As I’ve gotten older, I have noticed a decrease in my liberal desires (such as helping people) and an increase in my more conservative tendencies (calling anti-war protestors “traitors”). I have found I need guidance making my way through this time of transition; thus I have turned to the judgment of my new conservative parents Pat Robertson and Ann Coulter.

The American people are being bombarded with messages about a new pandemic of bird flu. The flu everyone is so concerned about is a form of influenza found in birds and can be passed to humans if they are around dead or dying birds. According to BBC News, the flu killed 60 people in Southeast Asia in two years. That is 30 people a year in a large and very highly populated area. Could you imagine the devastation this could cause in an area like DeKalb? One person might somehow die related to birds, though it may not be the bird flu. On a slightly irrelevant note, there is an outbreak in Turkey. If you get past the sad aspect of it, you can see the humor in a flu coming from birds having an outbreak in a place named for a bird.

Due to my growing concern over the almost nonexistent threat of this bird flu, I wonder what my new conservative parents would do to protect the country and me from this potential, but seemingly unlikely, plague.

Close to a year ago, Coulter claimed Canada is “lucky that we allow them to exist on the same continent,” a sentiment I cannot help but encourage now that the Canadian goose population around my apartment has skyrocketed. Outside my home, there is a small pond which is a temporary home for approximately 200 geese at any given time. With the threat of bird flu on the loose, I cannot help but be concerned for my well-being. If one of these geese were to die, and I were to happen to spend a lot of time by its body, I could potentially catch this virus. Perhaps we should have listened to Coulter a year ago before this bird flu and done something about the Canadian geese, like “roll over one night and crush them.” No more Canada means no more geese, which means no goose flu.

Robertson would have a few good ideas on what to do about this bird flu as well, and more generally the problem with the geese by my apartment. I suppose Robertson would do one of two things: either he would suggest we assassinate the president of Goosetonia or Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, because these potentially flu-carrying birds are performing terrorist actions and I don’t believe anyone stopped them on the way through customs. If that idea does not work, I’m sure he would blame Ellen Degeneres for the disease. We can see her return to television in 2003 directly correlates with the time the first deaths in Southeast Asia were reported. Obviously, this is proof Degeneres’ television presence infected those birds, who probably don’t even own TVs, and now there is a plague.

In closing, I want to thank Pat and Ann for being the wise and open-minded people all of us conservatives long to become. Without their tolerance for other countries and passive solutions to the world’s problems, I’m not sure where the world would be today.

Views expressed in this humor column do not necessarily reflect the Northern Star or its staff. Send comments to [email protected].