Reflection: A Week of Downward-Spiraling Public Health News Culminating in Unexpected Adjustments

Please note: this is about the current widespread disease outbreak that is dominating the news. I will not mention the name of this disease or other common words used to describe its spread, because for good reason, popular search engines are cracking down on articles and videos other than those from official public health agencies and related well-established organizations to stop the spread of misinformation. I have no background in epidemiology or public health. This post is merely my musings about the last week, and the implications for my near-future plans. Please consult public health agencies and other governmental agencies for guidance regarding responses to this crisis.

This post is the first in a series of three posts about the end of my time as a PhD student in Princeton University (in this post henceforth referred to simply as "the university"). As a write this, I am still technically a PhD student enrolled full-time in the university. The second and third posts will be somewhat more traditional reflections for the end of my time, but this first one has been precipitated by the current public health crisis. Follow the jump to see more; it is effectively a chronological history of the developments of this crisis from my very narrow perspective, and my own (in hindsight, arguably delusional) reactions to these developments.

2012 Election

This is just a quick post that tomorrow is the 2012 election in the US. I have voted absentee from my home state. I know a lot of people who are apathetic about voting because they feel like in the face of large corporations and lobbyists, their votes don't mean much. I used to have an apathetic attitude like that too...until SOPA/PIPA got rejected. What I learned from that is that the people still matter; no matter how much corporations may support a particular agenda and no matter how much it seems like a local or state politician has been bought out by special interests, if people like us bombard them with letters to support a particular position that we want, the politicians will always come cowering to us rather than the lobbyists because it is our votes in an election that matter at the end of the day. In short, your vote does count, and democracy is not dead, so get out and vote!

Socialist Education! Oh noes!

The big news this week was President Obama's address to students of all ages and their parents about education.
The bigger news was that prominent Republicans were lambasting it before they even knew what it was going to say. They claimed that Obama was going to "indoctrinate" schoolchildren in "leftist socialist ideologies".
Then, of course, Obama gave his speech. It was a speech that made sense - it was about students taking responsibility for their own education and for them to keep trying at it even when the going gets tough.
There was no hint of liberal ideology. In fact, personal responsibility is something many (now deceased) rational conservatives used to espouse. They should be proud.
Furthermore, the same conservatives who blasted the speech prior to its delivery without any basis changed course and praised it afterwards without any apology for bad prior judgment.
Why is this?