Plague Consciousness--The Decameron

[Lightning Rod]

The Decameron is structured in a frame narrative, or frame tale. Boccaccio begins with a description of the Black Death and a group of seven women and three men who flee from plague-ridden Florence to a villa in the (then) countryside of Fiesole for two weeks. To pass the time, each member of the party tells one story for each one of the nights spent at the villa. Although fourteen days pass, two days each week are set aside; one day for chores and one holy day during which no work is done. In this manner, 100 stories are told by the end of the two weeks....wiki

The swine flu scare brought this to my mind. I thought it might be a good idea for a word jam.

[Arcadia]

the decameron!...yeah, great book!!!!!!!!! No idea if it´s a good idea for a jam, but the virus (in a literal way) is changing at least the daily life here in a way nobody alive remembers maybe since the polio epidemia 70 and 50 years ago.
Yesterday, the school were my sister in law works and one of my sobrinos is student was closed for two weeks because a kid was suspected to have gripe A. It´s not the only school, it seems there are lots of them in the same conditions only in Rosario. In my school only attend classes half of the children, much less than the average for this time of the year... weird times!

See:

http://www.lacapital.com.ar/contenidos/ ... _0054.html

[Arcadia]

today I went to buy pasta in the store and all the employees had barbijos... went to vote and saw silent and hurry people in the lines with barbijos and some of the electoral personal in the mesas with barbijos and latex gloves... cafe is in the place of mate... weird, weird, weird!

[stilltrucking]

Last week the 1,000,000 case of H1N1 was diagnosed in N. America.

No barbijos in Texas.

We are macho men from tacoland.

[Arcadia]

un millón!!! wow!!!!!!! it sounds like great bussiness!!!!!!!what people say here is that you already will have the vaccines for your winter, produced by Roche laboratories. And that "they" are studying the pandemia in a global way from Chile at the moment.

it´s also said that from now there will be no more laborary-studies to diagnosticate the gripe A, that since the number is already high all the cases with determinate simptoms will be automatically treat as if they were gripe A. At the moment if you are an inscripted worker and you have an obra social you have to pay $300 to know if you have the virus or not. The obras sociales are not covering the exam. No idea what happens with the antivirales.

today, the minister of health of the country resigned and some provinces including my own declared sanitary emergency (from today and until the 27 of july all the schools and universities are closed as a first step).

and all that the day after the national legislative elections, dizzy!!!!!!!!

See some articles (I half read them, I worked in the morning and was taking care of my sobrinos until now):

Esta nueva derecha

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpai ... 06-29.html

Después de seis años la necesidad de empezar de nuevo

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpai ... 06-29.html

Votando con barbijo y gel

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/socie ... 06-29.html

El triunfo es haber traído a la política temas que estaban marginados

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/ultim ... 06-29.html

Binner about Reutemann

http://www.lacapital.com.ar/contenidos/ ... _0051.html

[Arcadia]

more about plague times:

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpai ... 07-01-html

[Arcadia]

Curve

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpai ... 07-03.html

Psicosis & tamiflu

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpai ... 07-03.html