Sunday, May 03, 2009

Israelis ought to avoid the swine flu cumbia

The menace formerly known as Swine Flu, and now rebranded H1N1 as preferred by the religious parties in Bibi's medicine cabinet, has indeed reached Israel. At least three cases have been confirmed here in travelers returning from Mexico, although they all seem to be recovering. Three more locals are awaiting the results of their lab tests for this worrying new strain of respiratory virus, but the panicked reaction to apocalyptic pestilence with pork origins is starting to subside from last week's fever pitch. Egypt's new law, requiring farmers to cull all 300,000 pigs in the nation before even a single case of flu was confirmed in porcine or human residents, was widely ridiculed as overkill. Ho hum: the pharaoh issuing a baseless edict of death-- it's enough to make one's tail curl.
But some agencies inside Israel still don't quite get it. The Kibbutz Movement is blackballing ten volunteers from Mexico until the pandemic fears are absolutely quashed. When they do arrive, maybe they can sing a few bars from the "Swine Flu Cumbia", a catchy salsa song that's been quickening pulses south of the US border during the much-heralded Aporkalypse and Hamageddon . The song here, circulated on You Tube, is an English translation. The Spanish version is just as corny.

6 comments:

Juana La Loca said...

Here's the link to the Mexican video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_6zcvz_Gao&feature=related

The big joke is that of course masks won't prevent the spread of flu. People in Mexico City have never learned to breathe any clean air.

Anonymous said...

In the States we have started calling it the Napolitano Flu.

Dimona said...

That's Parma-geddon, not Hamageddon. acc to twitterers in the know.
COmplacency on the possible pandemic is foolhardy, the WHO sez

the hornet said...

Mexico has now confirmed 19 fatalities from the virus, but officials said it appeared that the outbreak could be levelling off. The baby who died in Texas was Mexican--that's a total of 20!

Izzy Bee said...

and a fourth casde has been confirmed inside Israel. The regional leaders (Jordan/Egypt) have put aside political differences to agree that wild pig incursions over the borders should be monitored!

Izzy Bee said...

Oy veh. Now Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar is calling for drastic measures to combat swine flu's spread inside the Holy Land: "fast for the entire day, or at least half of it."
Happy Cinco de Mayo, folks!