With all the hoo-ha involving the American-Iraq War
An enemy that's probably about 20 - 300 nanometres small;
To date, it has claimed the lives of 54 people worldwide and is threatening the lives of over 1400 more.
It is easy to dismiss it when it's so far away.
Yes, it would be easy to dismiss, wouldn't it?
If only I didn't have family in the tiny Republic down south.
I can't even sniffle without thinking,"Am I next?"
At an age where the prospect of having an exact double isn't so far-fetched an idea;
Come to think of it, we still have yet to find a cure for influenza
Wake up! God is telling us that we're really not so great after all.
Margaret Alexandria Yoong
Vulnerability
(note that it is always referred to as that and not the American-British-Iraq - or something like that - War),
it is always easy to ignore the other threat, the other danger lurking uncomfortably close to home.
so small that you need an electron microscope to actually be able to view it.
An enemy so strange
- they cannot be placed into any known classification for living matter
as they are quite "dead" outside a living host but very much "alive" inside one.
An enemy so baffling,
a pool of intelligence from the top medical researchers of the world
have yet to determine the family of which it belongs to, how it is spread, much less a cure for it.
Schools have been shut down, people have been quarantined, populations have reached a mild level of paranoia;
but yet, the headline of every major newspaper screams about the notorious War.
After all, no cases have been reported in Malaysia.
From Petaling Jaya, the nearest death took place over 300 kilometres away.
If only my boyfriend wasn't quarantined for an entire day.
If only a friend hadn't called up exhibiting all the symptoms and is currently being fed every conceivable medicine known to man now.
where skyscrapers taller than the eye can see mushroom around the world;
where there is - or is going to be - a synthetic substitute for any organic substance we can't produce;
it is disturbing that a situation like this is occurring.
- the common flu that strikes millions (possibly billions) -
and comes back periodically every now and then in its mutated glory to wreck havoc on civilisation.
March 31, 2003