What's in Alaska?

Large-scale testing for the H5N1 Influenza A virus has begun in Alaska, the Western bridge to the Americas.

Meanwhile, synchronicity just delivered The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), which I hadn't seen in many years but had just been thinking about the other day. Alan Arkin, Brian Keith, Jonathan Winters, Eva Marie Saint, Carl Reiner, plus a host of other character actors are highly entertaining. The premise of this Cold War farce is that a Soviet sub runs aground on a small island off the coast of Massachusetts. Much paranoid hilarity ensues. The taught standoff at the end, though, represents perfectly the nightmarish reality of the Cold War. Norman Jewison does a fine job directing. Nice followup after re-watching Dr. Strangelove.

With the Avian Flu slowly coming our way, maybe it'll soon be time to review Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor in Alfred Hitchcock's odd but interesting film The Birds (1963).

Map source: www.cdc.gov or, more specifically: www.pandemicflu.gov

Go Pistons!