Swine flu, eh? Well, that one’s new. By Monday morning, as it became clear an unprecedented pandemic was spreading northward, the first apocalyptic reference rang out. A clueless local radio anchor cried out “This is like ‘The Stand,'” referring to Stephen King’s great post-apocalyptic novel. A friend of mine, who’d spent the weekend in bed with a nasty case of salmonella, spent the afternoon worrying he might have swine flu. My dad e-mailed me advising me to wash my hands more frequently than usual, proving he considers “swine flu” and “a cold going around” to be functional equivalents.

In the clearest evidence yet that fears of swine flu are keeping University of Wisconsin students from their daily lives, only 17 students braved the epidemic Monday night to attend the second annual “State of the ASM” address.

And, as they always must, our UW administrators sent out a stoic e-mail assuring us they were “actively monitoring reports of swine flu affecting Mexico, with additional cases around the United States.” Translation: UW administrators are actively checking The New York Times website and speaking with state government employees who are doing the same thing. Undoubtedly University Health Services will soon (if it hasn’t already) receive stockpiles of medical supplies in case students start coughing up cardinal and white.

Good grief. This is really not “The Stand.” There will be no weary bands of plague refugees stumbling cross country towards Las Vegas, and Biddy Martin will likely not battle the forces of evil on the desert sands. If the apocalypse is coming, and indeed right soon, swine flu will not be the culprit.

Yes, swine flu may have caused up to 149 deaths in Mexico as of Monday night. And 40 cases have been confirmed in the United States, not least among schoolchild populations in New York City. (Thanks, Times!) According to some reports, swine flu was allowed to spread in Mexico for several weeks before eluding the border patrols and skipping into the states.

Here’s where “critical thinking” comes into play. Why might swine flu be killing people in poor regions of Mexico but not in the United States? Why does the Center for Disease Control and World Health Organization seem so confident Mexico will weather this problem admirably? Do we need even an additional word about this nonsense from President Obama, let alone the Office of the Dean of Students? Use your heads. As nasty as swine flu is, U.S. health services are able to contain and treat swine flu just fine. The sky is not falling.

There comes a point in any democratic society where enough is enough — where citizens must trade a false stoicism for a real one. The former insists constant vigilance is a virtue, that there is no amount of nanny-state coddling unwarranted if it saves a few lives or — the furthest removed — makes a few people feel comfortable. If we could waterboard the swine flu, some of these people would be running to fill up the bucket.

Real stoics are different. We accept our absurd fates, whatever they may be, and trust the all-stars in the background to postpone the inevitable as long as possible. We don’t crouch around short-wave radios (or Gmail inboxes) waiting to know whether we’re safe. The surefire way to make our world a threatening place is to treat it like one, ad nauseam. Shit will happen, swine-created or otherwise.

And if our campus administrators want to overfill our inboxes, the occasion should be proportionate to the inbox blitzkrieg. Swine flu is not worth a single campuswide e-mail. A quasi-epidemic, fully treatable in the United States, rooted in poverty and poor sanitation in Mexico, does not warrant the attention. If swine flu really wants me, it can come and get me. In the meantime, I’ll be sleeping like a baby on a campus much safer and brighter than our student services believe.

Eric Schmidt ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science.