Is Swine Flu Really Montezuma's Revenge

One of the things I had wanted to see when we took our 30th anniversary cruise through the Southwest last month was some kind of ancient ruins, or the abandoned adobe homes of native cliff dwellers. When we were in Holbrook for a night, at the WigWam on Route 66, I was aware that a day trip north into reservation lands would give us such an experience, but it seemed a bit off the beaten path in light of our plans.

To my great surprise, while at one of those tourist information places in Sedona, I learned that Montezuma’s Castle National Monument was just a short piece down the road, proof that we can still find our way around without Mapquest and Google. Sometimes, if you want to find wonders, you just need to ask the locals.

Essentially, Montezuma’s Castle was a 20 room high-rise apartment tucked into a limestone cliff starting about a hundred feet off the ground. The Sinagua peoples lived here about a thousand years ago. The conquistadors who named it falsely assumed Montezuma, Aztec king, had somehow been associated with this region, hence the name.

President Teddy Roosevelt is credited with making this a National Monument because of its great “ethnological value and scientific interest."

The location is interesting, a very short distance from massive underground springs, an oasis in the middle of nowhere. The Sinaguans had to climb 100 foot ladders to reach their homes at night. Whether this was for security from wild animals or enemy tribes no one knows. Tourists were actually permitted to climb up into the “castle” up until 1951, at which time public access was discontinued.

No one knows why this site was abandoned before the arrival of the white man. Perhaps they were conquered by another tribe. Or perhaps they simply moved on. Archaeologists love mysteries like this and will continue to examine all the evidence they can uncover.

What we do know is that had they lived a couple more centuries they might have been wiped out by diseases for which they had no immunity brought from Europe by white men. This is how vast swaths of the native populations were washed away. It is a tragic piece of history which we often forget. A few thousand Spanish conquerors were able to overcome millions of natives not by their mighty weapons and ingenuity, but rather by the disease which swept through the Americas on first contact. Could it be that this swine flu is simply Montezuma's revenge?

Lions and Tigers, and Swine Flu… Oh My!

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. ~ H. P. Lovecraft.

Evidently a lot of people are seriously concerned about the swine flu which has penetrated our shores. The Washington Post gave it a full page of coverage and in one hour yesterday there were 10,000 tweets on Twitter pertaining to the latest details of this potential epidemic. A search on Google News for swine flu revealed more than 33,423 news articles about the potential pandemic.

There may be good reasons for concern when it comes to these kinds of things. The 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic killed more people than World War I which preceded it. In fact, that flu killed more people than the Black Death Bubonic Plague of 1347-51.

Children would skip rope to a nursery rhyme about the flu that went like this:

I had a little bird
Its name was Enza.
I opened the window,
and in-flu-enza.

The number of actual deaths in Mexico from flu has been less than 200 and only 26 attributed to the strain of flu being called "swine flu." Ironically, while we're telling Americans not to travel to Mexico, the European Union is beseeching its people to forgo travelling to the U.S.

If all this flu news is giving you the blues and you want to keep current with it all, here are some steps you can take to track the swine flu.

I have not lost any sleep over this except to worry a little whether it's possible get infected thru online social networks. Actually, maybe someone will suggest that MySpace and Facebook are helping ameliorate the spread of the disease since we do all our socializing online now instead of face-to-face.

For the record, if you're especially concerned, the Center for Disease Control has a lot of good information available, too. And don't worry about those pork chops in the fridge. They'll be just fine.

To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another. ~ Katherine Paterson.