As students across America prepare to head back to school, officials and parents are bracing for a spike in swine flu cases. With the possibility that nearly 2 million people will be hospitalized, and 90,000 people across the country could die, one Long Island school district is taking no chances and has set into place a new “hands-off” approach to fighting the swine flu.

Chest bumps. High fives. Hugs and handshakes. Glen Cove Middle School students Ali Slaughter and Hannah Seltzer say that’s what friends do on the first day of school. But when students in the Nassau community return to school next week, the superintendent will be urging abstinence. Everyone from the tiniest tots to the biggest high school football players will be asked to limit skin-on-skin contact in an attempt to prevent the spread of swine flu when it re-emerges this fall.

Fun quote:

Lorena Galo filled out her health form and decided she can’t give up hugging. “We’re still going to hug either way,” she says.




  1. noname says:

    I think the kid in the picture would support
    no Touching To Fight H1N1.

    Stop it, your touching me … MOMMY…the lady with the needle is touching me …MOMMEEEEEEEE,… I hate you….

  2. noname says:

    Guilherme Cherman, this is for you, a fan of all things BRAZILIAN.

    W.T.O. Approves $295 Million in Sanctions Against U.S.

  3. AdmFubar says:

    I wanna know what has happened in the southern hemisphere as it was winter there… was there a epidemic of swine flu in australia, new zeland, south africa, south america? idle prying minds wanna know…

  4. Animby says:

    Noname: Congratulations. You have won the Flying Middle Finger Award for best staying on topic post of the month!

    No touching in school? Makes me glad I’m an older guy. Some of the touching we did in the second grade (just behind the gardener’s shed) would have spread the flu so easily…

  5. Howard Beale says:

    #3
    .wpro.who.int/media_centre/news/news_20090715.htm

    down under
    people sick people dieing not in black pelage percentages but three times higher than for the winter peak of the past two years. If it was some one you knew and loved and their death could have been prevented by a simple vaccine I bet you’d feel was unwise to skip the shot.

    the “Schools Ban Touching” headline is misleading as the storey only says , “the superintendent will be urging abstinence” from touching not a BAN just good advice you’d get from any sensible person.

  6. noname says:

    # 4 Animby,
    Have to ask, as you blithely avoided stating it. Which post are you referring too?

    Door #1

    or

    Door #2.

    Oh, by the way, let me return your salute.

    And, along those lines, who elected you God??

    Whose rule says only strict, non-wavering thought from original topic?

    Are you applying to be a kind of thought police??

    You sound scarely Orwellian.

  7. eaze says:

    Touching is already banned in UK schools lol

  8. Animby says:

    Noname: you funny.
    Used to be a No Name Restaurant outside Guadalajara. They let the peacocks (and hens) roam freely. Place was full of crap.

    Which brings us back to you. Orwellian for suggesting you stay on topic? Read the guidelines, my fine feathered friend. The moderators kindly allow great latitude. The rest of us just get pissed off.

    Now, go troll elsewhere.

  9. RTaylor says:

    This is what happens when the school attorney sits in on a closed session. You can imagine the legal minds they could afford to hire.

  10. Weary Reaper says:

    NO COMMENT

  11. bobbo, intellectual inquiry is but one weave and warp says:

    #2–nosense==I thank you for your illuminating link. I have a small personal hobby in researching farm subsidies. We all know the BILLIONS that are wasted on big business welfare corporate farmers because Iowa, the first primary state, is an agricultural one. Don’t you know that leather butt hole chaps would be reimbursed business wear if the first Primary was held in San Francisco?

    So it is fun to follow Big Agriculture and see its hooks. Why should any crop have a subsidy or a supporting tariff in the good old USA especially when we have treaties saying we won’t do it???

    Anyway, just to not upset Animby, I hope this action doesn’t affect the supply of cotton swabs given the coming flu season.

  12. The Monster's Lawyer says:

    I’m touching myself right now.

  13. Animby says:

    Bobbo. Ever wonder how they get the cotton to stick so well to the stick?

    “…butt hole chaps”? I can’t even imagine what those would look like or what kind of cactus pricks they would protect you from.

    Oh, cactus pr… never mind.

  14. noname says:

    Yeah I am real funny.

    I am surprised, they still let rag-heads in this country. I see you posting all over these Arab web sites. Animby, I hope for your sake your not a member of the Taliban

  15. Animby says:

    Hey, Noname. What a find! What is curious is that I actually was a member of Arab Lionz several about four years ago when I worked in Egypt. But NOT under my Animby moniker. It’s a movie download site: not exactly legal but not a hotbed of antiAmericanism, either. (Unless you work for the MPAA.) And I usually wore a baseball cap not a towel. Oh, and my family were Pennsylvania Dutch. Now go back to your den and look even harder. You might find the Thai website I post on fairly often and accuse me of Buddhist ties. Maybe your mother will bring you some milk and cookies.

  16. noname says:

    # 17 Animby,

    I don’t want cookies I want donuts, “MmMmMmM! Donuts!”


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