New Media

Forget swine flu. I just don’t want to catch whatever ordinary germs people are spreading around.

Ladies, I don’t know what your experience has been, but I can tell you that in a men’s public washroom, I’m lucky to witness half of the guys washing their hands with soap and water after doing their business. The numbers get even worse in a bar or pub after 10 pm. By midnight, just assume that the guy who’s buying you drinks has trace amounts of human waste on his fingers.

I know, it’s gross. But I’m sick of what I’m seeing at fine establishments around this city. Dudes, get your act together.

Hat tip to Darren Barefoot for his insight on another point of etiquette in the context of flying low.

Swine flu didn’t seem all that scary to Canucks a few months back. A few people were dying, almost all of them in far-away Mexico City (and at the time, it was thought that poor air quality in that city was a contributing factor). We had some cases in Canada and then the news kind of faded away. Given that regular flu kills thousands of people a year in this country, I figured the swine flu story was just a sign of a slow news week.

But here’s the latest headline on this: WHO predicts ‘explosion’ of swine flu cases, urges countries to react swiftly to limit deaths

1,800 people died of swine flu this week alone, worldwide. That seems like a lot. I suspect you get the same number of automobile fatalities or more in a week, but we aren’t expecting the number of car crashes to increase exponentially, in contrast to swine flu, so the numbers are a little chilling.

Time to stock up on supplies, padlock the door and shoot any infected that try to get in? Oh, wait. That’s a different kind of virus.