Twitter and the Swine Flu

MANIFESTO

Apparently, Twitter is actually doing some good when it comes to apprising the CDC of swine flu developments. NPR actually had a feature on it this morning.

Anyway, in these days when the world is flat, it's pretty cool to think just how easy it is to access the kind of information that might save lives. If this were 1918, who knows how catastrophic this initial outbreak might have already become.

I'm still pretty cavalier about all of this, even though the news is getting closer and closer to home. I got a flu shot in the fall, and it seems we boomers might be pretty immune to this strain. The fact that all of one hundred Americans have been infected really doesn't seem to merit the event's attendant hysteria.

(I couldn't resist giving this post its title, as, on this Poem in Your Pocket Day, it scans exactly as does the title of one of my favorite oldies.)