Swine Flu...Shit!

I'm not insensitive to this pending pandemic (today moved up to a rating of 5 out of a possible 6 for warnings--apparently "imminent"), but I'm also not allowing myself to get wound up in all the hoopla. Remember bird flu, SARS, etc? It was bad and I don't want to seem like a jackass, but I won't be taken in by the media's coverage. I will probably go as far as washing my hands a bit more (if that's possible), and perhaps admonishing coughers on the bus, but other than that...life goes on. If it get it and die...well, hindsight is 20/20. Right?

Watching NBC this evening, Michelle Kozinski (forgive me if I'm mispelling her name) was reporting from the apparent ground zero of this H1/P1/N1/LV-426 disease (whatever it's being called now...and if you get the LV-426 reference, I'll buy you a beer), a small farming village called La Gloria, Mexico, where the "patient zero" is running around; having recovered from his bout w/ this flu.

I find it hysterical that a possible start of this disease may have come from a hog farm near the village; where "open air waste lagoons" are the norm. But most of all, I love the fact that this farm, which produces a million or so hogs a year, is partially American owned...a company called Smithfield.

Why is this funny? Cuz so many Americans (including CNN's Lou Dobbs as an example) are suggesting border closing and other "solutions". Wouldn't it be funny if one of our US companies; working outside of our US borders, were a major cause of this "imminent" pandemic. To quote Bart Simpson, "the ironing is delicious".

Let me just close by saying that I am not happy that the cute little "Wilbur's" and "Babe's" of the world are getting the slack (i.e. being slaughtered) for this. It reminds me of the wolf @ Chicago's Brookfield Zoo which was killed after a lackluster, loser-ass parent allowed their small child to wander/fall, whatever it was, into the wolf's cage. The wolf attacked. I don't recall if the kid survived, but the wolf sure didn't. It was killed cuz of the incident. Cuz of human stupidity, animals have to suffer. Lame.

Finally, I can't let this go w/out mentioning my most hated Michele Bachmann. She made reference to the idea that President Obama had some connection to this pending pandemic. Okay. Well, that's that.