We All Must Eat A Peck Of Dirt Before We Die

The SIC Elf is currently sick. I can't remember the last time I was sick. It's been at least 3 or 4 years, which is amazing because I used to get sick all the time. I chalk my supreme immune system up to those early years of being sick brought on by eating dirt, licking keyboards and telephones, and eating the occasional pear (post dog-munged of course). I've been thinking the last week or so about how sterile and clean our society is and how this makes us think we are healthier, when in fact the opposite is probably true. We've all heard about the decline in the effectiveness of antibiotics from overuse and how superbugs are starting to form.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not quite ready to go back to pouring my sewage into the streets, but I think our obsession with being clean has led to a decrease in the strength of our immune systems. One such example came to me from the pursuit of the outdoors (which I love so much). Giardia, the organism responsible for causing beaver fever, is a fairly common thing to find in natural water sources. Animals poop, giardia gets into the water table, and until recently we were quite able to fight off giardiasis. But now that our drinking water is so wonderfully chlorinated we don't have to fight off the little bugs and we become vulnerable to even slightly tainted water.

BEHOLD, THE TIME IS NIGH WHEN A PLAGUE SHALL WIPE OUT THINE CATTLE AND THINE FRUITS AND VEGETABLES AND THE ORANGUTANGS....sorry, got carried away!