Comments on: If It’s Not Swine Flu, What Is It?

By: Adam Lanphier

Adam Lanphier — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:34:28 +0000

Whoa, haven't been here in a while

Yes, Seth Allen, you got me figured out!

By: Seth Allen

Seth Allen — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:05:48 +0000

adam lanphier honestly your kinda complaining more then anyone here and it kinda seems like your getting mad because you couldnt buy your pork for a normal price what are you a fat freakin retard?

By: Not Adam Lanphier

Not Adam Lanphier — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:44:41 +0000

Adam Lanphier is so right, get over it Jimmie, and if you disagree one more time its because you hate gays and minorities you fascist pig.

By: Adam Lanphier

Adam Lanphier — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:29:37 +0000

thanks for being so direct, jimmy.

here's the deal, as i see it: tom vilsack got the price of pork back to normal without endangering americans. whatever he said clearly did the trick!

By: Jimmie

Jimmie — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:25:29 +0000

Here's the deal, Adam. Tom Vilsack got his facts wrong and screwed up his announcement.

You can argue around that all you want (and you do seem determined to do so) but that basic fact stands. That was the point of my post.

By: Adam Lanphier

Adam Lanphier — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:51:20 +0000

yeah, i get that now. thank you.

like i said (not clearly enough, it sounds like) in my last response, it is of no consequence where the name 'swine flu' comes from, as it contains no information about the disease it refers to.

the message you propose — 'yes, it is called swine flu, but not because it comes from eating pigs' — contains substantively more 'rumination' about the name's origin than what the agriculture secretary actually said. so, his message, again, was, brief 'at the expense of respect for the virus’ popular name.'

my other point was that the message you propose, taken out of context, would be torn apart by vicious bloggers because it contains the context-less phrase, 'yes, it is called swine flu…'

there would be posts like, 'first this administration allows itself to be photographed shaking hands with unfriendly world leaders; now they concede that the h1n1 virus is called 'swine flu'! they are criminally careless in how they present themselves!' in fact, i wouldn't put such a post past you, had this administration done what you suggest.

do you think his message fails to communicate his ideas? do you think it's undermined by an error in nomenclature? tell me, how did you come to learn that the h1n1 virus is not transmitted by eating pork? it couldn't have been from the agriculture secretary's error-filled statement, right?

By: Jimmie

Jimmie — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:30:08 +0000

No, I think it was factually incorrect to say that Swine Flu gets its name in any way from eating pork, which is what he said. That was my point. Like I said in my original post.

By: Adam Lanphier

Adam Lanphier — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:08:12 +0000

i can't think of two, four-second sentences that could communicate more clearly the two points that:

1. what is called 'swine flu' is dangerous, but

2. you should keep eating pork.

i'll concede that his brevity came at the expense of respect for the virus' popular name, but as i've been saying, i don't think its popular name is particularly consequential. people just spontaneously agreed on it when they saw a picture of a pig next to a picture of a virus on the news.

if there's anything to lament in what he said, it's the compulsion our politicians feel to speak in sound bites, for fear of what mean-spirited bloggers might make of de-contextualized extracts from longer quotes.