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5 February 2004
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Once Again the Sky Is Falling
"Oh no, don't go!" said Henny Penny. "The sky is falling there!"
Mother rang from California in the middle of the night. "I'm terribly worried
about you," she said. "The headline in this morning's newspaper is 'Millions
Expected to Die from Bird Flu.' Do you want me to send you a ticket home?"
Poor mom. Her eyes are not what they used to be and she reads only the
headlines. What the story went on to say is that millions of chickens are
expected to die in Thailand. In fact, the number of birds dispatched into the next life has
reached over ten million in Thailand already. At this rate there will not be a
single chicken left in Southeast Asia by this time next month. Even the local
Kentucky Fried outlets are removing the "C" from their signs. One thing we
learned from SARS is that the the many otherwise-rational people often react to news media
sensationalism with unnecessary hysteria. Before you panic about a trip to Southeast Asia,
turn off your TV and read a few facts compiled from information provided, in part, by the World
Health Organization: Sadly, this outbreak has
cost many poor farmers in Southeast Asia their entire livelihoods. The greatest
danger to the rest of us is that Chicken Flu will mutate into a new strain of
SLOPS. In light of the current outbreak we have implemented several emergency rules to
safeguard our guests. Effective immediately, any guest found slaughtering fowl
of any kind will receive a reprimand and must clean up after himself. If guests insist on traveling with a chicken or
inviting one to their room they must see to it that the bird deposits its feces
on a newspaper. That's what newspapers are for.
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