Uh no, it's not.  In another of the many threads started about this, I cited CDC research that shows at least 12 cases popping up between 2005 and 2009 in the US.  No one died from it.  In 1988, a pregnant woman in Wisconsin got it, and yes, unfortunately she died.


True, but there are also many different strains of Swine Flu.  Much like there are many different strains of HIV.

The danger is that the strain causing the problem (H1N1) is very prone to mutations.  You frequently have outbreaks world wide, but they rarely cross over to infect humans.  And most of the time they do, they are not particularly fatal.

This is in many ways similar to HIV.  HIV-2 is actually the originator virus, but it was discovered much later.  The disease was originally from primates (most likely chimps), and eventually traveled to humans through either eating undercooked meat, or a bite.  At that time the disease had an incubation of 15-20 years.  It probably first crossed over around the turn of the century.

In the 1940's, there were regions of the Congo that people suffered under what they called "The Thin Disease".  But with an average lifespan of 40-45 years, people did not seem to die much earlier then before.  The first European case was in 1959, and once this disease struck an area with higher population density and more natural immunities, it adapted.  The European "Index Case" probably got infected in 1955-1966.  And between 1959-1976, at least 6 others are known to have died from the disease.

If not for being carried to Europe, HIV would likely have remained a curious regional disease.  But it "broke out", and became what we know today.  There are 2 major and 17 minor subtypes of HIV.  There are now 93 recognized mutations of the HIV virus.

This is the biggest worry I have about this outbreak.  We are dealing with a virus that has a propensity to mutate.  It's predicessors are known to be highly virulent and deadly.

However, this may be simply another case of 1976, where it quickly burns itself out.  Heaven help us if we have a repeat of 1918.


So when I say "there's no point in panicking", you take issue with it.. then go on to say you're not encouraging panic. OK.

I'm with Tia in that I've got panic burnout: even at its very, very worst, this isn't going to be the end of the world - it's not even going to cause more than the most temporary blip on the ever-increasing graph line of world population.


That is true.  After all, before this last week or so, how many people knew of the Spanish Influenza outbreak in 1918?  It came on the heels of World War I, and many believe it was spread through the US by returning veterans from the trenches of that war.  But comming on the heels of an international war, it was quickly forgotten.

True, but there are also many different strains of Swine Flu.  Much like there are many different strains of HIV.

The danger is that the strain causing the problem (H1N1) is very prone to mutations.  You frequently have outbreaks world wide, but they rarely cross over to infect humans.  And most of the time they do, they are not particularly fatal.
sorta like this one, with the exception of the cases in mexico, yes? so unless things change, the real question is why mexico is presenting this different case. is it because of urban sanitary conditions? something different they're doing with regard to treatment? some other pathogen that's interacting with the swine flu? or maybe the further it gets from the source the less virulent becomes -- i.e., the people contracting it in mexico are more likely to have gotten directly from one of these infected pigs on one of these smithfield farms or from a person who got it that way. so it's possible that the more human-to-human transmissions occur, and the further it gets generationally from the source, the less virulent the virus. that would account for what we're seeing, in fact. i wonder if anyone's come up with that theory.

anyway, until people start dying elsewhere i'm gonna keep thinking there's something unique in the mexico outbreak that's making this worse for them. things could change, of course.

After all, before this last week or so, how many people knew of the Spanish Influenza outbreak in 1918?  um, a lot?

the fact that this started in mexico isn't a matter of chance -- as mushroom falsely says -- but it also isn't about the nation so much as the policies of BigAg, which puts efficiency and brutality ahead of public health.


I find it interesting that you did not include the paragraph above to start:

But what caused this acceleration of swine flu evolution? Virologists have long believed that the intensive agricultural system of southern China is the principal engine of influenza mutation: both seasonal "drift" and episodic genomic "shift". But the corporate industrialisation of livestock production has broken China's natural monopoly on influenza evolution. Animal husbandry in recent decades has been transformed into something that more closely resembles the petrochemical industry than the happy family farm depicted in school readers.

It is true, modern agriculture with it's "huge amounts of animals in a pen and fed garbage" is much more likely to create mutant strains of diseases.  Much the same way that China and Europe were more likely to suffer epidemics then the American Indians.  There is a connection to filth, crowded living conditions, and disease.  You are much more likely to see a disease mutate and spread in New York or Moscow then you will in Podunk, Alabama.

There is no question that this is spreading from Mexico.  But the same conditions exist in China, United States, Japan, Germany, and in most other industrialized nations.  Where free range feeding of animals has given way to high density pens and stock feeding.  And not just in pigs, but in poultry also.

Once again, it goes back to population density.  For those that believe in the Gaia Hypothesis, this can be seen as the Earth fighting back against the infection and damage caused by to many humans.

I find it interesting that you did not include the paragraph above to start:
why? i didn't want to quote the entire article.

the point of the article seems to be that regulation is even more lax in mexico than in the United States and in other industrialized western nations. i acknowledge similar agricultural conditions exist in the industrial west when i talk about mad cow (the UK) but it sounds like the chinese agricultural practices of yore were similarly malthusian, just pre-industrial, so they in a sense provided a model for the concentration-camp style farms we see now in BigAg.

personally i'd like to see a return to old-style independent farming, to the extent it can support a population our size. the choice appears to be either that, or look forward to more and more bizarre illness as livestock packed in unlivable conditions become petri dishes for new diseases the likes of which we haven't imagined.

man, tempted to go veggie at the moment. or at least all-organic.

True, but there are also many different strains of Swine Flu.  Much like there are many different strains of HIV.

The danger is that the strain causing the problem (H1N1) is very prone to mutations.  You frequently have outbreaks world wide, but they rarely cross over to infect humans.  And most of the time they do, they are not particularly fatal.

This is in many ways similar to HIV.  HIV-2 is actually the originator virus, but it was discovered much later.  The disease was originally from primates (most likely chimps), and eventually traveled to humans through either eating undercooked meat, or a bite.  At that time the disease had an incubation of 15-20 years.  It probably first crossed over around the turn of the century.

In the 1940's, there were regions of the Congo that people suffered under what they called "The Thin Disease".  But with an average lifespan of 40-45 years, people did not seem to die much earlier then before.  The first European case was in 1959, and once this disease struck an area with higher population density and more natural immunities, it adapted.  The European "Index Case" probably got infected in 1955-1966.  And between 1959-1976, at least 6 others are known to have died from the disease.

If not for being carried to Europe, HIV would likely have remained a curious regional disease.  But it "broke out", and became what we know today.  There are 2 major and 17 minor subtypes of HIV.  There are now 93 recognized mutations of the HIV virus.

This is the biggest worry I have about this outbreak.  We are dealing with a virus that has a propensity to mutate.  It's predicessors are known to be highly virulent and deadly.

However, this may be simply another case of 1976, where it quickly burns itself out.  Heaven help us if we have a repeat of 1918.

That is true.  After all, before this last week or so, how many people knew of the Spanish Influenza outbreak in 1918?  It came on the heels of World War I, and many believe it was spread through the US by returning veterans from the trenches of that war.  But comming on the heels of an international war, it was quickly forgotten.


Disregarding all the other stuff you typed, I will focus on your reference of the 1918 influenza outbreak.  You're forgetting that this was almost 100 years ago, conditions were not as sanitary as they are now, and there weren't a lot of advances in science re: combatting common cold/flu.

Sorry to say, but I think you ARE in panic mode and you ARE trying to spread this panic.  I see no other motive behind starting this thread than to try and freak people out about it.

..not with a bang, but with a-tishoo

The older I get, and the more I think about it, the more I think we have a seriously bad attitude to death: there is a simplistic calculation going on that more people+living longer=better

The planet has an unsustainable long-term growth in population, what do we do about it?

Answer: we try and ameliorate the symptoms (aid for famine, trying to get improved medicine for everyone, trying to keep more people alive for longer) while trying to ignore the problem (more people).

The problem I have is that I don't think that people make good arbiters of who should live and who shouldn't - any way you look at it, humans deciding which humans should live or die is pretty distasteful, and the desire to help people suffering is, well, human.

Maybe an influenza pandemic that kills off x% of people pretty much at random is nature getting its own back in the fairest way it can...



I agree with you on this. If you look at Nature, it happens all the time. When deer herds get too big, Nature has a way of thinning it out. The same thing for humans, too. However, we humans have a way of trying to stop it with medication and such.



Cat

Maybe 2012 will be the time that everyone in America dies.

you know how sometimes people pretend to sneeze and say "bulls**t"? i'm gonna start saying "*swineflu!*" every time i sneeze.

for a while after 9/11 i used to like to say "saringas!" every time someone accidentally dropped a glass at a bar. good times!

True, but there are also many different strains of Swine Flu.  Much like there are many different strains of HIV.

The danger is that the strain causing the problem (H1N1) is very prone to mutations.  You frequently have outbreaks world wide, but they rarely cross over to infect humans.  And most of the time they do, they are not particularly fatal.

This is in many ways similar to HIV.  HIV-2 is actually the originator virus, but it was discovered much later.  The disease was originally from primates (most likely chimps), and eventually traveled to humans through either eating undercooked meat, or a bite.  At that time the disease had an incubation of 15-20 years.  It probably first crossed over around the turn of the century.

In the 1940's, there were regions of the Congo that people suffered under what they called "The Thin Disease".  But with an average lifespan of 40-45 years, people did not seem to die much earlier then before.  The first European case was in 1959, and once this disease struck an area with higher population density and more natural immunities, it adapted.  The European "Index Case" probably got infected in 1955-1966.  And between 1959-1976, at least 6 others are known to have died from the disease.

If not for being carried to Europe, HIV would likely have remained a curious regional disease.  But it "broke out", and became what we know today.  There are 2 major and 17 minor subtypes of HIV.  There are now 93 recognized mutations of the HIV virus.

This is the biggest worry I have about this outbreak.  We are dealing with a virus that has a propensity to mutate.  It's predicessors are known to be highly virulent and deadly.

However, this may be simply another case of 1976, where it quickly burns itself out.  Heaven help us if we have a repeat of 1918.

That is true.  After all, before this last week or so, how many people knew of the Spanish Influenza outbreak in 1918?  It came on the heels of World War I, and many believe it was spread through the US by returning veterans from the trenches of that war.  But comming on the heels of an international war, it was quickly forgotten.
My lat,e grandmother was born in january,1919,and apparently she ,her parents,and six older siblings all survived being arou.nd then.not sure if any were actually exposed.My grandmother lived until December 17,2009,a month and 4 days shy of her 90th birthday.

Every strain of the flu is prone to mutations.  H1N1 has made the jump from pig to human (again), just as H5N1 made the jump from bird to human. Turns out that the genes for virulence tend to burn themselves out pretty quickly.

You're right to be wary of this latest mutation. You're also right to be stocking up on masks, gloves, and what-not. These are inexpensive first-aid supplies that could be useful in any emergency

You're overreacting at present.  There's plenty of evidence to suggest sustained human-to-human transmission, there's minimal evidence to indicate airborne transmission, and there's minimal evidence to indicate virulence comparable to the 1918 variant.  At present, it's resistant to two of the three major antivirals (amantadine and rimantadine), but sensitive to oseltamivir (Tamiflu).

If we start seeing it in environments where viruses with the H274Y sequence (correlation to Tamiflu resistance) exist in the pig, bird, or human populations, and the Mexican variant of H1N1 somehow manages to pick up that sequence by infecting a person already infected with a Tamiflu-reistant strain, and it manages to subsequently mutate into a version which can spread via air (coughing), as opposed to physical contact, and it manages to be sufficiently virulent ("virulence" being loosely defined as the ability to kick off the cytokine storm that preferentially kills young/healthy patients over infants/elderly/immunocompromised patients) -- if you get all three of those things: resistance to the last remaining antiviral, airborne transmission, and virulence -- then, and only then, are you looking at a 1918/end-of-the-world scenario. And even then it's far from a sure thing.

WHO just went to  Pandemic Level 4 tonight.  IMNSHO, they should be at 5, and I'm betting they go to 6 within the month.  I'm also betting (with real money) that it gets one (but not two, and not all three) of the criteria I outlined in that last paragraph.  Tens of millions infected, a few thousand dead, but we're talking about a virus that kills 20,000 people per year as a baseline.  Biggest economic impact is gonna be with pork producers, who might wind up bankrupt -- but if its spread can be limited, you're gonna wanna buy those stocks too.  (I'm kicking myself for not having bought NVAX on Friday, the news was out, the stock had broken to new highs, but the panic hadn't had an entire weekend of media hysteria to feed, and the friggin' stock tripled on Monday's open.  Easy money, and I left it all on the table.)

Anyone following this story should spend a few hours playing Pandemic 2.  Not only will you learn the basics of epidemiology, you'll have more fun than you ever thought possible.  Even with the benefit of an intelligent designer (namely you, the player, deciding which characteristics you'd like your germ-of-choice to acquire so as to most-efficiently wipe out all of humanity!), it's bloody hard to wipe out the species, and not just because of Madagascar's tendency to Shut. Down. Everything.

Meanwhile, wash your hands. Properly.  For 30-60 seconds, rubbing between the webs of the fingers, making a cursory attempt to clean under your fingernails, and up to your wrists.  Keep your fingers out of your eyes, nose, and mouth.  Other orifices are your own business.  But wash your hands.  Did I mention washing your hands?  Yeah.  Wash your hands.  And don't panic.  Yet.

Unless things change terribly for the worse, you're more likely to get killed driving to the clinic than you are to die of this here swine flu!
::)

Every strain of the flu is prone to mutations.  H1N1 has made the jump from pig to human (again), just as H5N1 made the jump from bird to human.  Turns out that the genes for virulence tend to burn themselves out pretty quickly. 

You're right to be wary of this latest mutation.  You're also right to be stocking up on masks, gloves, and what-not.  These are inexpensive first-aid supplies that could be useful in any emergency.

You're overreacting at present.  There's plenty of evidence to suggest sustained human-to-human transmission, there's minimal evidence to indicate airborne transmission, and there's minimal evidence to indicate virulence comparable to the 1918 variant.  At present, it's resistant to two of the three major antivirals (amantadine and rimantadine), but sensitive to oseltamivir (Tamiflu).

If we start seeing it in environments where viruses with the H274Y sequence (correlation to Tamiflu resistance) exist in the pig, bird, or human populations, and the Mexican variant of H1N1 somehow manages to pick up that sequence by infecting a person already infected with a Tamiflu-reistant strain, and it manages to subsequently mutate into a version which can spread via air (coughing), as opposed to physical contact, and it manages to be sufficiently virulent ("virulence" being loosely defined as the ability to kick off the cytokine storm that preferentially kills young/healthy patients over infants/elderly/immunocompromised patients) -- if you get all three of those things: resistance to the last remaining antiviral, airborne transmission, and virulence -- then, and only then, are you looking at a 1918/end-of-the-world scenario.  And even then it's far from a sure thing.

WHO just went to Pandemic Level 4 tonight.  IMNSHO, they should be at 5, and I'm betting they go to 6 within the month.  I'm also betting (with real money) that it gets one (but not two, and not all three) of the criteria I outlined in that last paragraph.  Tens of millions infected, a few thousand dead, but we're talking about a virus that kills 20,000 people per year as a baseline.  Biggest economic impact is gonna be with pork producers, who might wind up bankrupt -- but if its spread can be limited, you're gonna wanna buy those stocks too.  (I'm kicking myself for not having bought NVAX on Friday, the news was out, the stock had broken to new highs, but the panic hadn't had an entire weekend of media hysteria to feed, and the friggin' stock tripled on Monday's open.  Easy money, and I left it all on the table.)

Anyone following this story should spend a few hours playing Pandemic 2.  Not only will you learn the basics of epidemiology, you'll have more fun than you ever thought possible.  Even with the benefit of an intelligent designer (namely you, the player, deciding which characteristics you'd like your germ-of-choice to acquire so as to most-efficiently wipe out all of humanity!), it's bloody hard to wipe out the species, and not just because of Madagascar's tendency to Shut. Down. Everything.

Meanwhile, wash your hands.  Properly.  For 30-60 seconds, rubbing between the webs of the fingers, making a cursory attempt to clean under your fingernails, and up to your wrists.  Keep your fingers out of your eyes, nose, and mouth.  Other orifices are your own business.  But wash your hands.  Did I mention washing your hands?  Yeah.  Wash your hands.  And don't panic.  Yet.


*wild applause*

I washed my hands before I applauded, BTW. ;D

*wild applause*

I washed my hands before I applauded, BTW. ;D


/takes a bow

In the interest of giving credit where credit's due, FluTrackers and Biosurveillance are (among many) who are doing a great job of covering this event.

When it comes right down to it, the only thing you, as an individual, can do to protect yourself from the actual disease is to wash your hands frequently, and be painfully aware of every time you rub your eyes, nose, or mouth. 

Mushroom's absolutely right in that a 1918-style pandemic - with 50% infection rates and 3% death rates (edit: yep the Spanish Flu was only 3% mortality, but huge infection rate... now imagine something that well-popagated but with SARS-like 17%, or H5N1-like 60% mortality rates.  The reason SARS and H5N1 didn't end the world is because they were killed their victims before they could spread it) in formerly-healthy patients - may occur within the next 6 months.  Or 6 years.  Or 26 years.  This outbreak isn't that one yet; it's not even an epidemic.  But it's a great opportunity to test your preparedness.  Even if WHO goes to Stage 6 (pandemic) on the variant currently being transmitted, the price of screwing up is a really nasty week, which is a pretty good incentive not to screw up.  But (as long as this variant doesn't mutate the wrong way) it won't be a fatal screwup, which means you'll get to learn from the mistakes you made this time.

For now, watch the blogs and see how long it takes things to filter from the blogs through to the business news (which tends to be an hour or two behind the markets, and is therefore still a few hours ahead of the rest of the mainstream news), then to the evening TV news.  That time delay will mark how much time you've got between "Hey, boss, don't worry about the flu", "Hey, boss, nothing personal, but I'm giving up handshakes for a couple of weeks", and "Hey, boss, either you're putting me on the telecommuting trial group, or I'm taking all vacation starting next week, and I'll see you in July if you make it."  The current event is as much an exercise in information dissemination as much as it is an exercise in epidemiology.

WHO just went to  Pandemic Level 4 tonight.  IMNSHO, they should be at 5, and I'm betting they go to 6 within the month. 


Update:  WHO declared Level 5 on 4/29/2009. 

About time.  I'm refining my prediction to say that WHO declares Level 6 - efficient and sustained human-to-human transmission - by May 9th.

But even that won't be the end of the world, it just means that a whole lot of people are going to get sick for about a week, and that you should wash your hands more often. 

Unless things change terribly for the worse, you're more likely to get killed driving to the clinic than you are to die of this here swine flu!
::)

That's right Max! Good thing CONTROL has you to maintain the sanity in this world.

Maybe 2012 will be the time that everyone in America dies.
How close were the Mayans to Mexico?

How close were the Mayans to Mexico?


They live on the Yucatan peninsula, why?

They live on the Yucatan peninsula, why?
It is the Mayan Calendar that prdicts the world will in December 2012 (there is another thread on this subject somewhere)

A bit of sanity on the subject: http://www.badscience.net/2009/04/parmageddon/

And slightly less sanity: http://www.amiright.com/parody/80s/yazoo2.shtml

It is the Mayan Calendar that prdicts the world will in December 2012 (there is another thread on this subject somewhere)


It does NOT predict that the world ends.  It is just the end of their calendar. ::)

I am somewhat surprised that nobody picked up the quote I started the first post with.

For anybody that has seen the miniseries based on "The Stand", that is how it opens.  I can't remember if the book did, it has been to long since I have read it.

I will have to get it while I am on leave and read it again.

I am somewhat surprised that nobody picked up the quote I started the first post with.

For anybody that has seen the miniseries based on "The Stand", that is how it opens.  I can't remember if the book did, it has been to long since I have read it.

I will have to get it while I am on leave and read it again.
little stand reference on wonkette yesterday.

http://wonkette.com/408184/california-marine-sick-quarantine-at-29-palms-base

if you get swine flu and end up homebound, you might wanna start reading the stand to kill time while you're bedridden. but you'll probably recover before you get to the end of it.

little stand reference on wonkette yesterday.

http://wonkette.com/408184/california-marine-sick-quarantine-at-29-palms-base

if you get swine flu and end up homebound, you might wanna start reading the stand to kill time while you're bedridden. but you'll probably recover before you get to the end of it.


Actually, SWine Flu seems to have a mortality rate less then half of the regular flu.  But it has an infection rate that is hard to believe.  On the news today, was now in 34 states, and 18 countries.  The danger is not in the disease, as much as the numbers of people infected.

Some research believes that 1/2 of the world's population was infected in 1918-1919.  Taking 3% of that, and you have a disaster.  Imagine that happening today, with 3 times the population.

sorta like this one, with the exception of the cases in mexico, yes? so unless things change, the real question is why mexico is presenting this different case. is it because of urban sanitary conditions? something different they're doing with regard to treatment? some other pathogen that's interacting with the swine flu? or maybe the further it gets from the source the less virulent becomes -- i.e., the people contracting it in mexico are more likely to have gotten directly from one of these infected pigs on one of these smithfield farms or from a person who got it that way. so it's possible that the more human-to-human transmissions occur, and the further it gets generationally from the source, the less virulent the virus. that would account for what we're seeing, in fact. i wonder if anyone's come up with that theory.





I thought of that about a week ago, or at least something like it.

Actually, SWine Flu seems to have a mortality rate less then half of the regular flu.  But it has an infection rate that is hard to believe.  On the news today, was now in 34 states, and 18 countries.  The danger is not in the disease, as much as the numbers of people infected.

Some research believes that 1/2 of the world's population was infected in 1918-1919.  Taking 3% of that, and you have a disaster.  Imagine that happening today, with 3 times the population.


Isn't the regular flu in all fifty states, or at least the continental 48, for several months every year?

Isn't the regular flu in all fifty states, or at least the continental 48, for several months every year?

And it kills on average 35k people per year in the US, between a quarter and half a million worldwide.

I'll start getting worried once the swine flu actually becomes a risk that's worth taking note of - there are too many higher risks about at the moment to worry about that now.

And it kills on average 35k people per year in the US, between a quarter and half a million worldwide.

I'll start getting worried once the swine flu actually becomes a risk that's worth taking note of - there are too many higher risks about at the moment to worry about that now.
at the risk of sounding like alex jones, frightened people are submissive and easily managed. i'm not really buying the swine flu thing; the government and media seem to go from one hysterical crisis to another and i get the impression there's a reason.

at the risk of sounding like alex jones, frightened people are submissive and easily managed. i'm not really buying the swine flu thing; the government and media seem to go from one hysterical crisis to another and i get the impression there's a reason.


It's because Obama is a Muslim terrorist and the news is run by his army of followers, so they're covering for him while he secretly meets with Al-Qaeda and figures out this world domination thing.
















:D

It's because Obama is a Muslim terrorist and the news is run by his army of followers, so they're covering for him while he secretly meets with Al-Qaeda and figures out this world domination thing.
















:D

I do hope your department of Homeland Security has a teensy-weensy sense of humour.  If not, I hope you're using an anonymizing proxy ;)

And it kills on average 35k people per year in the US, between a quarter and half a million worldwide.

I'll start getting worried once the swine flu actually becomes a risk that's worth taking note of - there are too many higher risks about at the moment to worry about that now.


We have a Crisis Crisis in the U.S.
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/12/help.gif

I love this guy.  :D

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=swine_flu

The actual poem is creepy....

The Hollow Men by T.S Elliot

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.  Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us--if at all--not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

                                  II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer--

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

                                  III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

                                  IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
and avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

                                  V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
                                                Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
and the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

For thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

The actual poem is creepy....

The Hollow Men by T.S Elliot


By the way...

If you're new to the poem and haven't watched Apocalypse Now recently, stop what you're doing, dig out the DVD, and watch the movie again.  The movie will make a lot more sense.

If you already know what I mean by that, just read the poem while listening to Shriekback's Nemesis. (Recommended mix: the 5:52 mix, 12" vinyl, that starts with an unrelated sample from the movie.  Depending on how you pace the reading and the instrumental breaks, it'll fit perfectly.  If I could do a good impression of Brando, I'd do the whole poem and throw it into the Intarwebs as a mash-up.)

It is the Mayan Calendar that prdicts the world will in December 2012 (there is another thread on this subject somewhere)
The movie 2012 opens in the UK next Friday.