Turn the corner, rub my eyes and hope the world will last

Ohhh, big noise, big fuss in New Zealand over it’s entry into the global flu game. Of course one hopes that the kids in question are all fine and the deaths in Mexico (although nowhere else, where the Swine Flu seems to date to be milder than the average dose of yer run of the mill influenza) are terrible, as any deaths of young folks are anywhere. Places like Mexico City are especially open to these sorts of mini-pandemics, with their suspect hygiene, close human proximity and ridiculously high levels of pollution, both in the air and in the water. Although such realities are rather alien to someone sitting in Browns Bay, or Taupo, overwhelmed by a sense of panic and impending doom. Hell, try explaining to half of NZ that the traffic lights often don't work in Bali and see the utter confusion.....

There really seems to be a rather urgent need for someone in New Zealand to loudly scream ‘get a grip, for god’s sake’.

The nation revels in these things. Returning to NZ in the past few years there seemed to be a kind of national disappointment that the nation hadn’t been selected for a visitation of the, to date, rather more deadly (althought in real terms extraordinarily rare) Bird Flu. Here in Indonesia of course, where the disease had hit rather harder than anywhere else, where people actually live and sleep with their fowl, there was no sense of panic to speak of. Instead sensible culling and regional precautions were the order of the day.

In New Zealand it was something rather different. There was a mild national panic, and folks battened down. And there was a tangible sense of national disappointment that NZ hadn’t got the nod for a visit from the virus. The nation, and the media seemed to be jumping up and down and hollering ‘us, us!’ as if a visitation would give the country some sense of mattering.

We, here in Bali, were subjected to relentless questions from NZ asking if we were ‘alright’ (after, of course the questioning had died down as to whether we’d survived the tsunami intact…many of my countrymen are very geographically challenged).

Of course it wasn’t to be. Isolated and extraordinarily clean New Zealand was probably the least likely breeding ground or festering zone for bird flu on the planet. And NZ felt somehow left out.

And so now, despite the fact that millions of folks cross the US-Mexico border daily, and that Mexico has a population of 110 million, 1000 folks have come down with this flu (and that number is unconfirmed) and about 20 in the US..and NZ has, uhhh, 20 cases. You can almost feel that national relief…we really do matter….

I may sound callous, but I think, regardless of whether these test positive or not, a little reality and perspective needs to intrude into this.

The best comments to date come from Juha Saarinen on Twitter, who asked ‘Would it be all right to call in sick with wine flu, if you've been out a bit too long the night before?’, and Gareth Ward on Public Address with ‘God help us all if Tony Veith gets swine flu’ (don’t worry..only New Zealanders get that one).

Of course, inevitably, it’s all gone partisan in the USA.

Just as of course, this is all going to turn nasty and I’m going be seen as some sort of inhuman bastard for posting any of this.