Swine time

It's apparently time to get worked up about the flu again. Every few years, this seems to surface as one of the media-approved fears we're supposed to obsess about. This year, Mexican Swine Flu has joined the economies, global warming, the fate of Gitmo prisoners, and the injustice of male-only golf clubs on that list. Yes, it's not every flu epidemic that features the President as Patient Zero, but I'm still not convinced that Captain Trips is upon us.

I'm still waiting for that Chinese Bird Flu that was supposed to kill us all a few years ago. I guess that will roll in around the time we hit Peak Oil, are overrun by Africanized bees, and experience mass starvation in Europe due to overpopulation.

The news media have yet to fill the vacuum left by the demise of Mutually Assured Destruction and all the other Cold War hi-jinx. They seem to think that the best way to sell newspapers is to constantly scare the shit out of weak-minded fools. We at the Closet Moderate know, as do all educated people, that the real fear about which Americans should be obsessed is not swine, or Mexicans, or flu, but that which all men fear deep in their hearts: zombies. Let the suckers get their flu shots this weekend; I'll be updating my house's zombie defense systems.