Each day, reading the Terror news, I almost feel like I’m at Ground Zero, as the Fear Factory – aka the mainstream media, abetted by murky statements by official “spokesmen” from this or that agency – spew dark, noxious clouds of hysteria into the atmosphere. I can all but smell the stench of re-incinerated flesh, the insinuatory depredations of anthrax bacilli ascending into my nostrils, the rank and rancid odor of fright, dread, jitters, apprehension, panic, and worse.
The pornography of fear.
Bombarded with sensationalized “special reports” and “bulletins” and “warnings” and “anticipations” and “expectations” and “certainties” of the next terrorist horror and the next, we have run amok with paranoia. Terrorists have hijacked not just our airliners and our postal system and our national security, but our very tranquility. Hey, let’s play Pin-the-Tail on the Demon! And now, the simple, often pleasurable act of opening a letter will never be the same.
Anthrax hate-mail.
Don’t panic, our government says. All these worries, served with our morning coffee. Before breakfast, yet.
Cold comfort, it takes more than 8,000 spores to cause the inhalation-form of anthrax. I don’t know about you, but I’ve barricaded the mail-slot on my front door, and vow to throw out all my snail mail – untouched, unopened, unshaken – especially bills. And I promise you, after those two anthrax hate-letters sent from nearby Trenton, I am never going there again. What Trenton makes, the world takes, indeed.
Just kidding.
Yes, what we want and need is some tough “Daddy”-president to take charge and kiss our booboos and make the bad guys go away – even if he does have to constrain us with national identity cards.
Very mature.
While I can’t speak for all Americans, personally, when I sit down to “experience” these toxic headlines lately, I wish I were wearing that vapor-proof suit, which I read about in an online “non-hysterical survival guide” somewhere:
One problem with gas masks is they don’t protect the rest of your body, and chemicals can be absorbed through the skin. To protect against that you can get a supplied air respirator with a full body suit. You would need a vapor-proof suit, which would run you around $1,300. This is the kind of setup used by people who have to go into leaking nuclear power plants. In an emergency, you’d probably be dead before you got the suit on, but if you want to feel you’re as prepared as humanly possible, this is definitely the way to go.
Cute, huh.
The U.S. Army has begun brainstorming with screenwriters of Hollywood action/adventure films, to supply plots that might predict and prevent further terrorist strikes against America. For $60,000, I can purchase a suitcase-sized, ruggedized Advanced Pathogen Identification Device, which uses DNA screening to detect any of nine bio-warfare agents including anthrax and plague, found on surfaces or in dirt, blood, or feces, in less than 30 minutes. A company is making “Bio Threat Alert” test dip-strips – a box of 25 sells for $500 – to identify antibodies to these toxins in our bodily fluids.
For escape, of course, there’s Terror sex. Those Americans among us – certainly no one we know! – with poor impulse control have rediscovered promiscuity … with a point, the old cocktail lounge pickup scene recycled these days for trenchant political purposes. Others turn to internet chat-rooms, virtual coping devices for less venturesome folks who talk for diversion, seeking anonymous opportunities to be witty or wise, or the alternative, from afar.
Psychotherapist Pam Ladds is concerned about what she calls “dramarama,” media over-sensationalization of every last detail, threat or incident – which too often leads to people over-reacting.
These are her recommendations: “Turn off the U.S. radio and television. Stop the tabloid approach to news. Read international news. Repeat every morning: The USA is not the center of the universe. There’s a world out there – try listening and looking. Stop panicking. Stop reading those stupid panic-spreading articles. And don’t write any! Look at the bigger picture – what we are doing in Afghanistan, what we have done in the past to other nations and will continue to do unless we wise up. Teach Americans and other Westerners to stop using the world as their litter-box!”
