President Barack Obama signed a declaration Friday night, which was announced Saturday morning, declaring the H1N1 virus a national emergency.

The swine flu has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people across the nation. Numbers are still on the rise, according to Centers for Disease Control reports.

And the emergency state hasn't exactly instilled confidence in those who are hardly willing to shake hands with someone for fear of catching the virus.

But the situation isn't as bad as one might think.

Obama declared H1N1 a national emergency not as a reaction to the new flu but as a pre-emptive measure, an attempt to stay ahead of the rising number of swine-flu cases.

Elevating the H1N1 outbreak to an emergency level won't speed the production of the vaccine, which is already well behind schedule, but it does change how health services can deal with those infected.

Hospitals now have increased flexibility in how they test and treat swine flu patients. Ordinarily, federal law prohibits hospitals from putting up treatment tents more than 250 yards from the doors. Anything outside of that range, and federal funds won't cover treatments.

Now, hospitals can set up emergency treatment sites at off-site locations like schools and churches while still receiving government reimbursement.

The whole idea is to keep those infected with swine flu out of regular emergency rooms so they don't risk spreading the contagious virus to even more patients.

Hospitals could even alter patient rules, like requiring less patient information, to expedite treatment when overrun.

Though there's no official total of swine-flu cases in the U.S., the number has ballooned from 20 cases nationally just four months ago to a sum in the millions of cases today.

Health officials expect the flu virus to keep spreading, but Obama's pre-emptive strike might help alleviate a little pressure for health care centers.

Some might argue that the numbers aren't high enough to call H1N1 a pandemic or even a national emergency, and they might be right.

I don't care.

If I get swine flu, I want health care to be available. Even if I have to wait in a line of a hundred people to get treated, at least those hundred won't include a 5-year-old who fell off the monkey bars and broke his arm. Those hundred people will be waiting for the exact same thing I am.

Though the vaccination is behind schedule, it should pick up quickly. Government officials hope to have 50 million does of the vaccine by the mid-November and 100 million more in December.

This declaration of national emergency is a step in the right direction. It's not a magical cure-all, but it's not coming too late in the game, either. It's simply being prepared for the worst.

Honestly, I'm glad swine flu is now a national emergency despite the fact that it might only be "just in case."

Last Thursday, President Barack Obama finally signed a piece of legislation that made sense (collective sigh of relief).

The legislation he signed extends federal hate crime protections to crimes committed based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

This means that a gay man who is attacked for his sexual orientation or a woman who is victimized because she is female will now have the federal government behind them.

This new expansion allows states access to financial aid for prosecution of hate crimes and also allows the Justice Department to intervene when a state refuses or is unable to prosecute a hate crime committed within its borders.

Hate crimes are any crime committed by a perpetrator simply because he does not like the color of the victim's skin or perhaps the country they are from. It can be based on sexual orientation, intelligence, religion or even political affiliation.

Up until last Thursday, the federal law on hate crimes protected only those attacked based on color, race, religion and nation of origin. This law has been in place since the Civil Rights Movement.

It may have been in place since 1968, but this is the first significant addition of a minority or group to its protections.

My only question is why this sort of addition took so long.

There have been women, disabled individuals and people with sexual orientations outside the norm in this country since its founding.

I realize that it took a while for some, such as blacks and women, to gain their rights, but the fact that we had to wait 40 years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. for a bill that extends his vision is completely beyond me.

The reason this bill makes sense to me is that there are two aspects of it that are close to my heart.

One is that it protects women.

As a woman, I would like to have the federal government behind me if I were attacked because of my gender. I know that there are state hate crime laws that protect women should they be a victim of these crimes, but it's a relief to know the feds will make sure I get the justice I deserve.

The second aspect is the part that has to do with disabilities.

I have a little sister who has Down syndrome. She is 11 years old and I am 20, so as she was growing up, I was always at the perfect age to babysit her.

Over the years, we have bonded countless times and become very close. She continues to teach me and amaze me every time I see her, and she is one of the things I miss most about home when I am at school.

I also worry about her. A lot.

Although the inclusion of disabled people in the hate crime law does not act as a preventative measure, I am still proud that Congress finally realized that these people deserve as much protection as any other minority, if not more.

These groups should have been included in the first draft of this law, and the powers that be finally realized it.

After months of Obama's stalling, going back on promises and "stimulating the economy," he has FINALLY done something worthwhile. Something that will impact millions. Something that might just merit him a Nobel Peace Prize.

But that's a whole other column.

Obama: It's about time.

"Jesus Christ is NOT the (bleeping) Son of GOD!!" he screamed at me, rocking forward slightly as his eyes closed from the effort.

I wiped spittle from my eye and stayed silent. Something told me that trying to argue with a drunken atheist while sitting in the middle of a road would have the same effect as a marshmallow trying to stop a stampeding horde of elephants.

I saw him while walking toward the bus stop in Xiamen, China. Normally, seeing a foreigner was no grand novelty. When, however, said foreigner was sitting on the road next to a blind woman and begging for cigarettes from passersby, I would take interest.

So, I sat next to him. Smelling of day-old urine and cheap vodka, he smiled at me through some sort of hangover haze.

"Why... 'ello." He extended his hand and missed mine before falling into a fit of giggles. Just then, a businessman walked by with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, and the man next to me began to beg, palms cupped pitifully. Uncomfortable, the businessman walked on. Sighing, I pulled out my own pack and handed the man one. He seemed grateful.

Over the next hour I found his name was Steve and that he was from Great Britain. He began to talk of politics, science and relative theory. I began to wonder if he had been dropping acid. Though pressed by curious crowds, I discovered much about Steve.

I found out that he had made love to more than 100 women and had fathered three children. I discovered his love for poetry and art. He liked traveling but couldn't seem to find "what the point was."

I found out that his first wife had died of cancer and that his children hated and refused to speak to him. I found out that his best friend had died only a few days earlier and the drunken state was an attempt to wash out reality. He told me that he wanted to "discover meaning in life" but didn't know how "if all life came out to be was one big s***hole of an existence sprinkled with copious amounts of pain."

He then screamed about the non-existence of God.

Various limbs were numb at this point, and my phone had rung three times.

I stood and shook his hand, handing him my pack of cigarettes. "Don't you... don't you need these?" His watery blue eyes could barely focus on mine.

"No, you take them. You probably need them more than I do. I'm trying to quit anyway." I handed him my lighter.

"You are a decent bloke, you know that?"

I'm a woman.

"Thanks. I do my best," I said while dusting my pants off. Shaking his hand once more, I held it a moment longer than socially acceptable to say, "Steve, I hope you find what are looking for."

Frozen, wild-eyed silence.

"I bloody well do too."

Five years later, I still hope he has found what he was looking for. I hope it wasn't found in an empty vodka bottle or the arms of some prostitute's bought love. I hope his kids talked to him, and that he forgave himself for his wife's death.

I bloody well hope so.

Once upon a time there was car salesman named Bill. Bill had loved cars from his childhood. He studied different kinds of motors, auto paints, bumpers, hand brakes and sun roofs. He read about the economics of the auto industry. He felt most at home when he was talking about cars. Bill wanted to devote his career to doing that.

The auto dealership Bill joined was good. He saw that it had the potential to be very good, maybe even great. He wanted to do what he could to make it so. His bosses said the same thing. They wanted the dealership to be "excellent."

The bosses had all sort of ideas about how to make this happen. One of them thought that customers would be delighted if the dealership was festooned with balloons. He asked Bill to help blow up balloons. Bill spent about an hour every three weeks blowing up balloons. He would have preferred to be reading up on cars so as to better engage customers. He understood that balloons could add some color and good feelings to the dealership, but he wondered if it was a good idea to pull salesmen away from their first priority. Some other salesmen felt the same way.

But several salesmen really liked the balloon idea and volunteered to blow up more. They formed a balloon committee. Then they developed an evaluation instrument to determine the extent to which the balloons were achieving their purpose of enhancing the customer's experience. The paper the evaluations generated gave the managers something to organize, which made them happy.

Bill felt a little frustrated, especially when the managers called for a meeting to discuss the evaluation results. Bill felt that more of his time was being taken away from his central task.

We have dwelt on the balloon issue, but there were others. There was the formation of the parade committee and the idea that every salesman should attend at least one city council meeting each month. Bill could see that participation in parades would bring attention to the car dealership but, as he was helping to build a float, he thought that the car dealership would really be better off if he were reading up on new cars models that would be arriving soon.

And while Bill enjoyed the city council meetings-the point of car salesmen attendance at the meetings was to reveal the dealership's community spirit-he felt his energy drifting away. Nowadays, even when he had time to get caught up on new car information, he was often too tired to do so.

As a result, his conversations with customers became less informed. He found himself increasingly relying on old information or only half-digested new stuff he had picked up. Sometimes he just showed videos to customers. And as he talked with them, he was distracted by thoughts of upcoming balloon- and customer-snacks-committee meetings, as well as a tire-shining-methods focus group. Each of these efforts, and others, had been successes in themselves, though the number of car sales hadn't actually changed very much.

One day Bill was getting ready for work. His step had less spring in it than it used to.

There was a preacher on the radio. Bill really wasn't listening until the preacher said that "a sure way to squelch the greatest thing is to chase a bunch of good things." Bill exhaled, picked up his coffee, and drove to work.