The Scout Report 's editorial board, in its first-ever Public Service Announcement (PSA), would like to apologize to the even-toed ungulates of the family Suidae for the persecution they've endured at the hands of an hysterical, upright-walking, tabloid-devouring, prehensile-thumb-endowed public. First of all, "swine" is a derogatory term, and, until the family Suidae reclaims it as a politically empowering identifier of its own, TSR will refer to it as the S-word. Now that the ground(hog) rules are established, let's move on to the source of this so-called Pandemic-in-Gestation (PIG).
According to every not-yet-discredited scientific entity, including the acronyms CDC, WHO, and FDA, one cannot get the S-Word Flu from a member of the family Suidae. Each has issued similar statements, under-reported in the mainstream media (MSM) per usual: "[S-Word] influenza viruses are not spread by food. You cannot get [S-Word] influenza from eating pork or pork products."
Controlled tangent. As unambiguous as the edicts above seem, TSR believes that they have not reached the citizens of Main Street, so the board has decided to lift its ban on PSAs and issue a more detailed list of what does not transmit the S-Word Flu. You cannot get S-Word Flu from watching Babe, rumbling with HOG's, matriculating as an Arkansas Razorb ack, or being drafted as a Washington Redskins offensive lineman (or even being a Hogette). Ladies, you will not acquire the virus from carrying a "silk purse made out of a sow's ear." Parents, your ostensibly talented progeny are safe and sound behind the walls o f the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, so calm down. You couldn't retrieve them anyway.
Revealing digression. Mrs. James Peregrine Leger-Demain IV, TSR's chief of protocol and defenestration, has proposed that the acronyms listed above rename the current medical pan-panic something with more literary flair, thus sparing the porcine population further persecution. As precedent, Mrs. IV cites Lady Windermere Syndrome. Two doctors, probably gay, after attending a performance of the Oscar Wilde comedy, Lady Windermere’s Fan: A Play About a Good Woman, hypothesized that fastidious behavior in Victorian women, typified by Lady Windermere, may have prevented them from expectorating frequently enough to clear their airways of infected secretions, and that this predisposed them to the development of bronchiectasis. They published their theory in the cardio- pulmonary journal Chest, proposed the name change, and the rest is thoracic history. Mrs. IV, no stranger to the irreversible dilation of her bronchial family tree, has focused her philanthropic work on renaming medical unpleasantries, because victims feel better about succumbing to illnesses with pretty names. And with that, we have answered the question, "What's in a Name?"
Stay tuned...Tomorrow, TSR's inhouse medical examiner—Myasthenia Gravis, RN—will help readers pick the right Pandemic Protection Mask for them and their families.
