*violence*

[kellan_the_tabby]

Seems certain folks are using H1N1 as an excuse to be crappy to their fellow man.

"No contact anywhere with an illegal alien!" conservative talk show host Michael Savage advised his U.S. listeners this week on how to avoid the swine flu. "And that starts in the restaurants" where he said, you "don't know if they wipe their behinds with their hands!"

Yeah! It's all Their fault!

*eyeroll*

And of course it's hurting folks who, I assure you, have _nothing_ to do with H1N1...

Jennifer Pesqueira, whose family has owned and operated El Indio Mexican restaurants in San Diego since 1940, said her business has seen a 20 percent drop in business since the outbreak began.

I vote we all go out for Mexican food a couple times this weekend. I believe this is our civic duty.

Comments

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

I was bummed. A. and I went out to Tippy's on Monday. I was bummed that they only have beef and chicken. I'm thinking Anita's for a lunch of Carne Adovada, Sunday.

[kellan_the_tabby]

Because pigs need love too!

...err, I mean, um.

Yeah.

[whouseknecht.livejournal.com]

sigh

Unfortunately, foaming rhetoric aside, a large number of restaurant workers from Mexico and Central America are illegal immigrants. They benefit from being out-of-sight, so their presence goes mostly unnoticed.

I'm not saying don't eat at Mexican restaurants, just don't take the attitude that this is silly. The concern may be negligible, but do not imagine that it's non-existent.

[kellan_the_tabby]

Illegal immigrants, yeah. Doesn't mean they don't know to wash their hands before they start cooking.

[whouseknecht.livejournal.com]

I'm certain that they do. However, I'm also certain that such persons will be showing up for work day in and day out regardless of how well they feel, since they're in such precarious positions. They can wash their hands all they want and wear all the gloves they need and still cause a problem with a sneeze or a cough.

[kellan_the_tabby]

This is also true of people who work at Walmart. And I'm sure that's not the only place.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

It's true of pretty much anyone, legal or not, white or not, in a minimum-wage job. It's true of a lot of people not in minimum wage jobs--students, for example, and office workers. U.S. culture encourages people to go to work and school sick instead of staying home and getting better, and I'm more likely to get sick this time of year from a passing undergraduate (it being Boulder, probably white) coughing in my vicinity than eating at a restaurant.

(The undergraduates are sick all over the place right now, but we're heading into finals, so NO ONE is staying home. Also, I cannot believe how many people of all races DO NOT WASH THEIR HANDS in public restrooms ew ew ew. Basically, lots of people people are gross disease-carriers and I'm not going to worry more about one group than another.)

[danabren.livejournal.com]

I worked in a hospital, where on our first day we had mandatory training in how to wash our hands (even though we were working in the biling services area).

And yet... soooo many of the actual medical staff were lax about washing their hands. It was fairly appalling.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

I read an essay by someone (Atul Gawande, maybe?) about experiments in handwashing enforcement in hospitals. It's a HUGE problem because people are so busy but not washing hands between patients can be disastrous. One of those low-tech problems that kills a lot of patients every year.

fast food

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

i will state that a kitchen prep cook, or dishwasher sneezing or coughing isnt likely to infect YOU, the customer.
the food is COOKED after they handle it, srsly....
the line packager, or front line people who grab the food and bag it are an issue...
the other problem for customers is the front line folks and the folks who handle the cooked food, handle your bills and change, and talk face to face with you

and they are more likely to catch the flu from the customers and pass it on back to the kitchen staff, rather than the other way around.

Re: fast food

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely. I'm really not particularly inclined to be extra-paranoid about getting flu at restaurants (although there was a Hep B scare at a restaurant my parents used to eat at when one of the dishwashers was diagnosed, but that's a bit different), and I've only had food poisoning once or twice. There are plenty of ways to get exposed to flu all the time.

[wulfsdottir.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I've seen some of our law students walk out of the library, sneeze into their hand, then reach into the treat basket on the circ desk...with the same hand.

I eat nothing from that basket.

[nazrynn.livejournal.com]

Or don't assume that they are all plague-carriers. One would assume that these workers have been in the country for long enough, and unless they _have_ recently traveled to Mexico, for whatever reasoning, there's no reason to go all panicky.

And I do not doubt for a second that other Latino-Americans are going to catch flak in some form or another, because some people are just that dumb/racist enough to believe a skin color will tell them everything they need to know about that person. *eyeroll*


Were it not for the fact that Greg's throat is killing him, I'd be in a mood to buy some Mexican or Latino food for us for dinner, too. Instead, I may suggest a ham sandwich, since there seems to be sufficient paranoia about pork products, too.

[kellan_the_tabby]

Ham sandwich FTW!

(Off to wash hands, having been reminded...)

[nazrynn.livejournal.com]

Y'know, we have salted pork, a la chili flavored bacon, in the fridge.... :)

mmmm. Bacon..... NOM.

[danabren.livejournal.com]

Cyborg and I went out for Mexican on Wednesday.

And it was NOMNOMNOM

[nazrynn.livejournal.com]

Icon love!

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

I wasn't thrilled by Israel's health minister saying we should call it "Mexican flu" because pigs are offensive to Jews and Muslims. Yeah, because it's a special strain of flu that developed in Mexicans? OH WAIT IT'S NOT IT'S FROM PIGS.

Also, you can't get it from eating pork.

Maybe I'll walk over to 3M for lunch....

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

oh thats just ... stupid

[brat-grrl.livejournal.com]

...

I... wow. I cant' even comment in regards to the article. That makes me sick.

1. Wash your damn hands.
2. DON'T touch your face.
3. Sneeze/Cough INTO your Arm! (ie: don't get it on your hands to spread via contact.

*sigh* A lot of corporate cultures, even ones that aren't minimum wage don't encourage folks to stay home when they are sick.

Working for IBM as a Contract (ie: Not a REAL employee!) I didn't have paid time off. AT ALL! If I didn't show up because I was sick, I did NOT get paid.

Pretty gnarly, and pretty sad too.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

*sigh* A lot of corporate cultures, even ones that aren't minimum wage don't encourage folks to stay home when they are sick.

This.

And the "work from home if possible" makes me eyeroll, because that's a luxury available to what, a teeny fraction of the working population? And even if you're working from home, you still need to run errands.

[nazrynn.livejournal.com]

And even if you're working from home, you still need to run errands.

Right, and if you're in a situation like ours (my husband works from home), even though he may be *mostly* quarrantined, that gets blown to kingdom come, the moment I come home from my job carrying someone else's airborne germs (from the office, supermarket, post office, deli, etc.).

[whouseknecht.livejournal.com]

Perhaps this sums things up best:

catch some plague (http://syndicated.livejournal.com/pfsc/72442.html)

[pedropadrao.livejournal.com]

Sheesh. If Devora & I hadn't already had supper, we'd have done just that.

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

the odd thing is......
speaking as someone who has worked in food service (at Baja Fresh, in fact) and reads about and works with restaurant folks everywhere...

all restaurants, even the high end french ones... have immigrant labor (usually s american) in the kitchens.
you are no more likely to get a "mexican" kitchen prep cook in a mexican restaurant than in an Italian or French one.

at Baja most of our immigrant labor was Bolivian, if i recall correctly.

snort
you want to avoid illegal immigrants? avoid all restaurants. except the ones run by a family. and maybe a kosher one
maybe
avoid anything where the jobs dont pay well, the hours are long, etc......
avoid all cheap chain stores, all food service, all cleaning service, all janitorial services, all day care workers, and all farming...

shya.. right

and besides, a lot fo the cases we have here in the usa were brought in by american citizens, often WHITE citizens, who went someplace on vacation....

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

If I were in San Diego, I'd go eat at Roberto's. Great local... well, not a chain really, the corporate details are, er, messy. No matter. Facilities look like hell, it's all about the food. And a lot of their locations are open all night.