I read in the Strib that the risk of a bird flu pandemic "could be" 50-50. One wants to ask, "What is the risk of it being 50-50?" Maybe that risk could be 20-80. Anyhow, people are spreading alarms about bf without being clear, which is what people do about terrorism, global warming, and meth. Bird flu though has a serious name: "bird flu." It feels good in the mouth. It fits on a t-shirt. You can make haiku out of it: Bad stomach ache/ bad head/ no fun playing with dog/ nose runs/ it's bird flu.
Just to say the obvious: if bird flu either happens or gets taken seriously as if it were about to happen, every institution in places like Minnesota -- that is, places that aren't forced by their transportation system to routinely agglomerate large numbers of otherwise unconnected people -- is going to have to rethink itself to avoid big meetings, that is, to privilege small meetings or no meetings at all. Churches and schools will have the most fun with this, and my guess is that the ensuing transformations, already in motion to some extent, will be largely good. The university needs to mandate its electronic course management software for every prof in every course. The churches need to rediscover the house church tradition. Everybody needs to rethink every meeting larger than 10, and every travel requirement of any sort. (Also, I think, any area of the economy that depends on raising and killing lots of animals needs to think about how to get along with only a few animals, raised for specialty purposes. (Bird flu will put people on to connecting epidemics and animals, will remind people of mad cow, terrorism, and all sorts of things that antibiotics encourage to grow in the guts of livestock. Tofu futures look great.))
I don't usually commit futurism. Its a kind of vice. But near the new year, it's hard to resist.
Posted by shea0017 at December 29, 2005 12:01 PM