PANAMA CITY — Sniffles, wheezing and coughing are all part of the cold and flu season.

But, is there really a difference between a cold and flu and an allergy?

Bay County Health Department Director of Nursing Kerry Hunt said when it comes to the flu and cold season, “It’s all about the virus.”

Allergies usually cause runny or stuffy nose, sneezing, wheezing, coughing, watery and itchy eyes, but there is no fever, Hunt said. Allergies are usually caused by objects, like flowers, dust or pet hair.

Flu or colds may cause runny nose, aches and pains, sore and scratchy throat along with sneezing and coughing, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA).

“Colds and flus are caused by viruses,” Hunt said. “It is not caused by weather.”

So, Hunt related, just because you go outside without your jacket doesn’t mean you’ll catch cold.

“not true,” Hunt said.

Hunt said the cold and flu season usually comes around during January and February.

“before H1N1 they were most common during the cold periods of the year,” she continued. “H1N1 was a particular strain of the flu that was a novel strain, which means it was never identified before. we had more cases of the H1N1 in the spring and summer.”

The World Health Organization declared the new strain of swine-origin H1N1, also known as the “swine flu,” as a pandemic back in 2009. The “novel virus” spread worldwide and had caused about 17,000 deaths by the start of 2010.

The H1N1 stain is covered in this year’s vaccine edition.

“You really need to get the flu vaccine every year,” Hunt said. “It’s not too late, but I do suggest people come on in and get the flu shot.”

It does take time to develop an immunity to the virus, Hunt said.

Make it stop

To stop spreading the flu or cold, Hunt recommends a couple of things.

“first, don’t go to work,” she said.

Sneezing into the sleeve of a garment rather than your hands helps. It may be best to sneeze into a paper tissue. Avoid touching your face. The flu is transmitted through touch.

According to the Health Department, the seasonal flu replicates better in cold weather, which makes it easier to spread. of course, flu seasons are unpredictable and can start early or run late.

To prevent getting a flu, Hunt said to get a flu shot every year, frequently wash your hands, use a disinfectant and be careful when sneezing and coughing around others.

“we still have flu shots available,” Hunt said.

The cost for the regular flu vaccine at the Health Department is $29. A high dose flu vaccine specifically for individuals 65 years and older is available at a cost of $42.

According to the AAFA, if you have the flu you should get plenty of rest, drink lots of fluids and eat healthy foods. Over-the-counter medications, like a decongestant or a nasal sprays, can help relieve your symptoms, but they do not cure your cold; only time can do that.

The Florida Department of Health urges residents and visitors to take precautions to protect themselves and their families during flu season. Roughly 36,000 individuals in the U.S. die annually from influenza and related complications. In 2010, more than 2,000 people in Florida died from influenza and pneumonia — 26 of whom were from Bay County.

With the Tea Party movement, the shock of recognition came slowly, like the first symptoms of a summer cold — you know, first we blame potential allergies or being over-served at the bar, but the misery of Truth keeps on making you feel worse and worse until denial lifts.

The analogous sniffles came with the “all or nothing” negotiation stance during the recent debt ceiling crisis and the full-on fever came with a suspiciously disciplined focus on President Obama.

Of course, once I saw it, the thing became obvious: somebody read Alinsky’s book.

Among political folks, Saul D. Alinsky is part of the Political Canon. His 1971 book “Rules for Radicals” is up there with “Advise and Consent” and “Selling of the President” as an example of old-school wisdom that holds up well. I more or less read it annually, the way president-maker Lee Atwater was said to read “The Art of War” every so often, just to refresh the wisdom.

Alinsky famously influenced left-leaning leaders like Hillary Clinton and even that church-based community organizing group that hired a young Barack Obama on Chicago’s South Side in the 1980s. Hunter S. Thompson kept a brief version of the rules enshrimed on a living room reading table.

Alinsky engaged in a lifelong battle to champion the “have-nots” against the “haves,” but part of his genius was understanding the “have a little, want mores” — the American middle class.

Or, more accurately, enough of the middle class to enact changes.

So it’s odd now to realize that, of the two protest movements seizing national attention, it seems that the right-leaning Tea Party efforts are using more of his tactics than the more (but not entirely) lefty “Occupy Wall Street” movement that brought its efforts to Portland’s Monument Square last week.

For example, the “Rules” are that you “personalize, polarize and demonize” the opposition, and Alinsky offered the example of his protests against General Motors, which focused on the president of the company, not the corporation. so the Tea Party is ahead on ponts by personalizing, in the preson of President Obama, then demonizig.

Under the rules, the target of “Wall Street” is just not personal, even if it is the icon of modern-day financial looting.

We may have a tie on polarization.

“Before men can act an issue must be polarized,” writes Alinsky in his “Rules” book. “Men will act when they are convinced that their cause is 100 percent on the side of the angels and that the opposition are 100 percent on the side of the devil.”

Later, he explains that the organizer must be of “two parts,” with one part “… in the arena of action where he polarizes the issue to 100 to nothing, and helps to lead his forces into conflict, while the other part knows that when the time comes for negotiations that is really is only a 10 percent difference. …”

Hey, it’s not like this is some big secret. The Leadership Institute, a leading training group for conservative politicos, has even formalized the trend at its website “CampusReform.org.” they even offer a “Rules for Radicals video guide.”

“Alinsky developed a brutally effective style of guerrilla activism that he designed for ‘have nots’ to take power from the ‘haves,’” says the Institute in its press materials, adding a quote that “… conservative students can and should use any ethical and effective tactics to promote and defend conservative principles on their campuses.”

To borrow a bit from John Steinbeck, I don’t recite these tactics as anything new for either side, but only to make sure that the new organizers do not make the mistake of teenagers and think they have discovered new-hatched sins. What does seem compelling is how much the more radical Tea Party tactics have been informed by the formerly radical left.

And it’s worth recalling that Alinsky also offered some decent talking points on the topic of corporate America, saying that “… corporations must forget their nonsense about ‘private sectors.’ It is not just that government contracts and subsidies have long since blurred the line between public and private sectors, but that every American individual or corporation is public as well as private; public in that we are Americans and concerned about our national welfare. … the days of playing it safe, of not offending Democratic or Republican customers, advertisers or associates — those days are done.”

He could be right, but predicting history is always easy (and example: in 100 years, everyone reading this is toast), but it’s the timeline that proves tricky.

When Alinsky wrote in 1971 that the one sure tactic against your enemy “… is to laugh at him” and apply ridicule, he likely did not anticipate Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” or late-night TV comics.

But he anticipated enough that his ideas are still out there, still old school, and still recognizable form Congress all the way to Congress Street.

(Curtis Robinson is founding editor of The Portland Daily Sun.)