It is virtually impossible to avoid the media frenzy that has consumed the world over the past few days. Pig flu? At least SARS had an ominous and foreign ring to it. Spanish influenza sounds more like a dance and even the bubonic plague hints biblical glory. What an unglamorous way to go, a pig virus.
Of course, in my kidding I disguise uneasiness. Though I'm not quite ready to get on the mask-wearing, news-channel flipping, hypochondriac bandwagon, the notions of apocalypse that follow any forecast of a pandemic excite me.
The recording angel opens its hundred eyes and snaps the spine of the Book of Life.
What is it about eschatology that rouses a primordial yearning within people? And all the same…scorn! When that clan in Russia trapped itself underground last year in bitterly cold permafrost, certain that the end of the world would come within days, I wondered as to the value of eschatology beyond the feeling of control that it gives people. The finality and the end of mystery excite those who dwell in Armageddon.
Actually the current pig dilemma will be a gr8 oppurtunity for Islamists to start bragging that God and Islam know secrets of the future and that's why God forbid eating pork! =S
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