Be Afraid

I keep reading and watching TV advertisements warning us about some imminent danger that is at best highly unlikely to ever happen. You must know what I mean. An example is the anti drug messages with which kids are bombarded. They hear about the dangers of drugs in school, public service announcements, written media and even in TV movies. I think it's a bit of overkill which either makes the child frightened that drugs lurk and will pounce on him or her, or the extreme, that the child becomes sick of hearing about it and just tunes it out all together.
Yep, this is the "Age of Imminent Disaster" (Ok, I made up that stupid phrase). We are supposed to be afraid of everything and to live in fear of them. Our water is polluted, the earth is warming, kids will be molested by adults, terrorists lurk on every corner ready to kill us, our food is killing us, we are too fast or too skinny (anorexia), we need medications but taking them will make us addicted....It goes on and on. I am sure you know as many of these phantom threats as I. The net effect seems to be that the persistent reminding of these alleged (I say they are largely unreal) problems makes us react negatively. We ignore them and develop unrecognized anxieties or we succumb to the scare and live in fear.
I am certain the scare tactics George Bush uses to frighten voters to elect him and his kind is a good indicator that we are living in a time when we are supposed to be afraid of many things that are in truth very unlikely to ever occur. It's no wonder 500,000 people committed suicide in China in 2003 or that Muslim paranoia about infidels have turned some Muslims into raving maniacs. It explains why Americans never want to commit to anything that might be "dangerous" or involve the slightest risk to safety.
I wonder if more people just don't like life as much as before. Has the world lost its view that life is wonderful and an adventure, that good things will happen today (as opposed to the dreary fears so many of us have now)? Don't you think humans are far more negative and fear obsessed today? I do. Though I was blessed as a child to have parents who never passed on that threat mentality, I see many more people today waiting for the next disaster. I don't look over my shoulder when I awaken each morning and I am trying to give Jane the same attitude. But the fear mongers keep showing up and creating anxieties for all of us.
Well....what do you think? Am I on target or off?
The Weird Crime of the Month has to be the case of the stolen hand. A dentist from New Brunswick, New Jersey, Ahmad Rashad, 26, has been charged with stealing a human hand form a New Jersey medical school cadaver to...hold on to your seat...to give it as a present to an exotic dancer.
The dancer, Linda Kay, kept the hand in a jar of formaldehyde in her bedroom and called her "pet hand", "Freddy". Police accidentally discovered the hand when making a call at Linda's home in response to a report that her roommate was suicidal (maybe she didn't like Freddy?). But wait! Police also discovered six human skulls at the house. Linda's mom says Linda bought the skulls from a mail order catalogue, but police have charged her with unlawful possession of human remains. Ahmad faces a possible 10 year jail sentence if convicted of the hand theft. And you thought I was weird!