Don't we have enough to worry about?

This past weekend, my husband and I decided that we wanted to do something a little different. Something that we hadn't done in a while.

So, the family got together and went out to Black River to have a bonfire. We thought, what the heck? It's almost Halloween and the weather is cooling off so there aren't any bugs out to bother anyone.

And it was a way to leave all of our cares behind and just spend an evening having fun. Not worrying about anything else at all.

Have you ever stopped to think how much stress we have in our everyday lives? I mean, think of everything we have to worry about.

Paying bills.

Keeping on top of things at work.

Making sure that we devote the time and effort to our children that they deserve.

If you have pets -- and I do -- making sure that you take care of them and spend time with them each day.

Taking care of all the household chores and necessities.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. I know that many of us have either a lot more or a little fewer things to worry about.

But then figure in all the things outside of our everyday lives that we have to worry about. Things like war, drought, flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes, school shootings, pedophiles and murderers. Then are the things like worry about a kid at school trying to get our children to try drugs or alcohol or sex.

I think that we definitely have more than enough to worry about in this day and age. So why is it the media has jumped all over the Asian Flu and is screaming about a pandemic?

Because, members of the mainstream media are always searching for the next sensational story. So, they take this flu and start shouting that it has the power to wipe out millions of people in a single swipe.

What they hesitate to point out is that this flu has been limited to birds and that the ONLY people who have contracted it have been in direct contact with an infected bird, like a chicken.

The flu cannot be spread person-to-person. It is not airborne. There have been absolutely no cases in the U.S. of either a bird or a human infected with the disease.

But the media jumped on this like a starving dog on a T-bone steak. Can you believe it? We have more people dying around the world of the regular, winter flu and the media wants to get everyone in a frenzy about the POSSIBILITY that this Asian flu could become a pandemic.

Start stockpiling vaccines, they say. Start mass producing anti-virals like Tamiflu, which MAY have an effect on people already infected with the Asian flu.

Know what I say? Get a freakin' life. Why doesn't the media jump on the real issues confronting people worldwide everyday? How about cancer or, as I mentioned, the regular flu or RSV in children or pneumonia or any of the 1,000,001 other things that are responsible for killing people everyday?

Because today the media take it upon themselves to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Another case in point. I know that there are several veterans out there of wars like Vietnam or World War II. Do you remember ever hearing on television or the radio or reading in the newspapers that "Four Marines were killed yesterday?"

No. Because in those wars, the numbers would have been more like 400 or 4,000. But the media today is going to jump on the four killed like fiery meteors are raining down out of the sky, destroying everything in their paths.

The reason these glory hounds make such a big deal out of little things like this is because there are a handful of people out there who are going to read the headlines and flip out. To those people I say, didn't your mother tell you not to believe everything you see and hear?

Please, quit encouraging the idiocy of these media members who want to find a new form of disaster around every corner. Yes, there is a slight threat from the Asian flu. But there is always the chance that a whole new flu bug will crop up that WILL be airborne and spread person-to-person. There is always the threat of biological warfare in which diseases like smallpox could be released. There is always a chance for danger, in everything we do.

And to the media hounds I say, don't we have enough to worry about already? Move on -- we'll face that tiger down if it ever gets out of its cage.

Sacha Champion may be reached via e-mail at schampion@dailystatesman.com