Summer! Run! Hide!

It's summertime -- and you know what that means! Bikinis? No. Barbeque? No. Blockbuster movies? Pfft, right. \nNo, it's the time of year when we, the media, dig up all the unlikely things that are GOING TO KILL YOU!!!!!! \nGranted, it's not like we peg the amount of coverage to the actual lethality of things -- you can only say so much about heart attacks, cancer and car crashes. And there are things that, while unlikely to kill you, nevertheless merit public debate -- terrorism or gang violence, for example. But with vacations slowing life down -- and you people going outside and not paying attention to us -- we have to come up with something special to keep the ad revenue flowing. So, keep an eye out for these critical issues:\nSHARKS! A perennial favorite. The formula is so simple: millions upon millions of people worldwide go to the beach; 50-70 get bit, with five to 15 fatalities (National Geographic, June 13, 2005). And the media ask: what did mankind do to piss off one of nature's dumbest killing machines? Rising ocean temperatures due to global warming? Over-fishing depleting their food sources? I suspect it has more to do with them being sharks -- and us being land mammals stupid enough to play around in the ocean. \nHURRICANE SEASON! Fair enough -- Katrina made people extra-sensitive about hurricanes. Quite understandable, even if it was a case of profound bad luck (a big storm scoring a near-direct hit on one of America's poorest, least-prepared, worst-governed cities). Media outlets do provide a public service by warning folks in the storm's path. And yet, doesn't the coverage of hurricane season's start seem a little excessive, given it's an annual thing? And that we live in the friggin' land-locked Midwest? \nBIRD FLU! To quote a May 28 St. Petersburg Times article: "A global epidemic could kill nearly 2-million people and hospitalize nearly 10-million just in the United States ... (and) scientists estimate that there may be only enough vaccine for about 10 percent of the population..." The title: "Who lives? Flu crisis may make us pick." Never mind that the World Health Organization has only reported 52 deaths in 2006 so far -- all in places where you'd be hard-pressed to find clean hospital sheets. I'm glad that the authorities are taking it seriously -- but after the overhyping of SARS, Ebola and mutated, airborne AIDS, I'm a little jaundiced (but not fatally).\nMYSPACE! It will corrupt your children! And make them fly off to the Middle East! And plot school massacres! And post porn videos! Why, what's a parent to do -- well, besides, pay attention to their kids? And, yet, the media never covers the most disturbing thing about MySpace: that Hoobastank has almost 50,000 friends. \nAll this is just a taste of what to expect. So lock your doors, pull the covers over your head, turn on the TV and never go outside -- well, except to get the \nnewspaper.