Federal prosecutors should be investigated themselves after the now-failed case against Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska. Stevens, who served in Congress for 40 years, nearly won re-election despite the federal case successfully brought against him during the 2008 election season. There is no doubt that if the case has been postponed until after the election he would have prevailed.

This instance of prosecutorial abuse is itself the scandal now and should be subject to legal scrutiny. The influence on the conduct of Congressional business is extensive and irremediable. Stevens' ouster has provided something close to a filibuster-proof majority for Democrats. Alaskans, meanwhile, should be furious now that their election decision was prejudiced by rogue prosecutors in Washington, D.C. The state lost a senator with historic clout. The Stevens prosecution also was used to taint other officials with whom he was connected, including Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire--who lost his re-election race, too.

What ideological and political zeal lay behind the pursuit of Stevens? The public needs to know.

Please don't suggest that since the problem arose while G. W. Bush was president there couldn't have been a political motivation. The White House then was terrified about the possibility that it might be seen as second-guessing the "professional" prosecutors. This is only one case, of course, where the Mr. Bush would have been entirely correct to take an interest, and didn't.

The ability to attack your ideological opponents with ethics prosecutions is a terrible power in a democracy; and therefore, misuse of that power is worse than any supposed ethics violations that were under investigation.

The Wall Street Journal got it right, as they usually do on such issues.

But The Washington Post thinks the main point is that Stevens somehow got away with a crime. They apparently missed the news that the main government witness plainly lied about the amount of money involved in the Stevens house rehab--$80,000, not $240,000. Eighty thousand is not a lot for remodeling a house.

In comparison, how much has been spent on a wrongful prosecution of a sitting U.S. senator? What price does The Post think should be placed on the government's legal manipulation of a federal election?

UPDATE: Anger (well justified) in Alaska: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/us/politics/03react.html?_r=1&hpw

In a speech at Discovery Institute, where he is a Senior Fellow, Michael
Medved described the origin and startling trajectory of his latest book,
"The Ten Big Lies About America." Medved advised an enthusiastic crowd gathered at a book party that his book has been ignored by major reviewers, but (as happens these days), already has gone through nine editions since it first appeared four months ago.

The Medved book is winning an especially appreciative audience among conservatives and other tradition-minded Americans for its defense of the history and values of the United States, a history often misrepresented in the media and institutions of public education.

Introducing Medved, Discovery President Bruce Chapman, described the author and national talk show host, as "a pioneer, an explorer on a voyage of rediscovery" of America's true past and present. The new book, he said, is a treasure trove of useful information for anyone faced with the arguments commonly advanced by advocates of political correctness.

Watch the video here.

This wouldn't amount to much, except it raises the "If the shoe were on the other foot" issue. That is, if George W. Bush had said this, how much play would it get? Dan Quayle jokingly said he was going to Latin America even though he didn't speak Latin, but instead of laughing with him in his self-deprecating remark, the vice president was heaped with media ridicule and scorn, as if he had been serious.

We know that President Obama knows that Austrians speak German (doesn't he?). Still, this is what he actually said, and it was not a joke.

Several books of "Bushisms" were published over the past eight years. I was given a calendar with daily Bushisms on each day's page. Ho, ho, ho!

An "Obamanations" calendar is on its way, no doubt.

The present generation has no idea how killing inflation can be. Unless you were around for the Carter years (Obama's model, it increasingly seems) you don't know what high inflation can do to the possibility of home ownership. You don't know how it always seems to exceed one's ability to get a pay increase. You don't get how it destroys investments.

Ronald Reagan suffered a brief, tough recession in order to reduce government spending, cut inflation and restore growth. Obama's budget assumes that massive spending and debt not only will revive the economy but also lead to such huge growth that we can afford a new public health care system and a major expansion of other government functions as well--and avoid passing the bill to our kids. Inflation is not going to be a problem, apparently.

Only he no longer is quite saying the last part.

Not since Woodrow Wilson was hailed by tumultuous crowds as he appeared at the Versailles peace conference has an American leader been given such a warm welcome in Europe as greeted Barrack Obama, and simultaneously achieved so little of practical benefit. The Jazz Age was also an age of celebrity and the parties and confetti and cheers for Wilson in 1919--as for Obama ninety years later-- were reported everywhere. They were stunning, thrilling and transient.

The way for an American head of state to translate public adulation into approval from the leaders of the Old World, of course, is to capitulate to their demands and to expect nothing in return. Obama played that role beautifully and the American public was led to believe it was a huge triumph. Slowly, the truth is sinking in, however.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/5121615/President-Barack-Obama-is-going-home-with-non-nein-and-no-ringing-in-his-ears.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/5120797/Analysis-What-has-Barack-Obamas-first-foreign-tour-really-achieved.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123906007566594937.html

Guest blog by Dr. Robert Cihak:

Current civil rights laws and regulations governing federally funded programs prohibit discrimination against healthcare professionals because of their ethical stance on controversial issues. President Obama's administration proposes to rescind these regulations.

Most comments on this topic focus on the provider's rights to demur from morally objectionable activities, such as referring patients to abortion providers. I think forcing anybody to perform immoral actions is illegal under the first amendment to the United States Constitution prohibiting Congress from making any law "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion, as well as the 14th amendment prohibiting slavery.

I'm a retired physician and am now receiving medical services rather than providing them. From my current viewpoint as a patient, requiring doctors to do unconscionable things would harm me and limit my access to information.

Many doctors do not believe that all medical services are consistent with their personal beliefs; these services include chiropractic, physician-assisted suicide, alternative medicine, abstinence-only contraception, abortion, and acupuncture. As a result, they know little, if anything, about the quality of practitioners providing these controversial services. Some doctors are disgusted with some of these services.

If forced to refer a patient for such services, the doctor would not know which practitioners are competent in these areas and which are quacks. How could this doctor make a good referral? How would the doctor know which of these practitioners were even adequate to perform a given service and which not? For example, would Planned Parenthood staff know which abstinence-only practitioners were good?

The patient would suffer as a result of forcing their health professionals to do unconscionable things.

My personal choices would be restricted if every doctor and hospital was forced to provide or refer for every possible service, because providers would not be able to let patients know their personal position.

In my case, I plan to avoid doctors and hospitals providing physician-assisted suicide; if everybody was forced to refer for suicide, many doctors would be reluctant to let patients know their personal position on this question, restricting my access to this information.

Repealing the federal "conscience clause" laws and regulations would prevent medical professionals from making the best possible referral for each patient. Referrals, like diagnostic and treatment recommendations, should be based on that individual patient's needs and consistent with the moral and ethical convictions of both the patient and the doctor.

If a doctor would be forced to make a referral for what he considers quack treatment, the patient would be the loser. See Freedom2Care for additional information.

Sometimes you have to feel sorry for mere politicians.

The media routinely assail elected officials for indecisiveness, not to mention bad decisions they make. But then the same media attack elected officials, in effect, for trying to do their jobs at all. The pretense that all politics must be conducted in a fish bowl is behind a category of charges that relate to the "process" of representative government.

This latter kind of attack is sometimes launched in the name of the "spirit, if not the letter" of the kinds of reforms enacted around the country in the early 1970s under the rubric of "open meetings laws."

I was part of that era's reform movement. I remember well the reasons for it. And I know well that it attempted to avoid limiting the legitimate private discussions of elected officials. Rather, the law was about preventing corruption and making sure that citizens could be heard on substantial public decisions. Specifically, such laws as were passed in Washington State in 1971 (The Open Public Meetings Act) to stop the practice in elected bodies of making tough decisions in "executive sessions" outside public scrutiny.

Such laws were prudent, not draconian. For example, personnel decisions were usually exempted to keep employee personalities out of invidious public consideration.

What we were after, instead, was preventing old fashioned corruption, favor-buying and self-dealing. We had seen cases, for example, where the Seattle City Council's entire membership was treated to trips out of town at lobbyists' expense to consider some pending piece of legislation. In one case, nearly the whole Council was flown down to San Francisco to see some public developments there and to lobby the Council against enacting a new historic district ordinance for Pioneer Square. Happily, in that case, word of the trip leaked out and the Council members were met in San Francisco by local historic preservationists--who deflected them to see successful historic districts in that town. The Council came home actually persuaded against the position of the group that had taken it down there.

But, more often, the special trips engineered by lobbyists--one Councilman dubbed them "super-freers"--and the executive sessions did the work of their agents. The public wasn't consulted.

That was the kind of thing the Act was designed to stop. And, along with the new public disclosure act limiting campaign donations and personal gifts, such acts did stop much mischief, not only in Washington State, but in similar circumstances nationally.

Unfortunately, open meetings laws sometimes are used now as a form of special pleading for news hungry media with nothing better to write about and a Pecksniffian concept of virtue.

It is happening just now in Seattle where The Seattle Times has made a front page and editorial page issue out of unofficial discussions that Seattle City Council members have had with one another and the Mayor's staff about the city budget. Getting into the act is the City Attorney and a representative of the Attorney General's office. The latter worthies reportedly are "disturbed."

The problem, at least as reported in The Times, is that four of the nine City Council members have met in private to talk about the budget. But, so what? The law specifies that "meetings" are to be conducted in public, but the rule only applies to meetings of a majority of a legislative body, not a minority. Four at a time is a minority.

Think about this. If four of nine members shouldn't talk together informally about city issues, how about three members? Can they talk together without a public notice and an invitation to media? How about two? Can one Council member talk with another without becoming a target for a media expose?

The claim that the "spirit" of the law is violated if four of nine members sit down together is not only wrong historically, but potentially damaging to true good government. My Discovery colleague (and fellow former fellow City Councilman) John Miller was one of the citizen leaders in the Coalition for Open Public Government that first helped draft the Act. John recalls the situation as I do: the purpose of the Act was not to prevent legislators from private discussions on policy.

Miller, who later served as a Congressman from Seattle and a U.S. Ambassador At-Large on Human Trafficking issues, was a stickler on the City Council for firm enforcement of the Open Meetings law.

I was, too. My own first action as a new member of the Seattle City Council in December, 1971--assigned at once to chair the notorious Licenses Committee-- was to end the practice of holding what you might call pre-committee committee meetings where the real decisions were made behind the scenes. The opportunities to do damage or benefit to an applicant for a night club or movie theater license, for example, were plentiful when the actual decisions were agreed to before the public meeting. There had been serious scandals related to this practice--understandably. Accordingly, the pre-committee committee meetings ended at once. (We later turned the whole licenses procedure over to an independent city official.)

But the object was reform, not grandstanding. In those days when the Act was brand new we certainly had private discussions and briefings for two, three and four Council members to talk about any number of issues--including the budget. Yes, members might come to personal decisions about subjects they discussed in private, but those decisions carried no weight and were not covered by the Act, for the plain reason that "reform" has to have some limits. Indeed, if Council members had not been free to discuss city business informally in small groups, the Council--like every legislative body since at least the Continental Congress--would have ground to a halt.

It's droll that Seattle City Council Member Jean Godden has been singled out for rebuke in the press, the idea being that as a former journalist she should know better. It has not occurred to Ms Godden's former colleagues, apparently, that she might have learned anything in office.

The problems in legislative leadership in all levels today have almost nothing to do with supposed violations of the Open Public Meetings Act. Memo to the press and the politicians alike, therefore: Don't let "reform" become an excuse for hobbling effective elected representation. It may not be as dangerous to the practice of republican democracy as old fashioned corruption, but it sometimes it can come close.

One purpose of this blog is to call attention to issues that may well be about to assume increased public policy prominence. An example is the seemingly mundane matter of computer security. That includes security for public records.

Recently there have been disconnected stories about foreign efforts to attack military and commercial computers in this country and schemes to steal identities of credit card holders and other people whose personal data have been entered into computers. In practice, just about all of us are affected.

The past week the Obama Administration announced that it would like to put many of the nation's medical records--now on paper or on disparate computer files--into a centrally organized data base. The proposal in principle has merit as a way to make medical cases more portable for patients and to speed insurance and other processes. But it raises questions of cost, of course, and, even more importantly, questions of privacy. Who wants to see their private medical information bandied about on the Internet or, worse, sold to vendors of various kinds?
http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/stories/2009/04/13/daily9.html?ana=from_rss

There appear to be new technologies to prevent such problems and at reasonable cost, but the overall problem of vulnerable computer security--on medical records or national security--is not a minor threat for the country as a whole or for our citizens as individuals. It won't solve itself. It needs high priority notice by government and businesses alike.

One scary new idea is that the president could be empowered to close down the nation's computer systems to protect against cyber-attack:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/government/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=216500090

Rather than fight with the press (see April 10's post), Seattle's City Council apparently decided on Friday to avoid any gatherings in small informal groups with the mayor's staff to discuss the budget. This does not seem to be a policy, just a temporary settlement. The significance is that instead of several members talking, now the budget will be discussed by each member with the mayor's budget staff, ad seriatim and ad nauseam. A wonderful waste of time, but never mind. Exaggerated and mistaken application of the Open Meetings law has led to lots of that over the years.

All that has happened is that the press pressure has added, temporarily, another layer of subterfuge for the perfectly normal and even desirable practice of (shhhh!) politics. Human beings who serve as elected officials still need environments where they can ask off-hand questions without being held up to public examination and to try out thoughts without being held to account for them in a public record. Just like editorial writers in their staff meetings, one might suggest.

All that results from these little episodes of fulsome press indignation is to make governing a bit more cumbersome. I hope the media will remember this the next time they accuse City Hall--here and elsewhere--of being slow to respond to public issues.

Give President Obama an "A" for political daring in forcing the issue of "immigration reform"--by which is meant providing citizenship for 22 million illegal immigrants--and an "D-", so far, for helping our neighbor, Mexico.

The two causes are not necessarily in sync, and may actually work against each other. Mexico desperately needs help in combatting drug traffickers--and curbing sales in this country. It needs the United States to respect NAFTA by allowing approved Mexican trucks to ship here. It needs investment and other economic development assistance. It needs political reforms that will allow the private sector in Mexico to expand and boost long term economic growth. The goal in all of this is to help Mexico take care of its people. A prosperous, self-respecting Mexico is good for building a healthier relationship between our two countries.

So far, however, the Obama Administration has had a mixed record in respect to our Southern neighbor. Maybe when President Obama visits there in a few days that picture will improve.

However, Mr. Obama's prospective immigration bill does not seem to have much to do with helping Mexico and a lot to do with domestic U.S. politics. He obviously doesn't mind illegal immigration very much. He gives ample evidence for those who think his main aim in this field is adding new Democrats to the U.S. voting rolls.

Setting aside the politics, how is this new emphasis good for the United States right now? We are in a serious recession and a huge batch of immigrants to compete with current Americans for jobs is sure to spark bitter populist divisiveness. It was hard enough to argue for immigration when the economy was booming and when amnesty was set into the context of stronger border enforcement. The economy is worse now than a couple of years ago and the bill being proposed is sure to be less balanced than the one supported then by President Bush.

In addition, the current recession in Mexico is not just impelling poor people, but also the educated and skilled, to move North. That may be good for the U.S. economy in the long run, but not so good for Mexico. Such people are needed to help Mexico modernize. That nation cannot grow and prosper when the United States is the safety valve for poor economic policies and performance in the Mexican government and economy.

President Obama, of course, is busy moving the United States toward greater public sector development, so he probably doesn't have much sympathy for President Calderon of Mexico, who is trying to move his country toward freer markets.

These days, the new Administration's de facto message to Mexico seems to be: You have economic problems? Move here!

Conservatives who oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are a minority on the right, though certainly one that has been heard from. But the main opposition to the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia has come from the Left for years--the Bush years, that is. Now that we are expanding our numbers in Afghanistan and talking about intervention in Pakistan, where are the marches, the angry editorials, the furious letters to the editor? The American Conservative (home of anti-war rightists) pretty much nails it.

You will search hard in the media for an explanation that the "tea parties" held nationally relate to the Boston Tea Party, the anti-tax protest that helped spark the Revolutionary War. If one merely assumes that everyone--including the young--know the historical reference, I think one might be wrong. Unfortunately.

One also searches hard in news accounts for accurate total numbers of attendees at various "tea party" protests yesterday--IRS tax day. Newspaper reports covered the "few hundred" in front of the White House, as if the world inside the Beltway was all that mattered, and suggested that only "tens of thousands" protested nationwide. But Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax reform estimates--from press reports as well as on the site accounts--that over a quarter of a million participated.

Finally, no one really tells us how much taxes Americans really are paying. Claims that taxes are historically low right now reflect the leftover tax rates from the Bush years, not what is happening right now in municipal governments, county governments, and state governments, as well as what is coming the from federal government, where the plan is to raise taxes on the rich. By all means, soak the rich, but aren't those the very people we count on to invest in enterprises that might make new jobs?

As for the rest of us, pledges of "no new taxes" for people who make under $250,000 a household omit indirect tax hikes, fee increases and hidden taxes making their way in Congress now; for example, the energy price hikes expected for everyone in all brackets if Cap and Trade passes.

Then there is the potential hidden tax of inflation once the trillions being authorized now get spent. We are told that it won't be a problem because of the recession. Really?

I'll grant that a good strong recession will hold back inflation for a while. Oh, and it also will reduce the problem of traffic congestion, the wait for reservations at restaurants (those still open) and check out lines at supermarkets. Hooray!

But meanwhile, surely people are not crazed or selfish to worry about their tax burden during the same hard recession.

I hear from liberal friends that it is not. Martin Feldstein says it is.

There is a funhouse quality of absurdity to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his appearance at a UN Conference on Anti-Racism to denounce Israel. Besides Iran, the major sponsors include Cuba, Venezuela and Libya. How did they leave out Zimbabwe and North Korea?

The conference raises the question, if you were alive in, say, 1936 or '37 , and yet knew what you did today of the Nazis, what would you do? The thing is, we are alive now and yet find it hard to focus on a powerful latter-day Nazi, Ahmadinejad, who is getting a lot more play from the UN than Hitler ever got from the old League of Nations.

"Nazi" is a frequently and regrettably abused term. Fairly speaking, it should apply only to a vehement anti-Semite who not only wants to discriminate against Jews, but also wants to destroy them as a people--AND is prepared to use violent force to do so. Unfortunatley, Ahmadinejad meets the definitional criteria.

This is not a matter of poor taste at the United Nations. It is an urgent scandal.

Urgent because Iran is acquiring nuclear weapons.

Some Mexican immigrant advocates are arguing that illegals should boycott the 2010 Census unless a vast increase in naturalization (about 12 million) is approved first by Congress. http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/18150 It is a development that could further complicate the taking of the 2010 Census.

The development constitutes a strange turn in politics, too, since it confounds the ethnic political calculations of those who want to use new citizens to boost Democratic party fortunes. More immediately, if many Hispanics who are here illegally aren't counted in the 2010 Census, Democrats, in effect, could lose clout in Congressional reapportionment and state redistricting. The calculation of the immigrant groups is that the Democrats in Congress, facing such a prospect, now will be forced to push hard for immigration changes. But in the midst of a major recession, that calculation could be a mistake.

Add this to the mix: Many in Mexico are a lot less eager to see increased numbers of naturalized U.S. citizens from the population of illegals now north of the border than they are to get Washington to adopt a program of temporary visas for agricultural and other short term workers.

From a Mexican perspective, that nation's interests lie in retaining its labor force in the long run while increasing family remittances in the short run. It is also pointed out that most Mexicans would rather not abandon their country of birth if they can find a way to make a living there--or in legal work in the U.S. Granting amnesty to the current illegal immigrants assures that as soon as the process is over the same problems will arise for a new generation of illegals--problems for U.S. border security and problems of personal security for the new waves of illegals. It is in the interests of the Mexicans as well as the Americans to get a real reform, not just a political fix.

The obstacles to policy accommodation are not in Mexico but in the American Congress. Businesses are much more ready to improve the lot of temporary workers than they were--classically--in Grapes of Wrath days (and that story was about workers who were Oklahomans, not Mexicans). But organized labor will resist the competition. So will some ethnic voter groups aligned with the Democrats.

Still, a U. S. Administration that wanted to help Mexico to stabilize and prosper and to find a permanent solution to the worker/immigration pressure on our borders would support an increase in temporary visas and work permits, just as it would visas for skilled workers. It also would legislate to assure modern standards of housing and medical protections for temporary workers. The increase in working visas could be combined with serious border security enforcement. But with a worker visa program included in immigration reform, such border problems would be reduced anyhow, and almost at once.

We should stop thinking of Mexico as a welfare case and start regarding the country as the strong trade partner it is already and the developed first world economic power it has the potential to become.

The Obama Administration apparently has abandoned the campaign promise to re-open NAFTA. Otherwise, however, it shows little inclination to move on this path. Meanwhile, Republicans are clear that they oppose massive naturalization efforts (amnesty), but seem unable to articulate a principled and positive foreign/domestic agenda that identifies with both the interests of our border integrity and Mexico's legitimate economic ambitions and the humanitarian interests of Mexican workers. Why can't politicians put these worthy goals together?

It could be, and should be, undertaken before the 2010 Census.

The Renowned John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport

Oh, dear! Taxpayer advocates like Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform are being mean about the waste of federal money exemplified by the fabulous John Murtha Airport constructed in (where else?) Rep. John Murtha's district in Pennsylvania with your money. The complaint, as ABC reports, has something to do with the fact that only an average of 20 passengers use the airport daily, despite all the federal investment, upkeep and subsidies.

An ultra efficient baggage terminal

No line at the booking desk

Plenty of seating options for your wait

But that kind of criticism isn't fair, really. Having passengers only would degrade the efficiency of what obviously is a model airport. With passengers you get lines at the TSC checkpoints, bathrooms that need cleaning and waits for luggage arrival.

It reminds one of the classic situation that rendered in the classic Yes, Minister series on British Television in the 80s, only in that case, the issue centered on a splendid new hospital that set national standards for high performance,--not despite its lack of any actual patients, but because of that lack.

The old complaint that nothing ever gets decided anymore in process-strangled cities may have been answered at last. What cut the Gordian knot on the problem of Seattle's famous waterfront--presently blighted by a sixty year old, unsafe elevated freeway (State Route 99, the Alaska Way Viaduct)--was the discovery of new technologies in deep bore tunneling. These technologies now make a tunnel, the most attractive option, one of the most affordable, too. Following that discovery, a remarkably successful coalition of business and labor, community leaders and environmentalists was convened, with close interaction among previously skeptical political leaders at municipal, county and state levels. The outcome of a remarkable planning and advocacy effort was ratified, in effect, by the Washington State Legislature this week (the final vote came late yesterday) and now goes to Gov. Christine Gregoire for her signature. Some $2.5 billion is involved. So , too, are the economic viability, transportation efficiency and livability of one of America's great urban hubs.

This story is of national significance because of how it happened and what it portends for the "intelligent design" (I couldn't resist that phrase) of America's transportation systems in urban areas. It also shows the value of think tanks--in this case, the Cascadia Center at Discovery Institute--as outside, independent voices for research and advocacy. Without Cascadia, as Friday's article from The Daily Journal of Commerce shows below, it wouldn't have been possible for tunneling experts to be assembled last fall to question the pessimistic numbers presented by the Department of Transportation that made a tunnel option seem unfeasible. Sometimes, it takes an outsider with only relatively modest resources to cause the insiders to think again.

One reason that MSNBC and CNN (not to mention certain other media) are withering in the ratings is their insistence on hashing over old news even while major breaking stories go undeveloped.

We are supposed to be exercised about the issue of legal memos of six or seven years ago that justified what turned out to be the water boarding of a handful of captured terrorists.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is teetering, Afghanistan and Iraq have seen an upsurge of violence in what used to be known as the War on Terrorism, but now is--I don't know what it's called, maybe "The Struggle Against Man-Made Disasters."

The Islamic Republic of Iran is close to getting atomic weapons, threatening the existence of Israel and working to destabilize Egypt and the Gulf States.

And The People's Republic of North Korea is testing long range missiles.

And never mind about domestic issues of major significance, including runaway public spending and huge domestic changes looming in health care, cloning and energy. Don't tell me these topics aren't as interesting as old DOJ memos.

Rather, it appears that someone is trying to manufacture public interest in old memos in order to distract attention from what is imminent and pressing. The media that are fascinated are not naive, either. It's doesn't seem to bother them that the public really isn't following their lead.

"Johnny, can you use the word 'influenza' in a sentence?"

Johnny: "I had a little bird, his name was Enza; I opened the window and in flew Enza."
---Childrens joke, 1918 (Hat tip: my late Mom)

The Spanish Flu killed millions. There seems to be some question as to whether the "Swine Flu" has killed 150 or a relative handful. Many people around the world are coming down with the flu, but it is hard to see how the disease qualifies for the hysterical reactions in certain quarters. After all, flu strains of all kinds kill about 36,000 people a year in a normal year in the United States alone. So far, one person in the U.S. has died of the new flu strain.

Right now, the over-reaction will probably do tremendous and unnecessary economic damage. Some say it might better be called the Mexican Flu, since it has almost nothing to do with pigs. Swine get it, but they don't convey it to humans through pork products. Still, Egypt has ordered the destruction of all pigs. Various countries are announcing boycotts of pig products from Mexico, the U.S. or wherever.

Come to think, it probably should not be called Mexican Flu, either. A boycott of Mexico and Mexican products is about the worst thing to do to that struggling country right now. And the flu already has spread to the U.S. and Europe. Should we stop airplane flights to everywhere?

The disease is seldom fatal and is not airborne. It is carried by droplets--people coughing or sneezing in your face or on objects you touch before putting your fingers to your mouth. It's a form of the flu, folks, one of life's familiar risks, not the end of the world.