Memorial Day

I got this cartoon in an email today and I wanted to share it with just one simple request. As we all go into a fun weekend (that looks to have beautiful weather), through the parties and festivities and celebration of a day off work... Remember why.

With my deepest thanks, warmest regards and utmost respect to all those who have served, who are serving and who will serve our country. Thank you for our freedoms, thank you for our lives. Amen.

Enough already!

Our Purell which art in hand wipes, Sanitizer be thy name.
In sickness come and germs be gone from our hands as they are in public.
Give us this day a test for H1N1 and forgive us our allergies
as we forgive those who sneeze from Influenza B.
Lead us not to contamination but deliver us from swine flu.

*****
Okay maybe I should explain that before people start crying sacrilege. I'm getting really sick of swine flu (pun intended). There has been way too much hype and media fear mongering for my tastes and I wrote this "poem" as something of a satire for where people place their trust these days (some of you have heard my griping about the "Purell Patrol" that enforces the use of hand sanitizer upon entering my building... because, really, the answer to an international epidemic must be hand sanitizer....). I think the news has done too much to sensationalize the outbreak of H1N1. Reports declare "Child in US Dies of Swine Flu" and, not to minimize that death in any way, it was a 2-year old from Mexico who was already severely ill when presented to doctors in Texas. Similarly, a recent headline read "38 New Suspected Cases of Swine Flu" when medical institutions are quite adamant that almost all of these "suspected" cases are turning out to be Influenza B, a very common seasonal strain of flu. I've had enough, people. In the words of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: "Don't Panic!"