Across Difficult Country

Last week bandits in Guinea stole vials of Ebola infected blood . Were I not preoccupied with a multitude of existing charity efforts I would create and distribute an infographic illustrating items Guinean bandits should steal (cash, jewels, gold bars, etc.), and items Guinean bandits should not steal (old couches, gum wrappers, rocks, vials of Ebola infected blood, etc.).

To atone for telling Ebola jokes I've pledged to mail a copy of the " We Are The World, We Are Ebola " song to anyone who (1) writes me a letter requesting it; and (2) is currently infected with Ebola. Update: The deal is off, it turns out "We Are The World, We Are Ebola" is unavailable on vinyl, and vinyl is my preferred format for charity singles I mail to diseased strangers.

The Ferguson verdict to be announced soon , and I have offered to go there and run over rioters with one of those armored vehicles police need now because society is collapsing. I mention this because I’m often accused of not being civic-minded.

Send Ebola patients to the aspiring Gulag of Winchester, Massachusetts : Popping by the store for a pack of smokes may soon be a thing of the past in a central Massachusetts town, which is mulling an outright ban on the sale of all tobacco products within city limits. If approved, it would be the first such ban in the US. Board of Health officials in Winchester, Massachusetts, a small town of 7,700, are set to hold a public hearing to discuss the proposed tobacco ban with townspeople on Wednesday, AP reports. Town health agent Elizabeth Swedberg, a proponent of the ban, believes it is a reasonable response to a frustrating and persistent problem.  It’s not as if they could refuse: unlike smoking, Ebola is one’s own private business. Why does a town of 7,700 people have its own "health agent"? If any Winchesterites are reading this, I urge you to throw eggs and small dead animals at Elizabeth Swedberg's house until she resigns in shame