Take Two Aspirin and Call Me in the Morning

Reuters reports farmers fear pigs might get “swine” flu from people. I must admit that headline made me laugh, but then upon reading further, I realized maybe I shouldn’t have. One Kansas hog farmer said he was banning visitors from his farm and anyone needing to be near the porkers had to submit to a sort of swine security clearance. A Purdue University veterinarian said, “Pigs get flu just like people get flu.” And an Iowa pork producer added, “It's a real issue. If the pigs get it, there isn’t much we can do. Water, aspirin, and bed rest, that’s all we’ve got.”

Last weekend when cable reporters were all over this story like hogs after slop (not that I think the media are swine), I dismissed the hubbub as more mass hysteria, whopped up by media with too much airtime on their hands. Could I have been wrong?

Here in the far reaches of Chicagoland, officials closed Batavia High School and a middle school on Thursday after suspected cases of H1N1 were discovered. The Batavia Park District canceled all programs and gatherings through Sunday for children, and suburban papers reported business at some Mexican restaurants was way off.

Over-hype or not, it’s too early to say. However, the economic consequences are real and there are sick folks out there. I’ve avoided the regular flu all season and just when I think the danger of that has passed, up pops the swine kind. As Rosanne Rosannadanna used to say, “It just goes to show you, Jane . . . it’s always something. If it isn’t one thing it’s another.”

Poetic Justice for Somali Pirates

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Five of the Somali pirates who released a hijacked oil-laden Saudi supertanker drowned with their share of a reported $3 million ransom after their small boat capsized, a pirate and a relative of one of the dead men said Saturday.

This is my nomination for the best example of poetic justice I’ve seen lately. Am I callous to feel this way?

I don’t think so.

We have a love/hate relationship with pirates. Whether it was Errol Flynn portraying a dashing and romantic pirate in movies of a bygone era like Captain Blood, Billy Zane’s creepy psycho pirate in Dead Calm, or a playful Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, we never expect to encounter a real pirate. Pirates are supposed to be entertaining, belonging these days in the world of fantasy.

So, I don’t really feel bad for thinking the way I do. Modern day pirates have sullied what had become a safe fantasy and they got what they deserved.

Hindsight, Foresight & A Troubled Mind at Virginia Tech

I’ll leave the blaming to others, but the details now coming out about the shooter at Virginia Tech are indeed troubling and open the doors to much conversation about how society and our institutions should handle troubled individuals.

I don’t think anyone wants to go back to the days when we would lock a person suspected of having a mental problem away in a “Snake Pit” mental hospital never to be free again (The Snake Pit was a 1948 movie where Olivia de Havilland wakes up in a state insane asylum with no clue as to why she’s there). Yes, there are people who must be locked away to protect society and themselves, but today we are more apt to turn to pills and the family doctor to handle some rather serious mental health problems. And that’s if the problem is going to be addressed at all.

Pretty much the mantra has become, “if he’s no threat to himself or others.” Well, perhaps, it’s time to reevaluate this idea. Yes, I believe in a free society and an open society, and this is part of the troubling part. How do we get the help to people who don’t want it? At what point should we intervene? Must there first be a crisis? Most health insurance coverage limits mental health benefits. I think this is dangerous.

Right here in Alabama we had a federal court case, Wyatt v. Stickney, that largely influenced how states care for those with mental health problems. U. S. District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., for many years guided and watched over that case which set what’s been called the Wyatt Standards regarding the right to treatment: humane psychological and physical environments; qualified staff in numbers sufficient to administer adequate treatment; individualized treatment plans; and services in the least restrictive environment.

Court monitors, special masters and 33 years later, a predecessor of Judge Johnson’s finally felt that Alabama had done what the law and justice required. How ironic it is to me that Judge Johnson, the judge who took Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and applied its principles to civil rights case after case involving the Montgomery Bus Boycott, voting rights, the Ku Klux Klan, the Selma to Montgomery March, Freedom Riders and so on, lost his own 28-year-old son to suicide, coming after years of harassment over his father’s high profile decisions.

I don’t have the answer. But we need to be thinking about this.

A Great Little Sucker-Upper

I love my Oreck upright vacuum cleaner. When we bought it a few years ago, it came with the Oreck Super-Deluxe Compact Canister Vacuum and a cordless iron. I love the compact vac for a reason Mr. Oreck probably doesn’t promote. Yes, it comes in handy to clean up the paint chips and dust I’ve been kicking up around the house. But my favorite thing to suck up with the little cleaner is wasps. Sometimes I leave the door open and with no screen doors, invariably a big fat wasp finds its way in. Then, I have to think about exactly how close to I want to get to the creature to kill it. Is it death by smacking it with Time Magazine or a possible reprieve by sucking it up into the little vac’s bag? Kind of a catch and release. I’ve learned to carry the vac outside and leave it a while in case Mr. Wasp decides to crawl out the hose to freedom again inside. Yes, that did happen and I had to “catch” him again. So far I haven’t gotten stung and the little vac that’s “Strong Enough To Pick Up A 16-lb. Bowling Ball” has been mighty enough to pick up every wasp, fly, hornet, yellow jacket or big fly I’ve come across.

Notes From Tornado Alley

My heart is sad today as I wake up to news that at least eight teenagers died yesterday when Enterprise High School was hit by a tornado.

Earlier in the day, nearly everyone in Alabama was aware we were in for a bad weather day. Some school districts started the day by announcing school closings at noon. As the morning progressed, the clouds rolled, and we all stayed close to the television or radio. Shortly before noon, my own teenager called from school. “Mom, can I check out?” he asked. “Why don’t you wait a bit?” I replied. “The weather is getting bad and I don’t want to have to sit in the hallways all afternoon,” he said. So after checking with his law magnet teacher, he decided to leave with my permission. As he’s home safely napping, the tornado struck the hunkered-down teenagers in Enterprise, until now a little town known more for its statute of the Boll Weevil instead of the site of a devastating tornado.

All afternoon as we listened to our own tornado warning sirens blaring, we followed the story out of Enterprise. WSFA, one of our local stations, got their crew downstate while it was still daylight, and by the time of the Nightly News everyone in the nation could see the destruction. Luckily, the tornadoes that hit Montgomery County struck a mostly rural part of the area. Of course, if your house is blown away, it’s still blown away.

The problem with living in Tornado Alley is that now that the weather radar is more sophisticated, we get warnings anytime a rotation is noted. In our county, the whole county goes under a warning and it’s a large county. Only by watching the television weather trackers do we know for sure whether we should hit the deck or just remain watchful. We if closed our schools and dropped everything to hunker down in hallways and bathrooms, we’d be there a great deal of time from March to June. So, I don’t fault anyone at Enterprise High School for handling things as they did. We cannot win against nature.

photo of Enterprise tornado by John Dean

The Next Y2 Scare

Maybe this one will be the Big One. You know the one where the experts really do get it right in their dire predictions of turmoil and consternation. I’m talking about of all things Daylight Saving Time (DST). If you’ve been living your life and not paying much attention to the news lately, you might have missed this threat. Or maybe you were watching Anna Nichol Smith TV.

Anyway, DST will change this year. It starts on March 11, the day before my husband’s birthday. Meetings, calendars, travel arrival and departure times, bank transactions, cell phone peak hours, and other various and sundry time sensitive matters could be in trouble. CNET News has a good article to fill you in on the details. Me, I’m not going to sweat this one either.