Hacks With Blogs

I just got done watching Contagion and loved it. I liked the realistic and human portrayal of everyone involved, from the governments, the WHO, the CDC, and the individual doctors and epidemiologists. Spoiler alert - if you haven't seen it yet, there may be a few spoilers in this post.

The other thing I found refreshing in it was that it just may be the only movie I've seen that involves a major (fictional) epidemic that wasn't the result of some vast government/shadow organization conspiracy. While yes, I love stories such as Outbreak, the Stand, and the Andromeda Strain, each one of them involves government conspiracy on some level. With this, it's easy to forget that most viruses and bacteria indeed have their origins in nature.

It's often the same story - some deadly disease gets out. Turns out the disease has origins as a potential bio-weapon being studied by the government. Then some ambitious blogger investigative reporter exposes it all and saves the day. As for Andromeda Strain, it would be the more recent re-make of the movie that follows that unfortunate cliche, rather than the book I linked to above.

In Contagion though, it followed a more realistic pattern of events. The WHO, CDC, and others banded together to try and stop it. Of course, every such organization is made up of humans. Humans who have human fears and concerns... and families. Then of course there is the blogger who millions see as a hero.

For some reasons, a lot of people trust relatively anonymous (even if they use their real names) bloggers over actual politicians and reporters who have some accountability. Maybe it's because we're so used to depictions of masked heroes of the people. Surely, a blogger doesn't have any ulterior motives, right?

Well, my ulterior motive is a black Dodge Challenger, dammit! Of course, that doesn't mean that I'm getting one by blogging about anything and everything that comes to mind. Of course, I'm not actually expecting to get one from this, either. The point is that yes, even bloggers are human and have human motivations and the like. With that, we are held at near-zero accountability. Go ahead, set a blog up yourself. Anyone and everyone can. There's no real verification of one's identity who does set up a blog. You could say you're some Deep Throat type of government insider when the reality is that you're just making fries at some fast food joint while you live in your mom's basement. I could tell you that the sky is actually pink and purple plaid, but that there's a mind-control government conspiracy to make us think it's blue... and there would be no real repercussions on my end. The blogger in Contagion faked being sick to peddle a miracle cure the governments were supposedly withholding. The blogger got rich. People panicked. People got killed. But hey, he got rich because they trusted his talk of conspiracies.

Seeing this lack of accountability (and often truth) is a big part of why I started blogging. I rather hoped I could offer an alternative. As for me getting rich... not bloody likely. I'll keep shamelessly pandering to Dodge for a Challenger, mostly in jest, until I can afford one... but the only money I make on this blog is from those little ads on here. Not the links I post to Dodge or Amazon or where ever else, but just those Google ads.

So again, I try to post things that can be fact-checked, and I do try to keep honest. On the rare and unlikely occasion that I get access to an inside source (as I did in regards to Zombie Muhammad), I try to check on their reliability and see how the facts I'm provided fill in the gaps in what everyone else is told. In other words, I try to keep things honest. I have little, if any, reason to do otherwise.