🚀 go-pugleaf

"Brian Raines (TheChesapeakeBay.com)" wrote:
> 
> Possible Estuary-Associated Syndrome (PEAS)
> Centers for Disease Control Pfiesteria-related Notice Issued
> 
> A federal health agency has told the nation's doctors to watch for
> problems that could be associated with Pfiesteria, the microorganism
> blamed for sickening Chesapeake Bay watermen two years ago. The alert
> from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was not prompted by
> a specific public health concern - it comes as warmer, drier weather
> arrives to make conditions ripe for Pfiesteria piscicida.

Hrm - and it does indeed look as if we're in for a repeat of last year's
weather pattern, La Ni~a notwithstanding. And in fact, we may get even more
dry weather than we got last year.

Okay, just to be a science-fiction-y sort of guy, I will indulge in some
wacky prophecy. (a rehash and update of a story written in 1992)

Well, basically, I predict that for no particular reason, _pfisteria_ will
not only infest eastern-shore estuaries of the Chesapeake, but will also
infest, and intensely-so, the tidal Potomac and Patuxent rivers, from which
the Greater Washington Metropolitan Region draws its water supply.
Marylanders will of course remain mostly unaffected, due to the effective
and competent efforts of the WSSC, but the District's poorly-maintained
water supply will become infested with a chlorine-resistant strain of
_pfisteria_, which will of course cause everyone in the District to develop
colonic colonies of the Cell from Hell, which has at least 17 major
life-cycle forms, most of which do not produce neurotoxins. 

At this point my prophetic vision becomes rather vague, but seems to center
around a strong suspicion that as people overheat at July 4th, due to
insufficient consumption of beer on the Mall (due to annoying Park Service
regulations), the internal _pfisteria_ colonies will undergo a sea-change
into neurotoxin-emitting forms, causing everyone in the city of Washington
to forget where they live, or for that matter that they should go home. With
their short-term memories suppressed to the point where they live entirely
for the moment, mobs of forgetful people will wander the streets of their
capital, convincing the entire world that we've gone not only barking-mad,
but certifiably and televisably so.

Georgetown will become swarmed with people who are obsessed with wearing the
latest fashions, which they will be totally unable to remember and must thus
mob to the trendy stores to gawk at mannequins. On "K" Street NW, lawyers
will forlornly flock the streets, begging people to give _them_ their
business cards so that they will know who they are. And in upper NW, bereft
of their memories, citizens will start a campaign drive to re-elect Marion
Barry...



> 
> Find out more at the URL:
> http://TheChesapeakeBay.com/cdc_pfiesteria_peas_notice.shtml
> 
> Brian Raines

-- 
                    "We look through a glass but darkly:
                 What we see is more colored by our beliefs, 
               than what we believe is colored by what we see."
		"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be 
	purchased at the price of chains and slavery?"  - P. Henry