Last night as the family sat around the television watching the evening news, our son Xander suddenly stood up – like he’d just awakened from a dream or something – and, shaking his head to clear it, said, “What the hell just happened there? We went from, like, 20 reports of death and mayhem to winning a prom date with Seth Rogen…”
Last night as the family sat around the television watching the evening news, our son Xander suddenly stood up – like he’d just awakened from a dream or something – and, shaking his head to clear it, said, “What the hell just happened there? We went from, like, 20 reports of death and mayhem to winning a prom date with Seth Rogen…”
We all started cracking up, but after we’d stopped laughing, I started thinking about what Xander had said, and it gave me pause.
Lately it’s felt to me like… well, like our society is under some kind of mass hypnotic spell or something – like there’s this sort of slow-boiling rage and fear continually swirling around us now. I’ve felt it in myself when I’m trying to negotiate traffic to get to work on time – this impatience with the drivers around me who aren’t doing what I think they should be doing…
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humoristianity 
I know exactly which news Xander was watching. As a visible member of the media, I’m appalled at the fear-mongering going on by the major news outlets. But this is what the MSM (mainstream media) is all about: controversy and conflict. If fear can be thrown in, all the better.
From the start I pointed out that there have only been a handful of Ebola cases in the US but there are deaths from the flu numbering around 22-25,000 each year. But no one is freaked out about the flu. We’re used to it. Ebola is strange and alien, but that doesn’t mean that we should be incontinent about it. Everyone should take a deep breath and carry on. There are things to worry about and things which aren’t an immediate threat. Ebola is in the latter category.
It’s good to be informed. It’s bad to allow panic and fear to rule our lives.