(~4 minutes to read)
Dire warnings may make good headlines/clickbait, but I’m fed up with the world being controlled by fear—fear of weather conditions, fear of bad people, fear of out-of-date or under-cooked food: fear of sasquatch wandering down main street, aliens stealing our patio sets, or ghosts coming up the toilet and haunting our nether regions.
There are real things to worry about. But I’m not going to list them—if you don’t know what they are, then please continue being afraid of the phantom fart catcher of the ghostly gurgler.
In the meantime, please indulge me while I address the (irrational?) fears listed above.
Cold Weather—Be Afraid!
Here in the Calgary region, we’ve just been released from the grip (I think that’s the journalistic cliché du jour) of a cold snap; warnings about covering up as much skin as possible and so on abounded. One example:
Headline: “Calgary cold snap prompts safety warning.”
Quote: “[S]kin and the tissue underneath can freeze within a number of minutes, and it can do some nerve damage and some tissue damage.”
All true. But melodramatic? I’ll repeat that quote, with some helpful bolding.
“That skin and the tissue underneath can freeze within a number of minutes, and it can do some nerve damage and some tissue damage.”
The statement is true. But the weasel words are what make it fodder for a “news” story. (If you’d like me to explain why the highlighted words are weasel words, drop me a line.)
I don’t have any issue with the person whose words were quoted in the article. I do have a problem with the general journalistic habit of—nay, addiction to—sensationalizing every single story, or even creating stories that aren’t really news.
The risks of hypothermia and frostbite are well-known—aren’t they? It’s common sense, after all. Water freezes at 0°C. Our bodies are made up of a high percentage of water. Exposed skin and flesh will seek to reach some kind of equilibrium with the air temperature (ye cannae beat the laws o’ physics, Cap’n), so common sense should tell us that the further below zero the temperature goes, the more likely it is that the water in that exposed skin is going to turn into slush, or worse, the necessary to chill an entire vat of finest single malt.
Problem is—common sense is poorly named.
Out-of-Date Food—Be Afraid!
Time was when stores and other food outlets could sell any and all of their stock, irrespective of how long it had been on the shelf and what condition the food was in. And yes, there were problems.
Solution: legislate. “Best before” dates became mandatory.
Outcome: multiple.
1. Unsafe food sales continue, judging from the number of food recalls and stories about mouldy this and that being purchased.
2. Many people throw “past their best before date” food out.
It’s like people think the food has a timed self-destruct capsule in it. Common sense goes on strike again.
Check out www.stilltasty.com to see how safe food is after the “best before” dates. And remember that because of our litigious society, even stilltasty has to err on the safe side.
Some people donate out-of-date food to the food bank, and think it’s a valid and community-minded way to spring-clean their pantries. The food bank that I occasionally volunteer at has to abide by those “best before” dates, and I’m sure most others have to as well. While they don’t necessarily throw it out, they can’t give it out as part of a client’s care package.
It’s not a foregone conclusion that out-of-date food will kill you. To quote Blue Oyster Cult, don’t fear the reaper; and don’t fear out-of-date food. Maintain a healthy respect, but fear…
BTW: How did Blue Oyster Cult get their name? According to their manager (as reported in a number of places online), it’s an anagram of “Cully Stout Beer”, presumably his beverage of choice. How true this is I don’t know. And frankly I don’t care.
The bottom line is that adults are responsible for their own wellbeing, and can take or avoid risks. We don’t need our risk-taking decisions tainted by fear.
Sasquatch, Aliens, Ghosts—Be Afraid?
Sorry—I can’t allay your fears here.
If you have a sasquatch-friendly main/high street in your home town, then it’s theoretically possible that it will attract sasquatch. Pedestrianized streets may well be the most at-risk areas.
Especially when there’s snow on the ground.
Especially at night.
Especially when there’s menacing music playing in the background.
Aliens (and here, we’re talking about extra-terrestrial aliens, not the undesirable human kind that people feared in less politically-correct times… oh, wait…) aren’t known for their penchant for outdoor loungers and glass-topped wrought iron tables, but in an infinite universe, I guess there could be a spaceship out there somewhere just waiting to point its tractor beam at your patio. If in doubt, plaster pictures of Trump over the furniture—that should deter them.
And as for poltergeists in the porcelain throne: if one should appear, do what I would do—fight back with everything at your disposal—after all, the weapons are already aimed in the right direction!