I’ve developed a new philosophy . . . I only dread one day at a time. — comic-strip philosopher Charlie Brown
I’m trying very hard to panic, but somehow I can’t quite pull it off. The world, if you’ve noticed, was already going to hell in a nonhybrid- Chrysler-built-bankruptcy-bound handbasket — and then the pigs attacked. And not just any pigs, but Mexican pigs, many of them probably in league with the drug cartels.
The obvious reaction, if you’re me, is to advise any and all readers to RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!! And, as I write this, I can only hope against hope that six exclamation points are sufficient.
Or I could just do a Joe “When You Do Run, Don’t Use Public Transportation” Biden and tell a national TV audience that I wouldn’t get on an airplane, I wouldn’t get on a subway, and I’m concerned about opening my big mouth because if someone sneezes in the next county and I inhale, then I’m a goner.
OK, it turns out Biden had to apologize, because apparently we don’t want to shut down the airlines and the subways and ferries and taxis and buses and Amtrak Metroliners, because, according to the experts, it wouldn’t do any good, and, apparently, nursing the car industry through bankruptcy is as many transportation-related crises as we can handle at one time.
And yet. Did you read the paper? Two — as in TWO!!!!!! — cases of swine flu have been reported in Colorado (and there are three other possibilities). One victim had been on a cruise in Mexico, and one was a baggage handler at DIA, meaning . . . meaning . . .
A) Add ships to Joe Biden’s fear- of-transportation list?
B) If you’re going to vacation, did you hear that Afghanistan is nice this time of year?
C) You’re stunned by the fact that any luggage actually gets to DIA, and, furthermore, you’re relieved knowing that by the time any baggage actually gets to you, the virus would be long dead anyway?
OK, I joke, but we’re just one alert level shy of a pandemic. Do you know what “pandemic” means? Whatever it is, it must be even worse than “epidemic.” I know it’s a word you’ll hear, again and again, from the guys on cable-TV news, which, unfortunately, already has to deal with the downgrade from swine flu to H1N1, whatever that is. As Simon Jenkins of the (London) Guardian put it, we’ve got “mad journalism disease.” If you’re forced to watch, it can’t hurt to wear a mask.
I know the panic has at least some people upset. Jon Stewart did a bit on “The Last 100 Days” — get it? — and warns that if it’s pigs one day, it could be dragons laying eggs in your heart the next.
And apparently, the pig industry has gone, uh, hog wild — I apologize; something (aah!) got into me — and is insisting that we call it something else because people have become afraid to eat their otherwise-great- for-you bacon. In Egypt, they apparently killed off 300,000 pigs, meaning, to date, H1N1 is far more dangerous to pigs than to humans — and let’s just hope it stays that way.
Of course, we should be cautious. I read that DPS has advised parents not to send their kids to school if they’re feverish, coughing or vomiting or have diarrhea, among other symptoms. That would be different, I guess, from all the other days when we routinely put our diarrheic, vomiting kids on the school bus and wave them goodbye.
But if you check my e-mail, or the comments on any swine-flu story, you’ll see that caution isn’t good enough, not when the real danger is — of course — illegal immigration and the threat of bioterrorism, the bio stuff apparently being grown on those NAFTA-friendly pig-farm factories. And when they tell us it’s basically prep-schoolers and tourists and Obama advance guys getting sick, well, what do they want us to think?
And when the acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says more people will likely die from H1N1 but notes that “on average, 36,000 people die from seasonal flu,” I just refer him to Joe Biden.
Panic? I’ll be honest. I could go all medieval on you here, but I won’t. And for that, I blame, of course, Barack Obama. Did you watch his news conference Wednesday night? Do you see why he drives the anti- Obama people crazy?
Everyone who wants to paint him as a wild-eyed radical has to deal with the calming, don’t-worry, I’ve- got-it-all-under-control Obama who keeps showing up on national television, if not necessarily on Fox.
When Obama was asked about the flu, he advised that it was “cause for deep concern but not panic.”
He did advise, however, covering your mouth when you cough, washing your hands, staying home when sick, keeping your kids home when they’re sick and otherwise not running for your lives.
I wish he’d offered one more bit of advice, which is to go, as one friend advised me, to the website .
Where (spoiler alert!), if you click in, it advises you:
Yes.
Panic.
Mike Littwin writes Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-5428 or mlittwin@denverpost.com
