Swine Flu: Overreaction?

The reaction and overreaction to the swine flu is creating more panic and problems for Americans.

I'm all for sensible precautions--washing your hands, covering your mouth and nose when you sneeze or cough, staying home if you are sick--but some responses are bordering on hysteria.

Closing Mayfest? Because Texas has 26 cases of swine flu? What's next? Mandatory surgical masks for everyone?

We're not talking the Great Influenza here. Instead, we're releasing thousands of students from school, who will invariably end up circulating in malls, libraries, movie theaters, and other public venues, spreading whatever germs--including swine flu--they may have. Is this really the best way to handle germs? I think not.

Political correctness seems to be affecting some of the reporting on swine flu. To call the child who died at a Houston hospital "a Texas toddler" would be like calling me a "West Virginia child" whenever I went to visit my grandparents. The child was Mexican. That's not a pejorative. It's a fact.

If I were a paranoid freak, I'd be concerned that President Obama will use the flu to round up all us right wing extremists just like another Democrat president/hero did. But I'm not paranoid.