You know how everyone keeps referencing the 1918 Spanish Influenza epidemic when they're making whatever report they're making on how scary all this flu stuff is? Well, turns out that if you look at the numbers, it's not quite so scary as it might at first seem. Yes, a lot of people died, but most didnt, and a whole lot more people didnt even come down with the flu at all, let alone die. It was a terrible thing, but let's try not to get out of control here, okay? Americans spend way too much time worrying about what might happen and not nearly enough worrying about what is.
Addendum: check out this description of "Yellow Journalism", and tell me if it doesnt describe today's MSM perfectly.
7 comments:
Heading to the town where they have the only reported cases here in MN today. This flu thing is so overblown it's comical.
You mean like:
"They gonna takes away muh guns!"
"They gonna make me use a doctor I don't want!"
"Mexico's working with bin Laden to infectucate Americans!"
Stuff like that, right?
See this article, or just google "yellow journalism".
For me, the day something becomes more dangerous than driving around in my car is will be the day when I will start to really worry about it.
Fear is good for those in power.
*tin foil hat adjusted*
No shit, Dave.
You know, this reminds me an awful lot of the after-math of 9-11. All the orange/yellow/red alerts. I AM happy to live in a land where threats are taken seriously, but sometimes I really wonder how much of this pandemic is merely something to fill news slots... you know, just a test to make sure that the sheep are still fearful. And if this is indeed "swine" flu, shouldn't we be terrified of the police?
wv: bitter
The problem boils down, ultimately, I think, to the 24-hour news shows. There just isnt enough news to fill the time, so it must be not only manufactured, but enhanced in order to keep our attention (and advertising revenue).
No doubt our children will ignore them, just as older (but not old) Americans ignore the newspapers, but in the meantime the damage is being done.
Did anyone follow the above link? Maybe I need to add an addendum to the post.
Lydia, Daniel feels the same, I think.
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