Sri Yantra, a machine for meditation
Note: the base angle of the largest triangles is 51 degrees, the same as the Great Pyramid


"Fear is well known as a cement of societies." - Czeslaw Milosz

Ah, I feel much better. The United States Office of Personnel Management has issued guidelines to its agencies and employees on handling swine-sick people:
[Curiously, the link to this specific memorandum has been removed from the OPM's Chief Human Capital Officers Council website. Nevertheless, click the link, the CHCOC website is an interesting read, if only to check out the humorous government memorandums that are excreted from time to time.]

MEMORANDUM FOR HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
FROM:	John Berry Director
Subject:	Advice to Federal Employees and Agencies on Preventing the Spread of the Current Flu and Maintaining Readiness to Use HR Flexibilities if Necessary....

Guidance for Passive Surveillance

Should you encounter travelers who appear unwell, including those with a cough or apparent fever:

• Separate that individual to a private room or area maintaining six feet distance from employees and the public.
• After separating the traveler from others, the CDC quarantine station should be notified.
• To protect others, the ill traveler should wear a surgical mask.
• A room that separates the ill traveler from the airspace of others is preferred.

Additional Guidance for Employees Regarding Protecting Their Health

• CDC recommends that a distance of six feet should be maintained between all employees and someone who appears ill.
• The use of N95 masks is suggested if an employee must maintain closer contact than the six feet of distance.

One can only speculate how the federal employee will separate the traveler from others while maintaining "six feet of distance." Perhaps they keep their N95 masks at the ready so as to don them at the first sneeze. It is also amusing to note that our Vice President supposedly talked himself into deep shit when he said he was discouraging his family from taking public transportation (airplanes, trains) during the "crisis." But if this disease is a legitimate public threat his advice may be sagacious if now retracted.

"I would tell members of my family - and I have - I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now....It's not that it's going to Mexico - if you're in a confined aircraft and one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft. I would not be at this point, if [my family] had another way of transportation, [be] suggesting they ride the subway."- Vice President Joseph Biden on the NBC Today Show, April 30, 2009

"The original of all great and lasting societies consisted not in the mutual good will men had toward each other, but in the mutual fear they had of each other."-Thomas Hobbes