El Outbreak

"Mexican officials are asking citizens to avoid large crowds, refrain from kissing as a greeting and maintain a distance of at least 1.8 meters (six feet) from each other amid growing concern in the country and elsewhere over new cases of suspected and confirmed swine flu infection."

And so the plague has come to Mexico, and it has spread to the U.S., and maybe those crackpots saying that everything will end by December of 2012 are not to be so quickly dismissed.

If you go to the front page of the main Mexican newspaper, you are greeted by a collection of headlines that seem more appropriate for the opening scenes of a Will Smith movie.

The health department has been given emergency powers to run the country. They've shut down concerts, malls, and restaurants. Every public gathering has been canceled. There will be no school for a week anywhere. Today, on Sunday, people are looking around the house, wondering what the heck to do with themselves. The two things Mexicans do on Sunday -- go to church and/or soccer games -- cannot be done today.

Not only that, but the fact that you can access those articles is alarming in and of itself. In Mexico, the newspapers aren't in as much trouble as they are here in the U.S., simply because, when the interwebs started, the powers that be decided that their content wouldn't be free online. If you want to read the newspaper on your computer, you have to pay.

Today, they have taken those restrictions off in the interest of disseminating information.

Authorities seem to me like the little dutch boy with his finger stoppering up the dam. They are instructing people in the art of sneezing and handing out surgical masks to residents. This strikes me as Wile. E. Coyote opening an umbrella when he sees the anvil rushing down to meet him.

If you see people sneezing today, it's either the product of cocaine or of the new plague. So it's
probably safe to blame us. Sorry.

I was exploring the possibility of going home for a couple of weeks after finals are done, but it seems that I'd only go back to find my family turned into vampire cannibals who are trying to eat Will Smith.

Rest assured that I'm doing everything in my power to get them to go after Carrot Top instead.