Scares in the Past that have Blown Over

[Dave Anderson NH]

Don't start on the weather folks. All it will do is aggravate you. Watch the network nightly news on any TV channel these days and about 20% of the time is devoted to weather disasters. While they certainly have importance to those affected, there are a lot of other national and international events which are far more important. But then, lots of those events don't have great video. We have been in a steady dumbing down for quite some time.

[Andrew Joiner]

Here in Minnesota, there are weather terrorists (a name coned by a loca sports talk radio personality). Imminent snowfall is hyped like everyone of them is the next blizzard of the century. Every summer rainstorm is treated like a tornado is ready to drop out of the sky. Every TV station breaks into programming to display their next generation super doppler radar weather. They all try to outdo each other. Its like they watch each others programming and then try to 1 up the competition.

I lived in North Dakota and Minnesota all my life. When I turned 40 I spent a winter on South Padre Island in Texas. The first freeze warning news I heard in Texas was startling "keep your pets inside" they warned as if 32 degrees F was deadly. I chuckled, knowing all the dogs from up north would call them wimps.

[Myk Rian]

Eating eggs.

[Jim Matthews]

Chip breakers must be put 0.1mm from the honed iron or your board will burst into flame.

*****

Glenn said it best, above.
It's the resurgence of Yellow Journalism.

Any news story that lasts until the Sunday paper gets my attention.
I don't even watch broadcast TV anymore.

It's deliberately insulting our intelligence.

[David Weaver]

Chip breakers must be put 0.1mm from the honed iron or your board will burst into flame.

that one is true. But only if I say it!!

[Prashun Patel]

We're doomed as a race to forever over and underestimate threats.

[Garth Sheane]

I'm old enough (just barely) to remember the polio epidemic back in the 1950s. In the small rural community where I lived, I think several people contracted the disease, including a cousin down the road. My parents would talk about it in hushed tones. There was something called the iron lung that you might have to live in the rest of your life. I didn't know what polio was, but I had this image of a big black cloud that could hurt us.

Fear mongering these days is rampant in the media, so if something really was a threat, I'm such a skeptic I might not believe it. For example, climate change was deliberately introduced in a way that was intended to alarm people, complete with dire predictions. Now, it is hard to know what is real and what isn't.

[John McClanahan]

How about the infamous Y2K computer "meltdown" debacle that didn't happen?

In the late '90s, Microsoft, Dell Gateway, Hp, ect., ect. all advertised their new, Y2K compliant computers for sale. Apple ran some ads touting how Macs were already Y2K compliant, and had been for some time. Guess who made a boatload of money, and who didn't?

In the end, it was only a few Microsoft programs to blame, not the computer.


John

[ray hampton]

I have a feeling that mother nature has been tamed to a point where she is no longer able to inflict the quick kill so easily but rather it will be a long slow death at the hands of cancer, neurological issues, or in a wheelchair.

mother nature will never be tamed

[Brian Elfert]

I don't even watch broadcast TV anymore.

I watch some broadcast TV shows via DVR, but I won't watch TV news unless there is a 9/11 type event. It is just a poor use of 30 minutes of my time in my opinion. I am living with my parents while I renovate a house I bought and I don't know how my dad can watch the news every day. I do read the newspaper, but I can choose what to read there.

[John Pratt]

Fears of Ebola and the spread of other communicable diseases (or lack of fear) can be rationalized either way. Should you prepare just in case or not worry? Every person has to make that judgment for themselves and their family and to what degree they prepare if at all.

I am by no means a “prepper”, but don’t we all prep a little using common sense like washing hands, cleaning our food, or other hygienic measures.

It is also amazing how many things we just take for granted any more when it comes to Pandemics, disease, etc. We just shrug off the fact that 36,000 people die every year from the flu in the United States without panicking. How about the 8.2 million worldwide cancer deaths every year? 1.5 million people died of HIV in 2012? I am sure there were those in 1918 that said there is really nothing to worry about with the flu pandemic. Then it killed 3%-5% of the world’s population. We tend to shrug things off until we can’t shrug them off and then in some cases the only thing left to do is......

[David Weaver]

That's my point in general, though influenza is different because it is easily communicable (not speculative that it might be at some point in the future) and it is always hard on the young, old and immunocompromised.

In terms of washing hands and not sticking a finger in your nose after opening a slippery door knob, that's just sort of something that should be done regardless of the ebola scare or not...because those things that actually kill a lot of people in the US are transmitted that way.

[Rick Potter]

West Nile virus got pretty big around here.

Semi related factoid: One of the Dodge brothers, automotive founder, died in the Spanish Flu epidemic. The other brother died a few months later. Just read about that.

Rick P

[Mel Fulks]

Kevin, that is pretty funny ...but might give me a nightmare later!

[Joe Tilson]

Rosie "O" iiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!