Have You Hugged Your Hog Today?

Just yesterday I was complaining about the lack of hard news in newspapers. Today, I have to bring you proof positive of what should be the biggest non-story of the week and it's only Sunday!

First, I had to laugh at the picture I found when looking for a huggable "swine". What better than one hugging a little Chinese girl. Think Hong Kong, where the current Director General of the WHO, served as a civil servant. Think Hong Kong where masked police (I love the irony) were holding guests captive in their hotels because one guest had flu symptoms.

Now we're being told the pandemic is easing, people are on the mend. Take an aspirin, drink plenty of water and rest. Go ahead and have pork chops for dinner tonight.

Wait! Are Canadian pork chops safe? Hmmm. According to an AP story in today's Spokesman Review pigs on a Canadian farm may have been infected by.......a farmer!

The poor pigs can't win! The farmhand had been vacationing in Mexico and obviously came back with the bug. He's recovering nicely, no doubt after having taken his aspirin, water and rest. If no one panics the pigs should too recover. According to Slate, pig mortality rates from the flu are far lower than human.

I got to thinking we should treat our snouted friends with a bit more respect. After all, many tests are done on pigs before humans because of similarities between the species. How many of us have heart valves from pigs pulsing away in our chests? At times I am ashamed that I so love bacon and ham!

This is the time to put the media to the test. Slate tells us pigs get the flu much like we humans do - from sneezes and coughs from other pigs. They get a fever, cough, their eyes and noses run; they sneeze. They just plain don't feel good and are put in isolation where they'll recover in about a week with proper rest and hydration. Sound familiar? We could pop them an aspirin to speed up recovery but we really need to keep the farmhands out of the pen!

We are told the WHO insists there is no evidence pigs are passing the virus to humans or that eating pork products puts anyone at risk so basically this should be a non-story. That it made the paper, however, makes it a story. It will be interesting to see if it remains an AP filler story on page 5 or if it becomes headline news!

The Great Crash Of 2009!

I hadn't finished my first cup of coffee this morning. I had finished both the morning papers. There just wasn't enough in them to keep me busy. I don't read the want ads which are skimpy at best. I avoid the obituaries like the plague and the stories pulled from the wire services are at least a day old if not more.

The only regional newspaper has completely eliminated the northern Idaho edition and stories in the local daily are mostly that - local. Unfortunately, things that would be of interest like city council meetings or commissioners' meetings are rarely covered. We get more coverage of Chamber of Commerce ribbon cuttings and photos of social events than hard news.

Newspapers have become an endangered species. Advertising revenues are way down. The cycle has become self perpetuating. Okay. Enjoying the papers with my morning coffee may now be a generational phenomenon. Who else has the time to spend an hour or so reading a paper from cover to cover other than retirees?

So what do you do? Turn to TV news? Living in a small market, viewers are at a disadvantage to begin with. We tend to get inexperienced young reporters who's names we've barely learned before they, if they're any good at all, move on to larger markets. We get those left behind and their lack of reporting skills leave us more often in the dark than not. I can't help but question their financial woes when we're told a news crew is being dispatched to the scene of an accident hours after it has happened. On the next newscast we get to watch a reporter standing on an empty stretch of highway explaining to us what had happened hours before. Go figure.

Now advertising revenue is down for the broadcast media. Is it any wonder? Just this last week there was a story in the Inlander regarding substantial layoffs at the local CBS affiliate. They've cut mostly behind the scenes personnel, including producers. You know, the very people who make the newscasts work!

Even the network news has become little more than a recap of the day's headlines. As for cable, you'd have to watch a full slate of both FOX and MSNBC to get both sides of what's happening then figure out where the middle is and you may have an approximate idea of reality.

That leaves the computer. The papers have their blogs and on line editions, the TV stations have their blogs and on line editions and the Internet has it all.

Who has time to sort through all of it? I do but I won't. There are too many other things to do! Too many bloggers already spend too much time at work on line; I've never understood that!

I'm lucky. I have a Mac. Mac's rarely crash. Hub runs Windows and has spent the last three days sorting out a problem. During that time he had to read his headlines and papers on my computer. If it should crash - or the whole Internet should go down as it does more often than is convenient with our local Time Warner, how does one stay informed?

It has become a downward spiral that reminds me of a tornado. At the very bottom there is nothing left except the devastation. The remnants will be an uninformed populace.

Who will know? How will they find out?

I'm already devastated and it's only because I have too much coffee to drink with my papers. I can make a smaller pot. I'll really be devastated when there is no reason to brew a pot at all!

How's Old Fuzzy Face?

You may have noticed the lack of an update last week. I have gotten to the point where these weekly reports on his condition have become too difficult. He's still doing relatively well; he's eating, he's getting his meds and he still climbs onto my lap in the evenings to watch television. We don't walk so much any more.

He's slowing down. Heart problems aside, he's an old man and doesn't always feel like romping. So he sleeps. For those of you have been so kind and care about him, I'll keep you posted as to how he's doing. Whether or not there will be any more videos remains to be seen and the updates will no longer come every week. When things are going bad for him, I'm worse. Trying to mask anxiety is becoming too difficult.

Next week we go to WSU to have his monitor read once again and see if his meds need to be adjusted. Other than that we just serenely drift through our daily routine. A neighbor visited last Sunday and he nearly had another episode. We calmed him down but it took him time to recover. It took me longer. Therein lies the problem. The roller coaster ride is not one I handle well.

So Friday I'm off to a hand surgeon to see about getting a cyst removed from a finger on my "mouse" hand. It has had a spurt of growth and snags on everything. Yuck! I have to start taking better of myself to better care for the men in my life. For all they've both given me, it's the least I can do!

In lieu of my usual video of a raptor from WSU I've been alerted to this one. An eagle's nest in BC with live video. One egg has hatched, by the time you watch maybe both. It's heartwarming and beautiful. Bookmark it or whatever if you like this sort of thing and come back often.

A Man True To Himself...But Who Else?

The Democrats are riding high. Maybe too high. If they take a fall you'll hear the thump throughout the world.

Obama has received high marks for his first 100 days. Even I will give him between a C and a C+. Al Franken will take the open Minnesota Senate seat in short order and Arlen Specter has switched parties. The Democrats will have the crucial filibuster proof 60 seats. The Republicans continue to bluster and fumble. The country will be at the mercy of the Democratic agenda. What I'm unsure of is if it's Obama's agenda or the Emanuel/Pelosi/Reid agenda. That does worry me for there are differences.

The euphoria may be short lived. Until the Republicans get their act together it matters little they still have centrist/mavericks among their numbers: Susan Collins and Olympia Snow of Maine, George Voinovich, Ohio and of course maverick in chief John McCain. I do give them credit for party loyalty. There will never be change if every one defects.

On the Democratic side, however, you have the Blue Dogs, Joe Lieberman and now Arlen Specter. None of their votes can be guaranteed.

Switching parties is nothing new. In some respects I admire Specter's candor in stating that he knows he'd have a tough Republican primary challenge from Representative Pat Toomey. Spector beat Toomey in 2004 by a mere 2%.

One would have to consider his age. Seventy eight to Toomey's forty seven. And his health - two bouts with Hodgkins disease in 2005 and again in 2008. Running again in another year may be moot.

What bothers me most about Mr. Specter's move is one statement he made, "I am not prepared to have my 29 years record in the United States Senate decided by the Pennsylvania Republican primary."

That is about as self-serving a statement as can be made. It will be interesting to see how the people of Pennsylvania feel.

The Great Equalizer!

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon looking for an illustration of the Swine Flu virus. Variations of the same theme kept coming up - a combination of the swine flu paired with the avian flu. It also illustrates when you should take this post seriously.

The poor maligned pig. For some time now pigs, along with their fellow barn yard companions, are being blamed for our noxious gas problem. Now they carry a flu strain, along with one carried by another of it's barn yard companions, that's creating havoc around the world. In the name of differentiating it from the "bird" flu, researchers dubbed it the "swine" flu.

Who ever would have thought a name would cause such an uproar! Even more, who would ever have thought doing so would have given the United States common ground with both the Muslim and Jewish communities! An Israeli health official wanted to rename it the "Mexican" flu, not so much because it has been the area hardest hit, but because both the Jewish and Muslims consider pigs unclean and are forbidden to eat it. This was perceived as an insult! I don't quite get the connection, but then, that's me! Needless to say the Mexicans weren't too keen on the idea; they're taking it on the chin pretty hard as is with their drug wars.

Then the good old US of A chimed in. Realizing it was not a good idea to besmirch entire nations, they found themselves in a quandary. You see, by calling it the swine flu it could have devastating effects on our pork industry especially when people are having a hard enough time bringing home the bacon. What to do!

In their infinite wisdom they cam up with a pretty innocuous identifier. H1N1 . There is an H and an N in all flu viruses and the fact that there is already a human strain H1N1 makes things a little confusing, but then who's asking?

Maybe I've been underestimating the power of the Obama administration's silvery tongue. Change the name, fuzzy up the context and put everyone at ease. I expect it will work as well as changing the term "Global War on Terror" to the "Overseas Contingency Operation." Change the name, fuzzy up the context and put everyone at ease.

Nope. Won't work. Think "Freedom Fries"!