dressing? Nothing like demeaning, dehumanizing, and devaluing the VOTER. Every time he opens his mouth, he is inserting his foot deeper and deeper down his throat. Way to go, Arnold. Why don’t you pay some actors to pretend that they’re nurses, and then put them on TV so they can tell the world how much they love what you’re doing to California’s healthcare.

Dan Gimor, that noted pain in the ass who dares to question the powers that be and who has the audacity to work on a project to encourage and enable more citizen-based media, has an interesting post in his grassroots journalism blog. It seems that paid pseudo-journalism is catching on big-time, in order to push dubious agendas and fool the public into thinking that these are real new stories.

The story, which orginated in the LA Times, tells another sad tale about my friend Arnold Schwartzenegger, who I really used to like when he was an obsolete model of Terminator. This time, Arnold and his friends are stooping to Bushism tactics, in order to starve employees.

Using taxpayer money, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration has sent television stations statewide a mock news story extolling a proposal that would benefit political boosters in the business community by ending mandatory lunch breaks for many hourly workers. The tape looks like a news report and is narrated by a former television reporter who now works for the state. But unlike an actual news report, it does not provide views critical of the proposed changes. Democrats have denounced it as propaganda. Snippets aired on as many as 18 stations earlier this month, the administration said.

While Dan Gilmor is focused on the story about paying actors to play journalists and gush support for the measure, I am looking at the issue at hand. Hourly workers includes nurses, among others, so once again, it seems that Arnold just can’t get enough of hitting on those poor little nurses. First he stalls on laws designed to help nurses do their jobs efficiently, and now he wants them to go hungry.

According to the LA Times, the video shows construction workers, waitresses, nurses, farmworkers and a forklift operator at their jobs, and includes interviews with a farmer and a restaurant manager. The narrator says the proposal would permit workers to “eat when they are hungry, and not when the government tells them.”

The tape makes no mention that organized labor opposes the changes, or that workers would have a harder time suing employers over missed meal breaks.

The law in question is one passed under the administration of former Gov. Gray Davis, which gives workers the right to an extra hour of pay if employers don’t give them half-hour breaks within the first five hours of a shift. You better believe that this law was passed for a reason. As I was once an hourly paid worker in California, I can assure you that it can be horrendously difficult to get paid for a missed break. The law was passed to make sure that employees have a legal standing when push comes to shove.

Arnold’s administration is trying to “decide” whether California should modify this law. The bogus video that was made and passed off as a real news report, tries to depict changes in the law as being beneficial to the employees.

On the tape, the narrator says the Davis administration’s rule “resulted in much confusion, penalties and even litigation.”

At another point, the narrator says that “workers with special conditions such as medical conditions, child-care issues or caring for elderly parents would have flexibility with their work schedules.”

The bottom line is that they are trying to weaken the law so the employees don’t have a leg to stand on if they are forced to miss their breaks–which frequently happens when you are working in a hospital.

Now here’s an example of how unbiased the video is. There have been quite a number of lawsuits filed against employers who have ignored this law.

Mimi’s Cafe, a restaurant chain, is a defendant in one such suit. San Diego attorney Michael D. Singer, who represents the workers, said the chain could be liable for damages of as much as $10 million to several thousand past and present employees.

The Schwarzenegger administration video includes comments from a Mimi’s executive extolling the proposal. The tape makes no mention that the chain is embroiled in litigation over the lunch break rule.

On the bright side, maybe this is just an example of Arnold trying to improve the health of California employees. There is way too much obesity in this country, and doing away with lunch breaks will help keep those waist lines slim and trim. Keep ‘em hungry, and they’ll work harder for da man.

And maybe this is just another ploy to keep those damn nurses in line. If they won’t listen to reason, then let’s starve them into submission.

Using taxpayer money for propaganda films passed off as “real news.” Well, I’m not even going to go there. That issue is being taken up by the likes of Dan Gilmor and others.

I HAD A little bird, and its name was Enza,
I opened the window, and in-flew-Enza.”

Cute little tune, huh. That’s what the kiddies used to sing while the Spanish flu was decimating populations across the globe. Funny how some nursery rhymes came about. We think that they’re these innocent little kiddie chants, so sweet and cutesy, but in fact, they are macabre tales of dreadful death and disease.

Take another one:

Ring around the rosy,
A pocket full of posy,
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.

That is believed to have originated during the period of the Black Death aka Plague, which wiped out at least a third of the population of Europe.

Anyway, not to harp on nursery rhymes, but what to make of all the news about the avian flu? Is it overhype or a real threat? It’s so hard to tell what’s really going on.

Some health officials are warning that we have to act aggressively now, before the flu turns into a pandemic, and point out that the deadly Spanish flu (which didn’t originate in Spain, by the way) didn’t kill milions overnight.

The NY Daily News quoted this analogy from the head honcho at the CDC.

“When avian virus evolved to form the 1918 [Spanish] flu strain that caused the global pandemic, it didn’t happen overnight,” said CDC chief Julie Gerberding. “That’s why it’s important to have flu vaccine and antivirals, to be ready to react when it starts to emerge.”

I definitely don’t want to underestimate the power of the avian flu, or its possible potential. And yes, there is something creepy about catching a disease from a chicken. If you also go with the theory of how AIDS began, that too, is believed to have jumped species from monkey to human (no, I’m not getting into all of the AIDS theories right now).

But the origins of the Spanish flu are really unknown. If it originally came from a chicken, a cockroach, a magpie, or a wolverine, we will never know. The virus, contrary to its name, seems to bear the seal “Made in America.”

The first recorded case appeared in Kansas on March 11, 1918, when Pvt. Albert Gitchell, a mess cook at Fort Riley, showed up at the infirmary with a fever and complaining of muscle aches and a sore throat.

By the end of that day 107 soldiers came down with the flu. By the time the disease ran its course it killed 675,000 Americans.

Unlike the bird flu, the Spanish flu spread a lot more quickly. It was airborne immediately, and spread from person to person. In contrast, the avian flu is spread from bird to person, through direct contact. So far, there have only been 55 cases since January 2004, and considering the number of chickens and ducks (zillions), as well as the intense population density, that is not a lot of people. Last year, 40 people died from the avian flu. Still not huge numbers, and no comparison to the Spanish flu, which killed between 20-50 million people between 1918-1919.

There has been only one confirmed case of an infected person passing the flu to another person. Thus far, the primary mode of transmission is between bird and person.

A coming plague? The new pandemic? One reason I am skeptical is because of all of the other “warnings” which have been decimated into dust. First, the threat of a smallpox bioterrorist attack, which quietly disappeared when the vaccines were snubbed. Next, all of the studies which have shown that previous hype and benefits regarding the flu vaccine have been mostly incorrect.

Stay tuned, I will be throwing updates your way.

Forget Osama. Forget al Queda. Forget everything you’ve been reading about terrorists. That is so old, so 2004.

You want to know who we need to be watching out for? This is the face of the new terrorist, the most lethal threat against our nation.

Don’t let that sweet face and cute little cap fool you. This bitch means business. Nurses are bad news, particularly the ones who masquerade in their sweet nursey uniforms. If you happen to see one of these cuties coming your way, run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. Call the police, the FBI, the CIA, the FDA, anyone you can think of. Make no mistake about it, these chicks mean trouble.

No, I haven’t lost my mind. At least, not yet. But I think some of our higher powers are in danger of losing theirs. Wearing a nurse’s uniform is now considered a threat to national security, at least in the state of California.

In another boxing match between the governor and California’s nurses, Kelly Di Giacomo, a nurse employed at a Kaiser hospital near Sacramento, was detained for questioning at the Feb. 15 screening of the movie “Be Cool.” She was also asked if she planned on harming the governor (as though the Terminator could be injured by a mere mortal.).

Her crime? Wearing a nurse’s uniform. Yes, it’s true. When Di Giacomo asked why on earth anyone would think that she wanted to hurt Arnold, a bodyguard told her, “Well, you were wearing a nurse’s uniform.” As though that made it a done deal.

Nurses were protesting the governor’s policies outside of the screening, waving signs and booing. Di Giacomo, who had gotten a ticket to the event from a friend, first protested outside and then went in to watch the movie. Soon afterwards, she was approached by a plainclothes security officer who asked her to follow him to a back room. A California Highway Patrol officer stood guard at the door, and the security officer asked her if she intended to harm the governor. I guess he figured that she had an AKA 47 hidden in her crotch, or a grenade stuck between her boobs.

Di Giacomo tried to explain that a nurse’s uniform was not the new symbol of terrorism, but that she had merely worn it as a symbolic gesture, to show solidarity. But they grilled her for an hour, asking her pertinent questions such as where she worked (would she admit if she truly was Osama’s agent?), why she was at the event, and so on. Tammy DuTemple, a spokeswoman for the governor’s CHP security detail, claimed that Di Giacomoc was only questioned for about 30 minutes. As though that makes it okay.

Di Giacomo was finally allowed to return to her seat but instead, went outside to rejoin the protest. I’m sure at that point the last thing she felt like doing was spending any more time inside of that theater.

DuTemple was quoted as saying that precautions are taken “any time the governor is out on any kind of public platform. It’s not just the nurses. It’s any group which might turn and cause harm.”

The California Nurses Association has been very vocal about Arnold’s policies and how they affect healthcare, but never once have they threatened him with physical harm. Their protests are against his actions, but not against him. If anything, Arnold is the one who has spoken passionately about inflicting bodily harm on nurses. Afterall, he wants to “kick their butts,” and said so quite publicly. So it’s really the nurses who should be afraid that the governator is going to come after them.

This story is so pathetic, and really a sad statement for what our law enforcement is turning into. We are now using valuable resources to attack nurses–people who slave away caring for the sick and infirm. The nurses in California called for safer patient care and the governor jeers about “kicking their butts” as well as calling them a “special interest group.” Now a uniformed registered nurse sitting quietly in her seat at a film screening in Sacramento attended by Arnold Schwarzenegger is identified as a security threat, detained by armed CHP guards and questioned about any plans to harm the governor.

This scenario goes well beyond shameful. It is obscene, a disgrace, and also frightening that innocent people are being treated and harrassed in this manner. What’s next–arrest nurses who protest and ship them off to Guantanamo Bay as enemy combatants? Send a SWAT team to the headquarters of the California Nurses Association?

The LA Times had a good article about this incident.