Me: I read in the newspaper that business at Chinese restaurants in San Francisco is way down because people are scared of catching SARS from the Mu-Shu Pork. So I stopped at Uncle Yu's and bought take-out food to counteract this trend.
Ann Marie: Good job! As a way of turning a lazy desire not to cook into a social virtue, that one rates on eight on a ten-point scale.
Posted by DeLong at May 6, 2003 09:38 PM | TrackBack
For another social conscious as a way to avoid cooking, there is a good Afghan resteraunt in the Emeryville Public Market.
Posted by: adam on May 6, 2003 10:34 PMI bought French Fries and French wine (same day, different meal) after a peace march in D.C. Needed to counteract some stupidity that was going on.
Posted by: Bill on May 7, 2003 06:26 AMI bought French Fries and French wine (same day, different meal) after a peace march in D.C. Needed to counteract some stupidity that was going on.
Posted by: Bill on May 7, 2003 06:29 AMI bought French Fries and French wine (same day, different meal) after a peace march in D.C. Needed to counteract some stupidity that was going on.
Posted by: Bill on May 7, 2003 06:31 AMDavid Baltimore (Nobel prize, Medicine) has pointed out that one has a much greater chance of being killed while driving to and from a Chinese restaurant (even in Toronto) than of catching SARS while enjoying a nice leisurely meal there. So since you incurred the real risk anyhow, why settle for takeout?
To put things in perpspective, Baltimore notes that while SARS has killed about 350 people worldwide to date, malaria kills 3,000 people every day and old-fashioned run-of-the-mill 'flu kills 20,000 Americans annually.
In light the hugely disproportionate political and economic effects SARS has had relative to its tiny objective health effect when compared to other diseases (even in China) he has dubbed it a "media virus". It may present lessons regarding group behavior and how people judge risk that will be more important to the politics and economics of 21st Century media society than finding an effective treatment for it will be to medicine.
Posted by: Jim Glass on May 7, 2003 10:00 AM