I'm NOT Afraid of Some Swine!!

First I'd like to begin with a quote from good ol' Noam Chomsky

"You need something to frighten people with, to prevent them from paying attention to what's really happening to them."

That's from Chompsky's book The Common Good and every time I hear a bloody report about Swine Flu that quote echos in my head.

What great timing this pandemic had. We're in an economic crisis with banks failing, people losing their retirement not to mention their homes and jobs and I haven't even brushed the surface of all that is taking place internationally.

But stop the presses people are getting the flu and some are even dying of it!! Excuse me for asking but isn't there a strain of flu that goes around EVERY year? And aren't the young, the very old and those with significant health problems at risk of possibly dying from the flu virus EVERY year? So far the UK has had (gasp) over 30 people die from Swine Flu and almost every person who 'died from' the virus had pre-existing serious health problems. In addition (and correct me if I'm wrong) but wasn't there a Swine Flu scare back in the 70's? And what ever happened to SARS, MMR or Bird Flu? We were all significantly scared by those too but what was this fear really distracting us from?

Yesterday I actually thought I would go an entire day without hearing about Swine Flu in the news. I sat on my sofa with a fever hacking and wheezing with this COLD that I have (I'm not giving into the Swine Flu fad) and innocently watching the end of Midsomer Murders when the ITV News came on. It was three stories in, but there it was dammit! Doctors fear that fatal illnesses could be misdiagnosed over the telephone as Swine Flu. Well of course misdiagnosis of Swine Flu is happening! The hotline isn't being run entirely by medical professionals so wouldn't that be obvious?? Oh but just to make this really scary the news stories on this went on to tell the horrible personal stories of patients who almost died due to a Swine Flu misdiagnosis. So now not only do we have a pandemic on our hands but we've also got a hotline that misdiagnosis what cold be more serious and life threatening health issues as Swine Flu. BE AFRAID! BE VERY AFRAID!

Yes, Swine Flu is here and yes people are dying but as I said before most of these people had pre-existing serious health problems. Thus, if you're the average healthy person you don't need to tremble in fear of the Piggy Flu. Just do your best to remain healthy- there's probably no need for you to don a face mask, but do wash your hands a bit more. If you do get Swine Flu you'll probably just have cold like symptoms with a fever, which although annoying, won't kill you. If you've got a serious health condition or are the parent or caretaker of someone who has a health condition or is very young or old, then by all means do take all extra precautions to remain healthy and keep in contact with your GP. However, we need to cease getting caught up in the media frenzy over Swine Flu and allow it to distract us from what's really going on in the world.

I Have A Lot to Do Today

I just wanted you to know that I am not spending my Summer holiday just sitting in the sun or sitting on-line. I do have things to get done today.

1. Write Laura and wish her a happy birthday. She's one of my dearest friends from Seattle who moved to New Zealand shortly after I moved to Mexico. I've not seen her since her wedding many years ago and lately I've just been crap at keeping in touch with her (or anyone really, aside from writing this blog that is). I miss her loads and wish I could just pop around with a batch of brownies and spend the whole day with her catching up. Plus, I have yet to meet her daughter and that doubly breaks my heart. Happy Birthday Lars!

2. Sort my Kitchen. Gwen came by and dropped off a bunch of stuff yesterday since she's moving back to the states. These new (to me) items are better than what I currently have, but now my kitchen table looks like this.


There is no room in my cupboard presently, so I must rearrange and chuck some stuff out.

3. Sort my bedroom. I was so busy all last week and weekend that most of my clean clothes went straight to the drying rack to the chair in my bedroom and on my floor.
(I can't help but wonder if this pic is making Raechelle cringe.)
As you can see there is a thigh-master, which I recently acquired from the free table at work. I need to find a place for that which makes me actually use the thing. Also, my old broken hoover is there between the drying rack and chair. I replaced it months ago. All I have to do is take it to a charity shop, but I'm afraid they won't take my broken hoover. I'm fearful that the charity shop people will berate me for trying to push my broken junk off onto them. Surely someone can fix this hoover and use it again. It's a Bosch for crying out loud. Still, I tremble at the thought of a lecture by volunteers, who are obviously better than I am since they are donating their time to work at a charity shop. That yellow pile is my cycle jacket which fell to the floor from the drying rack just before I snapped this pic. I decided to let it stay as it added to the artistic effect of the picture. You could say the the yellow pile symbolises my yello-bellied fear of taking my hoover to the charity shop. I've given some serious consideration to just dropping my hoover outside the shop around midnight.

3. Tidy the rest of my flat. I don't think I need to take a pic of this as the bedroom chair and kitchen table tell the story. To be fair the rest of my flat isn't as bad and it's definitely been worse. What I really need to do is stop just throwing things down when I'm obsessively busy and actually take the small amount of time it takes to put things where they belong. I'll bet I'd be less stressed then as well.

4. Finish up Module 1 for my on-line course. It's not due until Monday, but I want to get it out of the way.

5. Go to Beka's students' exhibition. I'm quite curious to her students' art work.

6. Go to a talk about media development followed by Carolina's book launch. Of course Carolina will be speaking at this talk as well.

7. Write the next bit of My Luck with Cars and Boys.

And somewhere in the midst of all this, I have to find time to sit in the sun and read and get on line.

So, I best get started. I've got a big day ahead of me.