The Media Who Cried Flu

During the early stages of reporting about this new swine flu pandemic, I found myself not paying much attention. It seems that every few years now the media is trotting out stories about some new germ or virus that will destroy us all. Remember SARS? Recall the unease over the avian flu? You barely hear about them now. Heck, I rarely hear about AIDS anymore and that actually killed people I knew. Every time I checked the news online, multiple headlines were dealing with the swine flu (CNN had 3-4 swine flu headlines running at the same time at one point). There were news stories about how handshaking might become a thing of the past because now there is SWINE FLU! Swine flu was going to change the way we lived forever.

Even with two young kids to worry about, I found myself disinterested in the swine flu stories and unable to take them seriously. Our news media has cried wolf too many times for me to take them seriously about something like this. They are so quick to spread fearful stories before getting all the facts. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later, news stories come out that the swine flu is no worse than (gasp) the regular plain old flu which kills 36,000 Americans a year. In other words... no need to panic. It's not a good thing, but your world isn't going to turn into Stephen King's The Stand either.

One last gasp of the swine flu story is that it might combine with the avian flu (see story here) I think that we should call the avian/swine flu offspring "flying pig flu." It will at least make it more entertaining when the media is trying to panic its audience.

Moved

Sorry about the long pause between blogs. Due to changes at Kristy's job, we are in the process of moving back home to Rochester, NY. Currently the kids and I are living at my mother's house, while Kristy ties up loose ends back in the Ithaca area (packing, getting the house ready for sale). It is great to be back home in Rochester. We just wish the move could have been more planned and less jarring.

I've already managed to secure part-time employment through former employers of mine here in Rochester. I'm still hunting for full-time employment. The change has been stressful for everyone, including my mother. We're grateful for the temporary place to stay while we get our family set-up out here. The first order of business for me was getting Kyra registered for Pre-K. I just barely made the deadline. So hopefully she's able to attend and the classes aren't full already.

It has gotten me thinking about how many films (including horror films) start with the same situation: Kids suddenly finding themselves moving into a relative's home. Luckily for my children, Rochester has fewer vampires than Santa Carla. However, it does have more were-sloths than any other city per capita. Hence the title of my new horror film, The Sloth Boys. With their current careers, I could probably afford to cast Corey Haim and Corey Feldman in it too.