Have you noticed how certain channels on your tv love to feature programs about disasters and impending disasters? At first I thought that this was just a coincidence, but as I saw more and more shows coming on that featured this sort of thing, I began to realize that the people doing the programming must have thought that this is what we like to look at. The history channel is a great example of this. They have biblical shows that depict bible prophecies about the end of the world, other shows that show the great prophets declaring the world will end at certain DIFFERENT times, shows on meteors that will hit the earth and destroy all life, etc. etc. etc. Yeah hon, think I will look at some entertaining tv and watch how we are all going to die! Can we all really be this shallow, only thinking about how we can protect ourselves from being wiped out?

It makes me laugh because this type of thing seems to make people forget that we only live so long anyway. Just recently, someone was telling me that he was worried about the earth being destroyed in the next 50 years from a meteor. I couldn't help it, I had to laugh. Why was I laughing? I was laughing because this guy was 65 years old and will never see another fifty years anyway. Maybe he would be served better by thinking how close he is getting to his own mortality.

Oh, they have gotten so many different disasters lined up for us. There are the aforesaid meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, flooding from global warming, earthquakes, tsunamis and heat. Running out of fresh water is another popular theory used to scare us. Then there are the mega diseases. How many times have you heard that if the plague comes back it will be far more deadly? Loss of food crops is stated many times and global warming and soil erosion and lack of diversity is cited as a probable cause. Don't let me forget the hole in the ozone or the great masses of people that just disappear every year and are never found. Gee, I never realized there were so many ways to be wiped out. Makes one really feel really depressed if he or she lets that happen.

Sandbags holding back flood

It isn't only the history channel and others that seem to dwell on these types of things, just pick up a newspaper. Why is it that bad news always seems to take precedence over good news? Maybe I am just imagining it, but it seems that if you have a flood somewhere, that news will beat out the fact that some town avoided a flood by taking precautions. I noticed that the newspapers love to say things like a hurricane could form and wipe out parts of Florida this year and things like we are expecting at least x amount of hurricanes to form this year and several of them should be killers. Isn't it true that most of us already know that hurricanes form almost every year and that some of them could do damage to places like Florida? Why is it that the newspapers feel that they have to beat such a dead horse? Could it be the fact that for some reason they think that this sells more papers and newspaper sales are falling right now?

Disasters have always been a part of the news, but today they seem to squeeze out everything else. I know that when I sit down and watch a tv show, I want to be entertained. For example, I might put on the history channel and look at a story about an ancient civilization or I might look at a show on the SciFi channel or even a movie, but I am very tired of watching shows that depict how the world is going to end or when it is going to end, like they have some sort of secret information that the rest of us didn't know about. It is just so ridiculous. It is very easy to get caught in that rut of worrying over nothing. Worrying about things that we have absolutely no control of is a complete waste of time, also worrying about things that might happen way after we are gone is another waste of time. Sure we all have children and maybe grandchildren, but scientific advances and solutions to some or all of these problems might be forthcoming, we have no way of knowing. You have to realize that when one of these shows states something like a strike on the earth is due within 50 years, that certainly doesn't mean it is going to happen. This is just some statistical analysis that other scientists might not even agree with, but it makes for an exciting show, or at least the producers think so.

I always tell my kids that almost everything they see in this vein was created to cause people to worry, it is the scare factor and almost all of it is just plain garbage. Here is an example, I was looking at a show on volcanoes and a statement was made that a particular volcano was hundreds of years overdue for an eruption. Give me a break, just because it erupted twice before and there was a certain interval between the times doesn't mean that the interval will be the same for the next eruption.

Having said all, there is one thing that I can't help wondering about and that is why some people build and live so near danger points. I am talking about people that live next to smoking volcanoes, areas of the shore where tsunamis often hit or even homes by woods that burn often? In New Jersey there is a river that is constantly overflowing its banks and flooding homes, yet many people live there. Maybe there are some people that like risk? I don't know the answer to this question, but these people obviously exist and can be found all over the world. I am not talking about the very poor who just can't move, I am talking about those with plenty of bucks that live in these dangerous areas when they really don't have to. Well, I am not one of them and I believe that neither are most of you. I wonder if these people are the ones watching all those disaster shows?