the chicken flew..

never has saying something that is a part of our every day vocabulary fostered such world wide fear.. what did the bird do ?? the bird flu. i mean flew.. but i do mean flu. as i catch up on the events going on around the world, there are a couple of things in common.. the first is terrorism.. terrorism, terrorism everywhere. we've got young white muslims giving a new meaning to BOOMER sooner in oklahoma.. bombs at georgia tech and ucla.. new york subway bombings (which turned out to be a hoax).. and when we turn to page 2, it's bird flu.

there is a virus called H5N1 - much less catchy than some of the other virus names we have to talk about.. (hanta virus & W97M.Pacol.A to name a couple) anyway, so we have this bird flu, which once again originates out of southeast asia - (see SARS) and we have some radical action being taken by governments in asia and even europe to try to keep it from spreading further. now the united states has begun preparation for a virus that is spread by birds to humans by contact. if you have chickens in your back yard, you may have a problem.. the rest of us - no sweat, right ??

apparently that is not the case.. with chicken wings on every corner and chick-fil-a and KFC across every street - we may get the flu from our chicken sandwiches.. no, ok, that's hyperbole too..

legitimately, there is a fear that this virus will mutate and will be able to spread from person to person. . now THIS could be a serious problem. if that were to become the case, there would be significant economic and human impact.. PETA's cries of killing chickens will go unheard. it's good to see that the usa is starting to plan ahead for a possible world pandemic. it's interesting to think of what would come of our nation if we were to have widespread quarantines, freedom of travel being restricted..

there has been other hysteria associated with things like y2k and SARS (i was in toronto for the SARS phenomenon) and there hasn't been much that has come from that in a global sense.. so hopefully this will be another minor bump in the road.. however, should it unfold in to something more sinister, it would be a good idea to have a couple of weeks of food on hand just in case..

as a matter of fact, just go read ,this from the WHO.. not 'the who' but the other WHO.. world health organization.. they have prepared a statement on strategic actions just for you.