Slashdot Mirror
Let's Rename Swine Flu As "Colbert Flu"
Bruce Perens writes "The World Health Organization will no longer refer to Virus A(H1N1) as 'Swine Flu,' citing ethnic reactions to 'swine,' for example among middle-eastern cultures who feel that swine are unclean. Or, is it because meat packers are concerned that people might stop eating pork in fear of the virus? WHO suggests that the public select a new name for the virus. I suggest that we all start calling it The Colbert Flu, after the comedian and fake pundit who asked his audience to stuff a NASA poll so that a Space Station module would be named after him. What can we do to make the name stick?"
Call it the Colbert flu? I don't think so. Colbert was just being funny, which is his job. It's why people watch him, and why they'll go so far as to stuff a poll. Plus, it was good publicity for the space station, led to an astronaut on his show, and even the naming of some widget or other after him. Treadmill? Whatever.
Anyway, Colbert is generally a positive influence. His "fake punditry" is pungent social comment, with the intent of nudging the his audience to think about these issues. While being funny, which keeps them coming back. All in all, a good thing. So I don't think naming a killer flu after him is appropriate. Entirely the wrong set of connotations, you see.
Flus are annoying, they show up wether you want them to or not, right in the middle of something else you were doing. Vaguely similar to your suggestion we name a nasty flu after a cool guy showing up on slashdot.
So in honor of your annoying and inappropriate post, I'm simply going to counter-suggest that we name H1N1 after you instead: The "Perens Flu." Does that seem fair to you?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Who is Colbert? // not American // Swine Flu is worldwide.
Given the pandemic of meaning obscuring, "politically correct" names, I'm surprised that swine flu hasn't been renamed to "porcine repressing influenza" or some such.
Struggling to find a day everyone can make? WhenShallWe.com
"Bacon Lung"
Much better name.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Let's call it "H1N1" flu. You know, like, what it is actually called BY SCIENCE!
crazy dynamite monkey
Characteristics of a flu...
given all these, the choice is obvious...
I hereby dub this latest flu the CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN FLU
Not be named after 'unclean' animals after all. I only get kosher diseases, thank you very much!
Are you a conservative by any chance?
Unfortunately for us, the origin of the flu is turning out to be from the United States, not Mexico. So, the USA Flu then you are suggesting?
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
His running joke is that he will sell out in nearly any way to get his name out there. He'd probably love the idea and go on his show next week and urge viewers to write to WHO to ask for the rename.
"Contrarily the lookaside buffer might not be the panacea... "
There is a real problem in Egypt, which is persecuting its Coptic Christians by slaughtering their pigs. A minority in Egypt are Christian, the word "Copt" refers to their Egyptian ethnicity.
Some of the Copts farm pork, which the majority of Egyptian Islamic citizens (and their powerful clerics) feel are unclean. The Copts feed the pigs by recycling garbage, compounding their unclean nature in the eyes of Islamics. So, the Egyptians are slaughtering the pigs in the fear that they are influenza vectors.
We don't actually know that the pig is a vector for the virus at all. Thus, the Egyptian slaughters are unwarranted. We do know that human-to-human contact is a problem this time. The pigs are where influenza genes are often mixed, because they are susceptible to avian, human, and swine viruses. There probably was one pig-to-human transmission at the beginning of this epidemic, but there isn't evidence of continuing transmission after that.
The Copts are persecuted like most religious minorities in religious states. You don't see many of them in government (and none in high positions) or education. They don't often get government permission to build churches, and in 2007 there were Islamic riots because the people around the Copts thought they wanted to build a church. They need government permission to perform religious services.
The bottom line here is that the Egyptians, by slaughtering the pigs, remove the livelyhood of the Copts. They aren't promising to restore that livelyhood.
Bruce Perens.
You can bet that Prescott Pharmaceuticals is working on a nostrum to exploit this latest panic. Includes such side effects as trotter lip, spleen bristles, and toe hams.
BTW.. I'm a Colbert too, you insensitive clods!
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
"I can't come in to work today. I have space herpes."
"Some guy on the subway gave me space herpes."
"CNN Reporting today that another 35 cases of space herpes have surfaced in New York."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
How about we stop giving stupid suggestions their own Slashdot articles?
I came here for a good argument
How about editing the Wiki page to call it the Colbert flu. And while we're at it let's say the flu is a direct result of saving all the elephants.
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
Colbert is an example of cultural humor. The Colbert character is a parody of American right-wing demagogues.
Unless you are familiar with those demagogues, you'll not understand the comedy.
It's like slashdot humor. Unless you're familiar with the memes, the subject matter, and the jokes that have come before, 3/4 of the jokes just won't be funny to you.
That's the problem with humor... little of it is universal (not even poop jokes are universal, as some cultures don't have the same hang-ups about doody that we do). Slapstick is probably the only truly universal humor.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Or P.I.G. Flu
- suggested by CBC radio's "The Current" program this morning.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
A book, you should read it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I'm telling you Bacon Fever!!!
oogly boogly!
It's like slashdot humor. Unless you're familiar with the memes, the subject matter, and the jokes that have come before, 3/4 of the jokes just won't be funny to you.
I am familiar with the memes, the subject matter, and the jokes that have come before, and 4/4 of them still aren't funny.
Wilbur's flu
Flu Z
Montezuma's revenge
Tequila flu
Panic flu
Non-Kosher/Non-Halal flu
One flu over the cuckoo's nest
(just flat out ignore my poorly formatted list above. Sorry)
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Have a worldwide online poll to name it, and allow write-in submissions...
I think I might actually write in "Xenu flu" for that. It even rhymes!
> ethnic reactions to 'swine,' for example among middle-eastern cultures who feel
Actually, they do not "feel" this at all, it has been force-hammered into their heads from early childhood, when they minds could not defend themselves, because several hundreds of years ago, their self-appointed religious founders had no refrigerators (but forgot to leave a "or any later version" in their GPLs.. err... holy scriptures).
So basically a secular, neutral, international health organisationen now forces a disease renaming onto the whole planet because a few backwards theocracies, who happen to have stuck themselves into a religion without a feasible upgrade path (hehehehehe), threaten to let their people die en masse in order to avoid pronouncing the word "swine" loudly. (I'm writing this, but still cant grasp that they rally mean this seriously. Jeez.)
How about Pussification Flu? Anyone who is offended by that name, well, they probably deserve to be.
In other words, get a fucking grip. It's the flu. Get over it already. A pig by any other name.
Oh, and just another small observation for those who are still offended by the "dirty" reference, any animal that still stands on four legs and eats slop with its mouth because it happens to lack opposable thumbs, logical thinking and an IQ under 50 is very well likely to be DIRTY.. For further reference on this fact, please refer to the guide of Common Sense under the No Shit, Sherlock section.
I'm sorry but "Colbert" and "Comedian" only belong in the sentence if the words between them are "is not a ". Maybe I'm English and I just don't get him....
That's OK, mate. We don't get the whole cross-dressing thing here.
Cheers.
PCFlu - Politically Correct Flu
WWF - World Wide Flu
WTF - World Terrorizing Flu
No person, country, or industry deserves to be saddled with the name of a deadly infectious disease that happens by random evolutionary chance.
We have a similar problem with random tropical storms that can eventually turn deadly, and we have in place standard, non-offensive naming system. It uses an annual system with alpha-ordered names.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone_naming
Given the ever-growing global population and the *inevitable* concomitant increase in pandemic diseases, we will eventually need to come up with preemptive arbitrary unoffensive names like we do for storms.
Get the WHO or some robust international group to make a set of arbitrary, alpha-ordered, gender-unbiased names, and any time one reaches pandemic stage 4 (or some stage of early but serious global problem), assign the next name.
Like:
Arthur Flu
Betty Stomach Bug
Carl Flu
Denise Spotty Fever
Eric Virus
Florence Worms
etc ...
a penguin. So it should really be called penguin flew. Since nobody actually eats penguins, this name should satisfy all parties.
Rob Enderle's excellent new book: Everything I needed to know about Computer Science I learned in Marketing School
The virus has genetic characteristics of avian flu and swine flu.
The obvious way to distinguish this one is to call it the Flying Pig Flu.
Late-night comics and morning zoo types will flog it for all it's worth, so it will overtake the current moniker.
And the zealots will have to try to kill all the flying pigs.
Sorry, Stephen.
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off
Google, you should use it.
sig: sauer
They forced him to produce a body... that doesn't mean anything. Hans was a nerd and the jury doesn't like that so they locked him up. Simple as that.
This might sound like flamebait but it is an honest question...So what if in English it's the Swine flu? "Swine" probably isn't even a word in these cultures that are reacting to the use of the word. And isn't it their problem if they have literally translated it into their language. Why don't they come up with their own name for the flu and use that? It's not as if they don't have their own words for everything else. The WHO and their own local media could then use the appropriate word for the appropriate culture when discussing the flu with people from that culture.
See Trichinosis fact sheet and the Wikipedia article. Yes, it's really sad that poor people feed garbage (and feces of other animals) to the animals that they are rearing to produce meat for human consumption. But they do it because they're poor, unlike meat-packers in the U.S. who didn't have that excuse. I suspect that social equality where they live would lead to a halt to this practice.
Bruce Perens.
Further more, I suggest we submit that for further discussion in an article of its own.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I prefer the name Pandemic Influenza Germ...although people will undoubtedly shorten that to an acronym of some sort.
Don't worry...it will end up being all our fault even if it DID start in Mexico....
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
Let's not name a possible pandemic after some local celebrity of yours. It was funny (to you) when it was some NASA space station, but really, nobody knows (nor cares) who Colbert is ouside of US and Canada.
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
No, it hasn't.
There was an outbreak of an influenza that was named swine flu at Fort Dix in the past. It didn't spread (although I've read it lead to a vaccine campaign that was linked to Guillain-Barre symdrome).
This form of influenza is not the same as the swine flu that happened then, just like this year's other predominant "human" influenza strains are not the same as the ones last year, or the year before. (Sometimes they do last for more than one year, but it is not a common occurance.)
> now the one we have isn't really satisfying for anyone.
What isn't satisfying is the monty-pythonian reasoning behind the renaming (the officials didnt come up first with a name) and the fact that its an respectable and serious scientific organisation that simply plays along ald lets dumb theocracies put pressure on worldwide policies.
Whats next then? Obligatory renaming AIDS in "gay flu"?
Is modding this funny libelous or just insensitive?
Always back up, never back down. ---- Think you're cool 'cos your uid is prime? Take mine, modulo the one digit integers
do not post dumb things here anymore thanks.
So, you feel that:
A) The issue here was caused by the name 'swine flu', and not by the fact that Egyptian officials are actively persecuting a minority.
B) The government officials really were dumb enough to ignore all expert advice and instead chose to go with just the name.
and C) Changing the name now will prevent other government's officials from harassing minority groups.
No. The name may have given them a convenient excuse, but the problem in Egypt has nothing to do with the name of the disease. I'd wager that they would have done their best to slaughter the pigs even if the flu was being referred to as the Mexican flu, the Colbert flu, or whatever the hell else you want to call it.
Well, in that case, the problem seems to be you. Have you considered that possibly you are just a humorless twit?
More likely, the memes you cherish just aren't that funny.
Oh look, another In Soviet Russia joke. More hot grits. Another set of Profit!!! steps. Hey, there's that same Beowulf cluster joke again.
You're right, the problem is that the humor is all too rich for us.
Advice: on VPS providers
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Shouldn't this be a final excuse to close it to ILLEGAL entry at the very least?!?! At least with legal entry, you can document who and when...to help track things and at the very least give someone a visual 'once over'.
Can't do that with the illegal ones....so why not NOW shut the borders off to them?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Actually, they do not "feel" this at all, it has been force-hammered into their heads from early childhood, when they minds could not defend themselves,
As opposed to having it hammered into their heads that something which is religious is necessarily backwards and wrong? I find it interesting that one who condemns religions for their backwardness is himself so intolerant of the beliefs of others.
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
I see I was correct. There are a lot of humorless twits on slashdot. Now, you may not be humorless, and you may not be a twit, but I think you're way off base, for the following reasons:
1. You chose to lump all humor in with meme humor. If you look at the majority of +5, Funny posts on slashdot, you'll see that fewer than half are meme-related. Yes, there are a lot of meme-joke attempts, but most of those are either un-moderated, or down-moderated. That's the beauty of a moderated system. If you choose to browse at a threshold lower than 3, that's your choice -- but don't bitch when you see a lot of lame joke attempts.
2. It was a poor choice for me to use memes as the first in an incomplete list of things contributing to understanding of cultural humor on slashdot, BUT the other factors are also important. Relating to memes and jkoes that have come before: One of the great things about some of the humor on slashdot is the repartee -- the metajokes that play on memes or previous jokes. Failing to appreciate those jokes, is in my opinion, a sign of humorlessness (or of inability to understand them, which is even worse). Those are the rich jokes that exist on slashdot but nowhere else, IMO.
3. You still miss the point of the entire thread, which is that cultural awareness is important in undertanding humor. Even the non-meme humor requires cultural understanding.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
This flu is actually two parts swine flu, one part bird flu...
So that would make it flying pig flu?
the origin of the flu is turning out to be from the United States
[citation needed]
What about those who entered legally and are US citizens?