Chicken Little for President

It starts with "Chicken Little" in kindergarten and worsens with age: the more horrible something is, the more we want to hear all about it. People love being frightened out of their wits, which explains the enormous popularity of scary movies, roller coasters and elective surgery. This is despite the fact that even a boring day on the planet is quite interesting, what with the sun rising in the morning, all the insects and animals running around doing their thing and 4.3 babies being born every second. All the while, our individual hearts are beating, our brains are computing and the whole digestion thing is going on. Admit it: ordinary life is pretty incredible.

Still people crave horror, and the bloodier the better. Taking advantage of this human trait as a way to sell advertising, the TV weather forecasters work tirelessly to outdo one another in predicting impending mayhem, often regardless of reality. They inhabit a dark and somber world where every drop of rain is described as dangerous precipitation bringing floods to low-lying areas, winds of any strength cause crippling power outages, pounding and drifting snow causes death and destruction and brutal temperatures cause frostbite in no time so stay inside.

My feeling is that if all that happens, thanks for the warning. But it rarely does, and when storms that were predicted to be life-altering blow out to sea, bringing instead a dusting on the tops of cars and a few bent-over trees, all those foolish prognosticators say nothing. There are no apologies for scaring the bejeezus out of us for the last week, they simply move on to the next impending apocalypse. That happened here in Maine today and I find that annoying.