Time for a healthy dose of blind panic

Tuesday night at 8, ABC-TV presents Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America, designed to frighten us into asking the government to save us from a deadly disease that likely will never arrive.

Note that the common thread of the plot, as listed on the ABC Web site, is the trust in government agencies to save the day: "The story is seen through the eyes of other key characters, including Collin Reed (Keach), Secretary of Health and Human Services, who is the primary go-between for Dr. Varnack with the state and local leaders back in America; Denise Connelly (Cusack), wife of the American businessman, as she deals with his illness and then helps to support other infected people; Governor Mike Newsome (Cohen) of Virginia, who, upon learning of this deadly virus, puts his city in quarantine and then breaks down the state into communities that can nurture each other; Alma Ansen (Machado), a hospital nurse in New York City who suddenly finds herself in the midst of escalating chaos working at a new and hastily constructed flu facility; and Curtis Ansen (Ramsey), Alma's husband in the National Guard who was brought back to New York."

Because as we know, only the central government and martial law will be able to contain this mythical outbreak when/if it ever occurs.

The only true statement about avian flu in the summary of the show is the first sentence: "To date, there have been no cases of the H5N1 virus in the United States nor has there been a human transmission of the disease in a form that could fuel a pandemic." It's fiction, folks, but how well so many people are trying to conceal that fact.

I think my favorite line is the thought that a governor could break his state down into "communities that can nurture each other." Such power our kindly rulers have!

As always, there's only one answer to this bald-faced fear mongering: REFUSE TO BE AFRAID!!!