Aporkalypse Now!

"This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but with an oink." - TS Eliot

Smoke 'em if you got 'em folks, because the end is nigh my friends, the end is nigh! That's right, we've had the first confirmed U.S. death in what some media sources are calling SNOUTBREAK '09!!!! I like to call it Aporkalypse Now. That's right, the Swine Flu has hit the US, and we're well on our way to a prickly pandemic of porkly proportions. The Avian Flu? HPV?? Those are so last year!

With 149 deaths in Mexico, the Swine Flu now ranks last in the list of things that can kill you in Mexico. The first three being 1. Bullets, 2. Cornballer Burns and 3. Asking that big guy over there if he's related to Ricky Martin.

News authorities have been on high alert, flooding the American public with more information than our greasy little brains can process. Every media outlet, from CNN to the Onion ("America's finest news source", yeah, only now that the Weekly World News is out of print), have been reporting on what they're calling a "frightening pandemic" and a "potentially devastating killer" saying that "the swine flu could wipe out tens of millions of people". At the same time though, you've got Anderson Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and some guy in a sailor uniform that looks oddly like Gopher from the Love Boat telling people not to panic, and saying "we don't want to freak people out about this". Huh?? As Jon Stewart so aptly said to the newsmakers "Do you even watch your own networks? You're the very reason we are freaking out!"

What's even better is that "legitimate" public figures are out there claiming that this flu strain could have it's roots in everything from bioterrorism to bestiality. Michael Savage, talk radio host and alarmingly moronic author of the book Psychological Nudity, states "Illegal aliens are bringing in a deadly new flue strain. Make no mistake about it." He can't even spell flu right! Which makes me just ask, btw, why are all the wack-jobs on talk radio? He continues "make no mistake about it, radical Islamic countries planted the virus in Mexico knowing that humans make the perfect mules for bringing the strain into America."

Yeah, because as 9/11 proved, getting their own people into the country is sooooo hard. Oh, and because Mexico City is just sooo close to the US border, that it shouldn't be a problem for inhabitants of a third world country, infected with a potentially deadly illness to travel hundreds of miles just to risk the dangers of trying to cross a border illegally.

Another talk radio prodigy, Neal Boortz blathers "What better way to sneak a virus into this country than to give to Mexicans, and then spread a rumor that there are construction jobs here, and boom, there they come." He forgot to mention fast food jobs, you don't want to forget those.

Speaking of fast food, Savage also stated that he planned on protecting himself by having "no contact anywhere you'd find illegal aliens, and that starts with restaurants." He called people who dine out "morons who eat in restaurants with illegal's all over the kitchen." Yeah, well you know Michael, we can't all make a living by spouting racist, ignorant and nearsighted comments on the radio airwaves.

Closer to home, a friend's husband, at the breakfast table the other morning, made an offhand comment about how things like this wouldn't happen if people would just stop having sex with animals. If that's the case, and like other diseases in the past, the Swine Flu is really a sexually transmitted disease, then how do you explain the Bird Flu? I may be a bit naive here, but I've never heard of anyone schtumping it to their parakeet. Maybe that's why they're called Love Birds.... hmmmm.

Seriously though, it sounds to me like the only sickness these people are catching is a virulent strain of ignorance.

I guess amidst all this doubt and uncertainty, the one thing I really want to know is this - Could this be the epidemic that finally ushers in the Zed word.... 28 days later will we be facing the age of Zombies?? I can just see it now, their blank undead faces roaming the streets, moaning, looking for brains like a fat boy looking for a pulled pork sandwich. In what I think was the most intelligent, most concise response to this epidemic, the blog Newscientist posted this comment, by a 13 year old boy named Zak:

"I may be just a thirteen year old, but i do know that i cant trust my government because if the virus becomes an epidemic they might come to the option of killing the infected. I know it sort of sounds like a zombie virus but what if the swine flu could combine with other flu's causing growth of protein strands. The growth of the protein in the virus can become so strong that it could be able to bring back dead cells. That could be one theory. But what do i know im just a kid."

Zak, you unknowing little genius you. People three times your age on TV couldn't have said it better! Let the right-wing talk radio jerk-offs babble all they want, let the news channels continue to overplay this into an hysteria reaching epidemic of misinformation. I picture a movie in the making.... it's a Harold & Maude type friendship story, complete with full zombie action, and talking animals (the swine of course!!). Zak & Trin, fightin' zombies, eating corn dogs & playing Mario Kart while annihilating the undead.

So, go ahead and drink all the Orange Juice you want. The only preventative measures I'm taking is to break out my machete, my Louisville Slugger, some 80's records and I'm gonna hunt down anything that looks like it might have it's roots in Charlotte's Web or Babe the Talking Pig. I have it on good authority that Swine Flu Zombies are vulnerable to mustard and apple sauce as well, so I might be stopping by the Piggly-Wiggly on my way to pick up some ammo for my makeshift squeeze bottle shotgun. This daywalker is following all the proper steps for Zombie outbreak including stockpiling, fortifying, arming, and moving. If this is truly the Pig-Zed-End, then in the immortal words of Winston Churchill, all I have to say is this: "We shall go on to the end... we shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender." Dagnab it, we shall take those Swine Flu Zombies down! And the right-wing conservatives with 'em!!

Th-th-th-that's all folks!