Fraught Green Divas

I am, as is often the case lately, all in a dither, so I must be brief. Spring fever? Swine flu? Who can say? Anyhoo, no show hence no blogging last week. Today I will be doing neither prescription nor proscription, just talking about some words that people seem to be using a LOT just lately. To keep you in suspense, that's all I'm saying right now, except to point out the title of this post. More anon

Silver Bullets and Swine

I've spoken about this on the show, and I had hoped that would suffice, but I can see I'm going to have to be firmer about it. I think we're going down the wrong metaphoric road with our increasing use of "silver bullet" to refer to the various miracle cures being proposed to fix the economy, the enviornment, the flu... Except for being far more expensive, a silver bullet is pretty much indistinguishable from the regular kind. Though it kills werewolves, it would kill you too, if somebody shot you with it. No matter what the problem, indiscriminate carnage is not the solution. So what we need in these trying times is a "magic bullet" which would lay low the toxic asset, polluter or microbe, but not hurt little Bobby or Grampa Earl. Or you or me, for that matter. Dontcha think? Isn't magic bullet more descriptive of what the world is looking for now? Let's leave ilver bullets to the Lone Ranger and get on the magic bandwagon.

Speaking of the flu, nobody seems to be able to decide what to call it. Back in the day, it would have been called Mexican flu, but I think we've become too culturally sensitive to ascribe a disease to a nationality so most people have settled on the name Swine flu. The trouble with that is, no trace of this flu has been found in any of our little piggie pals, so the name is at least inaccurate. At worst, it has become deadly for the pigs, as things happen like the Egyptians slaughtering millions of them as a precaution (btw, millions of pigs in Egypt? What's up with that?).
An attempt was made to use H1N1, the scientists' name for the virus strain in question, but come on, who's going to say that? Besides, it sounds too much like H5N1, the bird flu virus. It's all too confusing. The Logovore has an answer. Just substitute the Roman numeral I for the Arabic 1 in the name. The resulting HINI, pronounced like "high knee" flu would be easy to remember, fun to say, and, given the reported gastrointestinal symptoms of this flu perhaps even descriptive. Hini flu. Pass it on (the name, not the disease!).