On 13 Oct 2004 23:56:00 GMT, (Tom Littleton) wrote:

Lazarus writes:
I am utterly terrified by the current obsession with
terrorists in the US.

I agree. In our worst year, most Americans were more likely to be struck by
lightning.
What you may or may not see is that here in the US, a combination of the mass
media and our own elected officials have fanned the paranoia to this level

(snipped)

The paranoia was already there. My mother used to become almost
hysterical about the idea that someone would break into their house or
grab her purse when she shopped at the local (then extremely safe)
mall. Because she saw so much about those kinds of incidents on TV.
You can recite stats on criminal violence per 100,000, per
neighborhood, per each mile on a highway no end and they'll still get
in their cars and drive for miles to get something a few cents cheaper
somewhere, but they'll panic if they see two black youths innocently
walking down the street.

Most parents worry a lot about the possibility that their child /
children will be kidnapped and murdered, "...because there's so much
of that going on these days." Cite history and population increases
and density and the speed of dramatic news spreading and they _still_
think that their kids are in several tens or hundreds of multiples
more danger than they were when they were kids.

40 to 50 years ago we'd never have heard about the recent few child
kidnappings in CA out here in the Midwest. If they were mentioned in
any newspapers, they'd have been small inside items. TV, in its
search for ratings and drama, has overly sensitized the part
(majority) of the public that watches TV to dramatic dangers.

For an example, watch the weather news. Watch how they make dramas
out of weather that you'd have just whined about as too much rain to
go out and play in when you were a kid. Now the recent hurricanes
were newsworthy, indeed. But a couple of hours worth per evening? To
persons not in their path?

Cyli
r.bc: vixen. Minnow goddess. Speaker to squirrels.
Often taunted by trout.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli