A Bridge, An Earthquake, And A Cast Of Thousands

I like to mix things up in multiples of three, and the ingredients must come from different sources. "Eye of newt and toe of frog..." doesn't work so well, unless one is working through the To-Do list for a quest saga.

For those who like to write the alien romance version of "Towering Inferno" or any other disaster movie, how about the current situation of deteriorating infrastructure as seen this month with the closing of the Sherman-Minton bridge between Indiana and Kentucky, which has turned a fifteen minute commute into a twice daily, two-hour exercise in frustration?

http://bridgehunter.com/ky/jefferson/minton/

http://www.wdrb.com/story/15460972/yarmuth-says-sherman-minton-bridge-closing-should-not-be-a-partisan-issue

Who would you put on the other, still-sound but congested bridge? 

President Obama? 

An elderly prima in labor?

A politician rather fond of enlivening traffic jams by sexting at the wheel?

A fugitive of some sort? 

A couple of truckers... maybe one big rig ought to be the mobile, broadcasting home of an Assange of the airwaves, or a rushed conservative broadcaster.

A school bus....

I wonder, would a motorcade get through? Are there any circumstances under which a Presidential motorcade cannot take priority over traffic on a bridge? I suppose, if traffic is already log-jammed and the motorcade wasn't expected.

Now to up the ante. The October issue of DISCOVER has an article by Amy Barth about projections that there could be a killer quake in the Central United States. Apparently, in 2006 FEMA commissioned a study of what would happen if there were a 7.7 magnitude quake in the Mississipi Valley around the New Madrid seismic zone. The study was cut short in 2009 owing to new funding priorities under a new FEMA administration.

So, yes, one definitely must have someone from --or dear to-- the current administration on the bridge, if only for the thusness of it all.

It is not inconceivable that an earthquake between Little Rock, Arkansas, and Evansville, Indiana, could shock Louisville, Kentucky. It looks as if the same river (Ohio) runs through, marking the Indiana/Kentucky border. So, there is already disruption and congestion because everyone is on two bridges, instead of three. The projection is that 15 major bridges would fail, if there were a major earthquake, over 7 million people would be displaced.

The third element would have to be alien. Should one put a shy and reticent merman in the mighty river? Or a Troll! Why shouldn't there be Bridge Trolls in Kentucky? Possibly, it would be more credible if the Assange-type were a Time Lord (in a really big Tardis)?

On that note, I will sign off.

The Importance Of Being.... Allergic?

I'm on vacation, so will have to rely on memory (which may or may not be fuzzy).

On my Facebook page today, I've had a wide ranging conversation with Elysa and Erin that started with the discrimination, bullying, exclusion, and contempt that children with very serious allergies face in school and in society today.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/17/kids-nut-allergy-teased-excluded_n_929809.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl7%7Csec3_lnk2%7C87417

From there, we touched on the possible effects on fantasy novel Vampires if they had the bad taste to
bite a person with allergies. Elysa's thoughts turned to a self-medicated allergy sufferer.

I did some research on the internet, and discovered that it might be very amusing to afflict the Vamp with uncontrollable itching. Unusual levels of histamine can do that, I read (I hasten to add).

http://www.allergyescape.com/allergy-medication.html

Now, here's my fuzzy bit. I know that I remember seeing somewhere that just as anti-histamines dull the brain, histamines sharpen it. 

Off topic thought, more suitable to be put into the minds of one of my arrogant aliens. Maybe there would be less AD if there were less self-medicating, and less use of Benadryl and its like by parents for their own social convenience.

I've also read that allergies happen when the body's defenses make a mistake, and preemptively attack something that is not a threat.

And, I'm sure I remember reading, probably in DISCOVER magazine, that we are constantly evolving and mutating, but not all mutations are timely or successful. However, there might come a time when a small group of people who have suffered and been sigmatized all their lives for one allergy or another might save the human race.

Maybe, like the appendix in our guts (which used to be cavaliery removed because doctors did not know what it was for) the allergic among us will be the source of a serum or antibody or antidote.

Meanwhile, it would be really nice to know that while FEMA is stockpiling supplies in the expectation of another disaster, that they have catered (literally) for the one in one hundred citizens who suffer serious, life-threatening food allergies.