Sunday, February 4, 2007

THE ANNOYING WHITE NOISE OF CHICKEN LITTLE


THE ANNOYING WHITE NOISE OF CHICKEN LITTLE

There's a small decal on gas pumps, that tells us of the dangers of gasoline. It tells us it's carcinogenic, that the fumes are caustic and will burn eyes, skin, or mucus membranes, and that it is extremely flammable, and can ignite from a cell phone ringing. If you're like me, you ignore it, and go on pumping. Afterwards we barrel down the highway at 80 mph, unconcerned to be sitting over a tank of napalm, so unconcerned in fact, that we talk on the phone, drink coffee, or even read the newspaper as we drive. So much for neurotic fear of a danger very close at hand, several times a day, every day of our lives. Mostly, we never curry any obsession over it, and just go on about our business, and nothing, in fact, ever happens.

If you've gotten a new electrical appliance lately, you'll be familiar with the multilingual manuals usually packed inside the boxes, where the first 12 pages are shock warnings, and hazard warnings, and admonitions to use safety glasses, or gloves, and to never, ever snip off the ground plug on the electric cord. After those annoying 12 pages, you finally get to maybe one page of how-to manual, and that's it, end of the book. Are you actually helped by those first 12 pages? Do you actually read them? I doubt it, and the very first thing I usually do, is get my cutting pliers, and remove that useless ground plug, so I can use the gizmo (whatever it may be) with my extension cords. Am I living life on the edge? Should all my insurance policies be immediately cancelled? Should normal people shun me, and cross to the other side of the street, to avoid coming within my circle of maximum risk?

Meanwhile, some celebrity in need of camera-time gets up on a podium, and starts warning me in dire tones, that there's mercury in flu vaccine, and that if I want to escape the curse of autism , I have to risk getting sick, because trying to protect myself is gonna kill me, so that the best thing I can do is carry a box of surgical gloves with me from October till May, and wear a face mask, and wipe down my credit card with 70% denatured alcohol after each use. Does anybody actually listen? And the ones who ignore it (my guess is about 98%).... are they dying like flies, from bird flu, or mercury ingestion, or dirty doorknobs? I don't have all the figures, but I've never heard anything about it either, so maybe it's bullshit, and nobody is being harmed. What's your take?

All these situations deal with more or less real cautions that have taken themselves much too seriously, overestimating their own negative point of view, and the public's need to hear it. In point of fact, all this urging is of great value to the person or organization warning us, but of zero value to us as citizens. The gasoline decal keeps the gas station owner from lawsuits, the 12 pages of electrical warnings keep the appliance maker from predatory litigation, and the celebro-activist gets needed exposure during slack months between movie deals, avoiding a "useless playboy" moniker by having "a cause".

Great for them.
Useless for us.


It is into THIS category, that I place all the pandering nonsense about closing Indian Point. It's great for an Andrew Cuomo to brand himself as pro-something-or-other, by threatening to close a facility that people depend on, do not worry about, are not afraid of, and ignore totally in their daily lives, except when tax time comes around, and they are struggling to make their nut, in the highest per capita taxation region of the world. So what is it that Cuomo is proposing for us all? That we get to like double taxes? That we learn to enjoy blackouts? That we get real used to turning off all that electronic gear we just bought, and leaving it off permanently, because he can't figure out how to build us a new power plant, but he CAN figure out how to shut the one we have now?

Who gains?
Short answer: Cuomo gets a sound byte.
Spitzer won't be governor forever. Proper positioning can pull in all Cuomo senior's IOU's, and Cuomo-the-lesser can become Guv in 8 years. THAT'S his motivation, not "public safety", not "terrorism", and certainly not truth.

Who loses?
Everybody but Cuomo, and half a dozen celebro-activists, who can dance around with a scalp on their spears. That scalp will look at first like Indian Point's scalp, but in the end it will be YOUR scalp, and mine, when this region shoots downhill into an unlivable, unaffordable hell-hole, suitable only for illegals, and the mega-rich.

Don't say you weren't warned.
I know, I know..... nobody's listening.

......

tags: cuomo nrc indian point defense hudson
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