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jambar

bird flu, i challenge you

H5N1. If you don’t fear this combination of letters and numbers – the implications of which are staggering – well, I really can’t blame you. H5N1, or “Captain Wussbag” as I call it, is the new strain of bird flu that’s sweeping the nation; well, the nation of birds, anyway. Despite its lack of a catchy name, the public has collectively soiled themselves over this new creeping terror that may or may not wipe the human race off of the face of the Earth. I’m guessing it won’t, but I would be more convinced of possible looming danger if scientists had named H5N1 “Inescapable Death Syndrome” or “Grandma’s Last Christmas.” With the history of interesting epidemics in the world, H5N1 is going to have to kill a lot of people in interesting ways, lest it become as big of a joke as SARS. That’s right H5N1, I’m calling you out. Do you honestly think that wiping out a millions of chickens is going to scare us? Aside from the possible threat of increasing prices at Popeye’s, your lack of substance makes you pale in comparison to the heavy hitters. Looking at past pandemics will show you why you shouldn’t quit your day job and why you should also finish getting your degree at DeVry, H5N1.

I’m sure everyone with a recently-written history book knows about the mass genocide of Native Americans by Europeans during the settling of North America. If you have an older textbook, I should probably let you know that the Native Americans didn’t just decide to give up and move to “Indianatropolis,” a floating island above Canada. We’ve all heard the tragic stories of Native Americans being given smallpox blankets and also being forced to smile widely while posing as baseball mascots, but the real tragedy behind what happened to these people is that the various epidemics which ravaged them were bigger accidents than the greenlighting of the last ten “Land Before Time” movies. You see, when Europeans arrived on North American shores, they were filthy – practically walking Petri dishes. Having European roots, I can attest to being filthy; I have to shower three times a day, and that barely gets rid of the stench of white guilt. My filthy ancestors entered the bucolic splendor of North America, and figuratively tracked dog poop all over the carpet, causing millions to die without much effort. It was only later that colonists came to the conclusion, “Hey, we’re putrid! We can use this to our advantage!” Then, Andrew Jackson coughed in the direction of Cherokee settlements and thousands died. To apologize for all of this, America put a Native American person on a coin no one uses. The near-extinction of an indigenous people? You could never hold a candle to that, H5N1.

The catalyst of Europeans being terribly filthy comes up once again in the Super Bowl XIII of pandemics, The Black Plague. Give us a break, we only discovered the joys of having a daily washing schedule around 200 years ago! Unfortunately, the benefits of not being disgusting and covered with vermin eluded the people of the Middle Ages, and they decided to do more productive things with their time like blame the Jews, and publicly self-flagellate, spraying diseased blood onto any passersby. I’m honestly surprised that anyone survived, because The Black Plague covered most of Europe and Asia for 200 years like the delicious chocolate coating on a Rolo. This constant death and suffering gave rise to the first major melancholy movement, where lyrics such as Linkin Park’s “crawling in my skin these wounds they will not heal” would not make people gag on their own vomit, as they would be interpreted literally, and make much sense in Plague context. Unfortunately, self-pity was about as useful as praying and alchemy, and most of Europe died, leaving their precious, precious objects behind for any dirty plebeian to get his or her grimy hands on. H5N1, do you actually think you’re going to be as big as The Black Plague, a disease so great that it merits capitalization? Give me a break.

The Great Influenza Pandemic is another one of the great widespread capitalized diseases, and it happened relatively recently so it may have touched one of your relatives that would probably be already dead today. As opposed to other flus, designed to wipe out the elderly on an annual basis, the G.I.P. had the gall to attack the healthy and non-curmudgeonly. The disease affected America so much that it even got President Woodrow Wilson to briefly stop hating blacks, if only to find a way to blame the disease on immigrants. The American people were so distraught by the G.I.P. that they turned to Vaudeville as a source of cheer; when various tumbling acts and dog and pony shows did little to take their minds off of their sick and dying family members, many committed suicide. Sadly, the television did not exist to distract people from crippling world events as it does today, leaving people with nothing to do but think about the flu. Did you hear that, H5N1? If even you were a big deal, we’d all be too busy watching heartwarming CBS sitcoms to care.

So, H5N1, I hope that you now realize that you’re a five-door wusswagon driving down pansy lane. “Oh, look at me! I kill chickens!” So did Colonel Sanders, and he was eventually turned into a rapping cartoon character in KFC commercials. You can only hope that you suffer a less humiliating fate. Wuss.