Bugs

Swine Flu.

Mention it, and you've got people's attention. Catch it, and you've got people's prayers, and quite possibly,  quarantine.

I'm very concerned about a pandemic virus ... but didn't we just do that a couple months ago? The upper respiratory distress, the horrific racking cough, the digestive upset, the fever, the aches, the chills, the exhaustion. "Everybody's getting it," my doctor had told me. "This one's odd in that it goes from viral to bacterial in a moment. Here's a prescription for antibiotics, use it only if you start some infection."

If everyone was getting it, and it was not the virus targeted by our flu shots ... then what was it? Were we the early victims of this virus after the populace's Christmas visits back and forth across the border brought it into our area, and just not tested because, hell, it's winter and everybody catches colds? Well, it wasn't just a cold, but what it was is unknown now. I just know we all got it, and four out of five of us had a bacterial infection in the course of the disease's run.

Now, however, we're supposed to worry about it. Sure we can do that. We can worry about a lot of stuff. We can worry about global warming, the incredible illiteracy of young adults, the bankruptcies of local governments, the rising crime rate as a result of economic downturn, the rise of mercury levels in sea fish, the death throes of America's auto industry. 

Jeeze, just wash your hands, and wear a damn mask, okay? And then stop buying more than you can use, stop using stuff that isn't recyclable, teach your kids to read, get off the credit card merry-go-round, sit out on your porches in the evenings to let thugs know you are aware of your neighborhood, don't make your kids eat fish -- they don't like it anyhow -- and just get your car serviced. All of the auto makers are still making parts. Don't buy new until they can come up with a vehicle that isn't an environment-killer.