Doug wrote Friday, September 02, 2005 3:19 PM Subject: [lbo-talk] Mike Davis, seer
<http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/09/09_414.html>
------------------------------------------ Davis is often a prescient observer of the world scene, as the article Doug posted indicates. Davis has recently published a book about the threat of avian flu: The Monster At the Door. I haven't yet purchased the book, but I have read several of Davis' online essays about the avian flu threat. This recent piece in the Nation details both the nature threat and the Bush Administration's miserable, pre-Katrina-like response to a possibly catastrophic pandemic.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050718/davis
If Tod's analysis of the Katrina catastrophe is correct (i.e., that the U.S is structurally incapable of responding competently to large-scale emergencies), then the feeble response to the Avian flu threat that Davis describes is unlikely to improve. If so, the next natural disaster might be much, much worse than Katrina. Something cheery to think about anyway.