kimberly walker
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Amid fears of an approaching apork-
alypse, the most contagious disease
this week -- at least for a small, hyper-
aware portion of the population was
paranoia. It struck locations such as
Union Station’s Tsch-
iffely Pharmacy, where
containers of hand
sanitizer were moved
from the back shelf to
the front cash regis-
ter. Travel-size bottles
sold out yesterday; the
store was also doing
brisk business in hospital masks. But
such visible symptoms of this para-
noia epidemic, which is contracted
mainly through newspapers, Twitter
postings and lunchroom gossip, were
far less prevalent than the interior
monologues that plagued the afflicted.
“Last night, the woman sleeping below
me had a horrible cough,” says Melissa
Ewbank, a tourist visiting Washington
from England and staying in a hostel.
“Normally, you’d just think that was
annoying, but this time I thought, ‘Ugh,
I hope that’s not . . .’ “
“I looked at the Metro poles this morn-
ing,” says Tracie Towner, a Washington
accountant. Really gave them a good,
hard look, as she had never had cause
to do before. “And thought, ewww, do
I really want to touch those with my
hands?” She got into work and learned
that a similarly concerned office fairy
had placed a bottle of hand sanitizer
in every cubicle.
It’s so easy to contract paranoia.
It just takes one errant glance at a
headline before you begin thinking,
Has co-worker Bob always had al-
lergies? He says it’s allergies, but . . .
didn’t he honeymoon in Mexico? Why is
he HERE, breathing all over the
place?! I hate Bob. We are being
ridiculous. We know we are being
ridiculous. We cannot
stop being ridiculous.
But with each new
reported case of the
flu, an old germa-
phobe is validated,
and a new one is born.
“I went and looked
up my symptoms
about an hour ago,” says Matthew
Baldwin, We are being ridiculous.
We know we are being ridiculous.
// Continued on A2
Doctors have not been the only ones critical of the government response. The situation is completely overblown.
A women in New York City shields herself from the ‘pandemic’
Mary Travers, whose ringing,
earnest vocals with the folk trio
Peter, Paul and Mary made songs
like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “If I
Had a Hammer” and “Where Have
All the Flowers Gone?” enduring
anthems of the 1960s protest
movement, died on Wednesday at
Danbury Hospital in Connecticut.
She was 72.
The cause was complications
from chemotherapy associated
with a bone-marrow transplant
she had several years ago after de-
veloping leukemia, said Heather
Lylis, a spokeswoman.
Ms. Travers brought a powerful
voice and an unfeigned urgency to
music that resonated with main-
stream listeners. With her straight
blond hair and willowy figure and
two bearded guitar players by her
side, she looked exactly like what
she was, a Greenwich Villager
directly from the clubs and the
coffeehouses that nourished the
folk-music revival.
“She was obviously the sex ap-
peal of that group, and that group
was the sex appeal of the move-
ment,” said Elijah Wald, a folk-
blues musician and a historian of
popular music.
Ms. Travers’s voice blended
seamlessly with those of her col-
leagues // Continued on B4
Seven months after taking office, At-
torney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is re-
shaping the Justice Department’s Civil
Rights Division by pushing it back into
some of the most important areas of
American political life, including vot-
ing rights, housing, employment, bank
lending practices and redistricting
after the 2010 census.
As part of this shift, the Obama ad-
ministration is planning a major revival
of high-impact civil rights enforcement
against policies, in areas ranging from
housing to hiring, where statistics show
that minorities fare disproportionately
poorly. President George W. Bush’s
appointees had discouraged such tac-
tics, preferring to focus on individual
cases in which there is evidence of
intentional discrimination.
To bolster a unit that has been bat-
tered by heavy turnover and a scandal
over politically tinged hiring under the
Bush administration, the Obama White
House has also proposed a hiring spree
that would swell the ranks of several
hundred civil rights lawyers with more
than 50 additional lawyers.
Mr. Holder said in an interview.
“But it’s really only a start. I think the
wounds that were inflicted on this divi-
sion were deep, and it will take some
time for them // Continued on B2
Germs? The Real Contagion, Paranoia.
Justice Department to Recharge Civil Rights Enforcement Written By: Bob Writer
Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary Dies at 72Written By: Will Grimes
THE BALTIMORE SUNover 1 million readers baltimoresun.comMonday September 12, 2009
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Written By: Monica Hesse