September 24, 2025

9 thoughts on “Money, prestige, and the birth of a new virus

  1. FORBES

    “Pompeo Backtracks About Wuhan Lab: The Latest In The Controversial Coronavirus Origin Theory”

    Jack Brewster, Forbes Staff

    Updated May 6, 2020, 06:22pm EDT

    TOPLINE – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seemed to walk back an explosive allegation Wednesday, that “enormous evidence” linked the coronavirus outbreak to a laboratory in Wuhan, China, now saying “we don’t have certainty” — the latest turn of a controversial theory that started at the very beginning of COVID-19 outbreak:

    1. Seems someone who loves Paul has bound and gagged him and left him no choice but to type with his nose.

      We salute you, unknown hero.

      1. Ray, did you see where I told you to not worry, you are not alone, America really does still love you and we do to, and I personally want to assure you again in here that you are still one of us, a fellow American who we treasure despite your mental lapses which seem to be becoming more frequent, which I am attributing to a hallucinatory state you have entered into because of the solitary confinement imposed on you by “Blackface” Northam to protect you because “Blackface” loves you and holds you dear and doesn’t want anything crappy to befall you, and I want to assure you that Ray, we are in there with you, we’re on your team, because we are all in this together, so don’t be afraid.

        The sky is not falling.

        The world is not coming to an end.

        And Ray, we shall overcome and persevere!

        And thanks for checking in to let us know you are still with us and everything is alright with you in your neighborhood.

        It is appreciated, dude!

          1. Ray, Ray, hey, it’s okay – dude, calm down, that’s it, breathe into a brown paper bag a few times, that’s it, now don’t that make you feel better – you’re just having a hallucinatory bad dream caused by the traumatizing effects of being socially isolated inside your bedroom closet where you have been staring at the same four walls to the point of where it has made you stir-crazy and prone to hallucinations and feelings of detachment from reality, and no wonder, and paranoia because Ralph “Blackface” Northam ordered you to get in there to protect you from society, who he has convinced you are out to get you because you are older, but it’s not true, Ray!

            Nobody is out to get you because you are older, and nobody got ahold of me to tie me up to make me confess where you were hiding so they could get you as ordered.

            So you are safe, Ray, nobody is coming for you to remove you from society because you are old and they want your space for somebody younger, as if this were New York state under Andy Cuomo.

            My goodness, I hope you are anyway, considering “Blackface” Northam follows in the path of Cuomo, who is his leader.

            Maybe I spoke too soon!

          2. “Ray, Ray, hey, it’s okay – dude, calm down, that’s it, breathe into a brown paper bag a few times, that’s it, now don’t that make you feel better, blah, blah, blah……….”

            You should heed Wayne’ advice to another a**hole on this page.

            Get a job old man.

          3. Ray, as another older person in here, I think that it is good that you are taking the time to reach out to us in here in your own way in order to maintain some type of societal connection with humanity before the solitary confinement, which would be considered a form of torture if you were in prison, imposed on you by “Blackface” Northam because he loves you with an all-powerful, protective, parental love, drives you totally bat-**** crazy.

            Keep saying to yourself over and over like a mantra: “I am not alone, the people at the Cape Charles Mirror love me, and we are all in this together,” and keep checking in like you are doing, routine is important, afterall, and I think in the end, when this is finally over, assuming it ever will be, for once people like “Blackface” Northam have tasted absolute power over the lives of their subjects like yourself, they are quite loath to give it back up, you will be just fine.

    2. Is This Mysterious Infection a New Kind of German Offensive?

      Is this new disease which has already killed hundreds and stricken thousands of our soldiers and civilians a new German war offensive?

      If not, how did it happen that this epidemic appeared so suddenly and extensively in such widely scattered cities and army camps throughout the country?

      Smitten as from a bolt from a clear sky thousands of Americans have been suddenly prostrated in many widely separated parts of the country, during the past ten days, by a disease which is called, apparently for want of a better name, “Spanish Influenza.”

      Naturally, under all circumstances, there is much speculation regarding the matter.

      Perhaps because there seems to be a rather natural disposition to ascribe about everything that is perfidious in the world today to Germany, some have ventured the guess that the disease may have been introduced and spread by German agents.

      This theory, however, is generally considered as being not only entirely groundless but really absurd, for it seems hardly conceivable that, if Germany undertook an offensive of this kind, she would choose such a mild and humane sort of disease.

      A much more plausible explanation would seem to be the simple fact that the recent cold snap caught the country entirely unprepared for such severe weather and, as a result of our unheated dwellings and other buildings and the inadequate clothing that was being worn, large numbers of people in different sections of the country contracted colds, which developed in many cases into pneumonia and resulted in an unusual number of deaths.

      Almost always at this season of the year colds are frequent and they often result fatally, and it may well be that, but for the high tension of these strenuous war times, this epidemic would not have attracted unusual attention.

      In any event there seems to be no occasion for special alarm or panic about the matter, for the disease is evidently one which the American medical profession is perfectly able to handle, and, moreover, effective measures are being taken, wherever it appears, to check it and destroy its power.

      – The Midland Journal, Rising Sun, October 4th, 1918.

  2. Also related to the patriotic appeal by public health officials was the circulation of anti-German sentiment in regards to the spread of the flu throughout the United States.

    According to historian Tom Quinn, “foreigners were blamed for spreading the disease deliberately a paranoid fear induced by the rising death toll” associated with the Spanish influenza.

    Susan Kingsley Kent expands on this idea: “the war served as an obvious metaphor [for the flu] in which Germans and germs were equally feared.”

    One of the most interesting inclusions in the news coverage of the outbreak was the insinuation that German soldiers purposefully spread the disease to the United States as a weapon of war.

    The Big Stone Gap Post briefly displayed this belief in a short quip about the influenza inhibiting war efforts on October 16: “Spanish influenza must be pro German, if one can judge by the way it is holding up the October draft contingent.”

    One aspect of information shared between the Big Stone Gap Post and the Clinch Valley News was the inclusion of false rumors surrounding the emergence of the influenza in the United States.

    Crosby also states that “the people of the US were stark raving patriotic” in the year of 1918.

    Similar to inhabitants in Wise County, many Tazewell County residents believed the influenza was spread to the United States as a by-product of the German war effort.

    – From THE SPANISH INFLUENZA IN SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA 1918-1919

    Author: Rachel Goatley 

    How to Cite: Goatley, Rachel. 2015. “THE SPANISH INFLUENZA IN SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA 1918-1919”. The Virginia Tech Undergraduate Historical Review 4. DOI:

    http://doi.org/10.21061/vtuhr.v4i0.34

    Published on 01 May 2015

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