Three Little Pigs: Houses Under Quarantine

People are fucking dumb.

Either that, or their long-term memories reset every year.

For those of you who have been living in an isolated shed in the woods for the last week, the world has been inundated with reports of a swine flu pandemic around the world. It's a flu that is relatively common in pigs but rare in humans. Recently, however, humans have been getting a form of the swine flu, and people are losing their minds. Pictures are rolling in of Mexicans and Asians wearing dust masks (an image that always makes folks jumpy for some reason). Even the media usage of the word "pandemic" stirs up images of millions of mutating zombies coming to eat your brains.

This new disease, as the dangerously paranoid like to proclaim, could cause the downfall of western civilization as we know it. Why, it's just like the 1918 Flu Pandemic, it is! There have already been 153 deaths from it already. The humanity of it all!! It even comes from pigs!! The Jews were right; they're not kosher at all!! We're doomed! DOOOOMED!!!

Except that we're not.

Does no one remember the previous diseases that were apparently going to turn our organs into liquid and make our eyeballs bleed? SARS, Avian Flu, the Ebola Virus, West Nile Virus, and just plain old Smallpox have all given hypochondriacs a reason to cry themselves to sleep at night for the last several years. Though as you may have noticed, none of these dreaded pandemics ever caused any serious damage. We're still here, and we'll just have to wait for stupid people to shoot themselves in the face with nail guns in order to thin the population.

But THIS is DEFINITELY the diseases that will KILL US ALL!!!!

I'm afraid of mice, bugs, heights, and wild-eyed hillfolk, but even I'm not the least bit afraid of dying from the goddamn swine flu. If a pig is going to bring me down, it's going to be from eating too much bacon not because of some wonky flu bug.

The whole thing is an overblown mess anyway. These 153 deaths you keep hearing about are only the "suspected" deaths. That means that the doctors think that the swine flu may have been the culprit, but they don't know for sure. There are only eight confirmed swine flu deaths, and seven of those were in Mexico. The last was in the U.S. but that was a Mexican child who contracted the disease in Mexico. Let's get some perspective here. Every year approxomately 36,000 Americans die of the regular flu every year, and nobody gives a shit. I just learned that figure today, and I was floored. Sure the flu sucks, but I didn't realize that so many people actually DIED from it. Maybe in the future I won't roll around in my bed moaning, "Oh, just let me die!!" in a dramatic fashion whenever I get the flu.

It's not even technically the swine flu. It's just kinda-sorta associated somehow, but the name "swine flu" rolls off the tongue a lot more easily than "Influenza A Sub-type H1N1." And why the "swine" flu? What's wrong with the "pig flu" or "hog flu." How about the "porcine flu." Then everyone would have to crack a thesaurus before they panic.

Fun fact: you can't get the swine flu from eating pork. But people are so dumb and panicky that pork sales have nosedived due to people avoiding all pork products. I find this offensive. Take your insecurities and paranoid delusions out on loved ones and small animals... don't punish bacon!! What did it ever do to you? (You know... aside from the whole clogged arteries thing.)

What do doctors recommend for preventing the swine flu? They say you should wash your hands and avoid getting coughed on. In other words, keep doing your normal hygene routine. Unless you're an unkempt and germ-ridden dirtbag; in which case, start taking baths!

The swine flu will not kill you. Media induced panic probably will. Stop going nuts and eat a goddamn pork chop.

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"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."