Good morning all:

A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner.

“Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time.”

When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, “The one I feed the most.”

Greetings from our ‘double-wide’, where currently I am trying to decipher how to drink my morning coffee while wearing a hospital style breathing mask.

Shhh! Please don’t spread the word that it’s really minimal. All week there has been no news other than incessant prater about the “mother” of all pandemics – the Swine Flu. There is no other news to speak of. News is being screamed across the world. In fact, the government of Egypt got so nervous that it ordered the culling of every pig in their nation. Probably chanting something such as; “we’ll show those Zionist swine.”

This morning the real news is that this flu is rather mild. That this flu, has a fewer than 350 people infected across the world. Sadly, we also know that in Texas there has been one death directly attributed to its effects. However, compare this to an average winter flu season where the flu kills somewhere between 30,000 and 36,000 people in the US alone—this according to the CDC.

So, you ask, why the “shhh”? Because I don’t want anything other than that the Swine Flu is “huge” to be broadcast. I have a theory. I am convinced that the ‘pandemic’ flu has completely stopped the pirates on the Arabian Sea from plying their trade!

Since the news media and world governments discovered the A-H1N1 flu strain, have you heard or read anything about any ship hijackings? NO, NO, and NO. See, these pirates are no fools. They too listen to newscasts. Newscasts where no less an authority than our Vice President Joseph “gaffe” Biden stresses on morning television that his own family not travel when in groups: no airplane flights, no subway travel, no car pooling, no streetcar named Desire. So I ask you, would you sit for hours on end, cramped together with six other unwashed fellow pirates, on a very tiny little skiff merrily contaminating each other? Yarrgh, I didn’t think so.

See, they are listening. Shhh!

As the great bard, Shakespeare said; “much ado about nothing”. Better yet, from his, I think, Lucretius; “nothing will come from nothing.”

Our March for Babies walk was great. The weather was warm and sunny. Thousands of people, many in groups wearing identifying tee shirts made for wonderful people watching. Our little star of the walk, Vaioleti, also appeared to enjoy the whole event immensely (when she wasn’t dosing off).

The route planners led us into Great American Ball Park – home to the Cincinnati Reds – where we walked around the warning track. This was followed by a similar dive into Paul Brown Stadium – home to the Cincinnati Bengals. Very cool indeed.

Actually the best part of such a walk is that not too often can you see and observe some of the great things about the city, ‘stuff’ that normally you zip by at a distance. As an example we walked by the base of the Roebling Suspension Bridge which was built in 1865. Roebling who lived in Cincinnati built this bridge as a prototype and “proof of concept” for his much larger Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.

We are beginning to believe that our home, situated about four miles from downtown, is actually a nature preserve. We have our resident red tailed hawks nesting in one of our trees. One morning earlier this week Marcia watched a deer eating whatever it pleased in our front yard. Then yesterday we noticed that the rabbits had returned. All this is actually quite enjoyable.

Now I best get ready for a busy weekend. Later this morning I am helping Jason replace the brake pads on his old Saturn. Then tomorrow at six in the morning I am helping the police department with traffic management for the Flying Pig Marathon. It will be cool and rainy so should be fun.

Make it a great week everyone. Are the bets on your favorite Derby horse placed yet? Better hurry.

Cheers,

Dirk