Flu Shots – Good or Bad

I’m almost over this cold that my baby cousin was so gracious to share with me. The cold was the context for my previous post. It was Progresso chicken and rice soup and Premium unsalted crackers, and it was indeed quite tasty. The cold is also the inspiration for today’s question. What’s up with the flu shot. Personally, I’ve never had one, but I’ve taken my grandmother to get hers for the past four or five years. My limited knowledge of the flu shot is that… wait… this is the internet…

CDC Flu Shot Q & A <— link

hmmm… the Center for Disease Control basically just killed the thought provoking question I woke up with this morning which was… does the flu shot cause the flu… killed it like the three strains of virus that get injected into my grandmother’s arm each year. Before reading that FAQ which is quite easy to find with a simple search of “what is the flu shot”, I was aware that the flu shot was the flu virus itself, but I wasn’t certain about the virus being “inactivated (killed)”.

Of course if I was a true conspiracy theorist, this information could be easily dismissed as propaganda and I would continue to blog about how my grandmother promptly got the flu after each flu shot. I would then wonder how many people who were never vaccinated actually got the flu from people who did get the shot. I would also wonder (as I always have), how the manufacturers of the vaccine decide which strains to include in the shot each year.

oh well.

The Dog Whisperer

I’ve been watching The Dog Whisperer every since they started airing it on NGC. Cesar Millan visits people who are having behavioral problems with their dogs. For me, the thing that makes this show stand apart from others of its type is Cesar’s approach to each case. Often he’s called to a home where a dog owner tells him they’ve experienced “x” problem for “y” amount of time. Each owner presents a challenge of family size, location, and disposition. After assessing the owner’s situation, he checks out the dog. Cesar has popularized the term “Pack Leader” to sum up the relationship that an owner needs to have with a dog. He uses his knowledge and experience of dog behavior, often causing dogs to display more acceptable behavior after just a short time being ’shh’d and challenged by his deliberate directions. It’s a very positive show that contains lessons that go far beyond stopping a poodle from yelping at the toaster. Home after home, family after family after inmate after grieving widow after poor uneducated youth after single rich hollywood star after gay philipino couple, he lets the owner know that the pack leader tells the follower what to do. He reveals his tried and true formula of excercise, discipline, and affection which changes the owner’s posture and way of being as much as it does the dog. That is precisely what inspired me to write this random tv show review. You don’t need to be a dog owner to be “Pack Leader”. The lifestyle of excercise, discipline, and affection delivered with calm assertive energy is ideal for the dog because it is ideal for the owner. I get a little chuckle out of the fact that one of his favorite riding partners is Redman’s pitbull, Daddy. He often uses Daddy to show how a balanced dog behaves.

Fa Shizz

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