Snopes, the Plague, and Ben Stein

This came up recently after talking to Katy about her dissertation on infectious (typically fatal) diseases. We'd discussed the merits of quarantining HIV/AIDS when it was in its infancy, and she convinced me that it wouldn't have been a good idea after all. The comparison was to the Black Plague, and the differences were that the Plague was visually recognizable and was fatal in a short timespan. HIV/AIDS is not outwardly visible and takes sometimes many years to kill, so quarantine is not feasible: There's no easy way to recognize the victims, and people don't want to go into quarantine so they wouldn't come out and say it. Anyway, I read up on the Black Plague on Wikipedia, and found out some stuff I didn't know, like there were three "varieties". The salient point was that the "Ring Around the Rosies" children's rhyme doesn't refer to the Plague, or so says Snopes, one of those myth debunker sites.

Another fun entry they had was a quote from Ben Stein regarding the state of America today where stupid celebreties are all-important and freedom of religion has gone out the window. There's one other one on the nature of stardom and role models that's worth reading. Ben Stein is cool.