Remember how after 9/11, every backwater public library in Iowa and auditorium in Missouri spent millions terrorist-proofing themselves, JUST TO BE READY? Swine flu panic is the new that.

Folks all over America heard about this Deadly Swine Flu, on the teevee, and they're not waiting to be killed by runaway microbes: they're taking futile actions now.

More than 300 schools closed around the country, sending more than 170,000 students home in 11 states, including all schools in the Fort Worth district.

In Delaware, a rap concert was canceled. At Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, 22 students who had been student teaching in Mexico were told not to take part in graduation ceremonies. (Their separate ceremony will be shown on videotape, school officials said, during the official event.) And in Chicago, some Roman Catholic priests stopped giving communion wine and were asking parishioners to avoid shaking hands.

Anything that cancels a rap concert in Delaware can't be all bad.
[NYT. Pic via]

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