CAMPOut: Fay's Rehoboth Journal

Ok, I’m scared.

Some days it’s hard to get out of bed I’m so terrified. I’d have a fight or flight response but I don’t know who to slap or where to run. It starts when the clock radio goes off in the morning and doesn’t stop until I fall asleep watching CFN: the cable fear network.

Come on, don’t pretend you haven’t noticed. We are all in terrible, terrible danger from thousands of hideous, well… things. These amorphous THINGS are all on the way, all about to happen, imminent, pending, coming soon to kitchen, powder room, neighborhood, city, or sneeze near you. Be afraid, be very afraid.

These kinds of warnings used to herald horror movies, but now they announce our daily life. From tsunamis to color coded security alerts, bird flu to bacteria, we’re just sitting ducks. And those ducks are looking for flu shots.

For a while I took all the warnings, if not seriously, at least like bona fide news. But now it’s clear that, with only a few exceptions, (like the polar cap melting, which NO ONE is taking seriously) these scare tactics are designed only to boost network market share. We’re being scared silly for ratings.

So I started a tally. The following are real headlines, TV graphics or things somber anchor people warned us about this week:

Killer Bird Flu: Just a breath away!

Tsunami: It could happen here!

Radon: A killer in your basement!

Is Delmarva prepared for a Category 5? (Ya think?)

Startling new report! Killer infections for people already on antibiotics!

Honey bees turn killer! (Somebody should check a Thesaurus for a synonym for "killer.").

Antibacterial soaps: Are we being scammed?

Are YOU ready for a chemical attack? (Okay. How the hell do I get ready for a chemical attack? I’d look stupid eating a bagel in a hazmat suit).

Is nuclear waste driving by your neighborhood? (By itself?)

Panic at sea! Dozens missing from cruise ships! (Not gay cruises. Nobody jumps those ships for fear people will dish about them.)

Mobile phones and radiation: Are you talking yourself to death? (No, but Rush Limbaugh might be. Although it has nothing to do with his Blackberry).

And, of course, daily we get the ubiquitous "Health Scare Over (pick one) pesticides, Mad Cow Disease, Ebola Fever, Flesh-Eating Bacteria, Anthrax, and this year’s winner and new champion, Avian Flu.

Remember SARS? China had a run on doctor’s masks and people walked around with brassiere cups covering their noses and mouths? That was scary. But what the hell happened to that doomsday plague?

It’s enough to give me a headache but thanks to the recent Headache drug health scare I can’t remember which pills won’t kill me. As far as I’m concerned, the only true health scare is whether we can afford, or even get health insurance anymore. Our elected officials should be fixing that scary mess rather than rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic snafu that is our current congressional agenda.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest ("Mammograms: Is the machine at your hospital safe?"), I’m trying to figure out how to relax while everyone’s yelling duck and cover, the sky is falling. All the media covers is stuff that COULD happen, rather than what actually IS happening.

Washington Post superstars Woodward and Bernstein have a theory about the death of investigative journalism. They say it takes too long. It’s boring. It took months of picking through garbage, badgering secretaries and meeting with furtive moles in parking garages to bring down Nixon. With the current ratings race, nobody has that kind of time. I think they’re on to something.

Why should talking heads investigate anything at all when they can just shout specious warnings. Identity theft! Computer Viruses! Brokeback Mountain!

But the granddaddy boondoggle of the warning wars is the daily debunking of food, vitamin, and diet claims.

This week we were warned that oatmeal, estrogen and calcium, CANNOT protect your arteries, heart and bones after all. This was good for my health because I’d been guilty about not chowing down on Tums, fiber and hormones. I feel better now.

But not much. I keep embracing diet advice only to have it change faster than you can say low carb spaghetti. One week we’re warned fat is bad, next it’s good; pasta is good, then it’s bad; You say tomato, I say tomahto. Alcohol causes cancer but helps the heart. The heart causes angst that’s bad for the immune system. And nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.

For all the dire predictions, when the media had a legitimate reason to warn us they failed. There
was no orange alert warning us Dick Cheney had a gun.

Amid all the shrieking admonitions I’m still sure of only two things—semi-sweet chocolate and red wine have been declared good for your health. I’m not listening to another medical warning past that.

And if I’m forced to be terrified by the media day and night I should do something to calm my blood pressure.

Pass the Hersheys and pour me a Pinot Noir.