Yes, I’m pretty fabulous at predicting the future. I totally nailed Youtube’s addition of copyrighted content. Apparently, however, I can’t predict the present.
In my graduate Human Communications class this week we were asked to predict the future of mass media. I said, referring to the current state of mass media, that:
“just like the post-WWII era, there’s been a backlash to all the violence, fear, hatred, etc. People are either numb to that sort of news or want to avoid it. “
Totally missed the mark on that one. My two year old daughter woke up at 4:30am this morning coughing and had a mild fever. When my wife asked her “where ouch?” she signed back “hurt” and grabbed her ear. Okay, ear infection, simple enough. So my daughter stayed home from daycare and I took her to the doctor this morning.
Apparently fear is still very, very effective. Here’s a picture of my daughter and I at the Kaiser Permanente clinic today:
Michael Jackson theme party!
When the nurse scolded me for letting Madeleine play with toys in the waiting area I embarked on a moderately intelligent ramble regarding how “the kernel of truth was in Orville Redenbacher’s hands now and that she and I both knew that swine flu wasn’t any more dangerous than any other kind of flu… and that the kid covered in a shiny green shellac of his own infected mucus wasn’t being reprimanded for oozing all over the Little Tikes barn… and that I’d really appreciate if we could take the masks off so people will stop walking a wide berth around us and staring at us like we’re flesh eating zombies…”
For the record, I wore a mask because 1) I wanted my poor little girl to feel more comfortable and 2) I thought the mask was pretty sweet.
She quickly escorted us to an examination room, mumbling under her breath about how the news “said they weren’t trying to cause panic but obviously that didn’t work” and “at least your daughter has the flu vaccine for A and B strains—those are far more dangerous than H1N1.”
We met with the doctor and the doctor said, “no more monkeys jumping on the bed.” Wait, sorry, wrong doctor. Actually she said “oh yeah, that’s an ear infection—not contagious.” I took a deep breath, called myself Mellow Yellow, and we marched out with our heads held high.
And I kept my mask, just in case my wife wants to play doctor later. 
You will let us know how the playing doctor went, right?
[...] been a tough week. My daughter had a fever and ear infection. An assistant professor at the University of Denver was killed in a bike accident. Some folks are [...]