Let’s Not Call It Swine Flu. What Will The Pigs Think?

Seriously though, Janet Napolitano and other officials want the name “swine” taken out of the name for the recent viral infection threatening to send the world into pandemic pandemonium. Evidently it’s not the pigs directly that the Obama administration fears offending, although I’m sure it has been discussed, it is the dangers that might result to the pork industry.

I have just one question and I’m going to attempt to keep it clean. If Obama is so concerned about hurting the pork industry, why are we allowed to call pointless spending pork? Certainly people must be repulsed by the use of the word pork to describe Congress. I mean, can you imagine being associated with politicians? Ewwwwww! Gross! Remember this past campaign season? How many times did Obama put lipstick on a pig? So insensitive! I bet he got no votes from the pork industry.

Why now all of a sudden do we seem all concerned about offending a pig or damaging a connected industry or whatever? Never stopped anyone from coming up with names for diseases in the past.

Did the African Sleeping Sickness destroy tourism in Africa? Or what about Athlete’s Foot? My god there are millions of athletes all over the world that are being associated with a crusty, nasty and itchy foot. Did that prevent people from going to games? Just think of all the new world records that could have been achieved if it wasn’t for the association of itchy feet with athletes. Shame, really a shame.

There’s Beaver Fever………..I think I’ll just leave that one alone. I don’t think naming a disease Cat Scratch Fever did away with the feline industry. Did it? Let’s also consider Cowpox, Chickenpox, Crabs and Deer Fly Fever. Farmers seem to be able to sell cow products, eggs and Buffalo wings just fine. Last time I checked the line at restaurants were pretty long this year when king crab season was in.

Granted I’m not sure that any of these diseases have every reached pandemic proportions but let’s be fair, neither has swine flu. In the 1970s we had a bout with swine flu. Did our pork industry suffer? Now, Mad Cow disease is another story. Don’t eat a mad cow or a happy one either if it’s infected with the disease we call Mad Cow.

And we can’t forget Legionaires Disease. I suppose since we named a disease after them this group has since become extinct. They really did get a bad rap. I thought I had Legionaires Disease once and on the ride to the hospital a cop pulled us over and he thought I was a woman having a baby. As soon as I got back home I ran to the barber shop and had my hair cut off.

Israeli Spotted Fever didn’t stop the millions of Jews all over the world from migrating back to the Promised Land. And hey, those dumb athletes get another bad rap with Jock Itch. What’s up with that?

Monkey Pox, Parrot Fever, Rabbit Fever and Raccoon Round Worm all have their place in history without too many known negative side affects.

You would think when diseases were named after the places they occur it would have devastating affects on those places. Like Norwegian Itch. I wonder what that one is. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever? Did Colorado and other Rocky Mountain states whine and complain because people would stop coming to the Rockies and spend money? John Denver didn’t sing, “Rocky Mountain high on spotted fever.” Maybe back in the day we didn’t have a radical left administration more intent on being politically correct than saving lives.

So what is up with Obama and his difficulty with names? He says we can’t use the word terrorist anymore because it might insight a person intent on human destruction to terrorize someone. I think that’s kind of like refusing to call a black fly a black fly because if it knew I was calling it a black fly it would land on someone and suck their blood. And I’m sure I was being racists calling a black fly what it is.

We call the new influenza virus the swine flu because that’s where the virus originated. It’s some weird mixture of pig virus and bird virus that has mutated, they say, so that now humans can contract it. In all seriousness, does Obama and his children really think opting to not call this thing the swine flu is going to matter to anyone? I had bacon for breakfast and never thought once about if I might be eating a virus. It all kind of reminds me of little children when they take their hands and cover their eyes, they someone reason that because they can’t see, they can’t be seen.

What’s next on the list of censorship items this cute little administration has? Bring it on. We can handle it.

Tom Remington