Hysterical voices again

They're at it again -- hysterical voices telling us we're in for one of the great blizzards of all time. Well ... maybe ... maybe us ... maybe someplace else ... maybe not much snow at all.  I'm really tired of this Be afraid, be very afraid! hysteria that hits the media regularly and indiscriminately -- as if someone knew just what the storm is going to do, just where it's going to hit.

Maybe a blizzard will hit Cape Cod; maybe not -- last year we heard three such warnings and, as we say here on the Cape, none of them made it over the bridge.  People are saying, "stock up" and "what will you do if the heat goes out?" And so on.  Jez ...  if the lights go out, I'll lose the food in my freezer, say the thoughtless ones.  Why lose any frozen food when there's a foot of snow outside to keep your food well frozen?  Really, where's your common sense? Almost everyone I know has enough food of various sorts in their homes to keep them feed for a couple of weeks -- maybe not with the variety they are accustomed to but, hey, we are the lucky ones.  We have enough food.  Would we be cold if the electridicity went off?  Maybe a little cold, but not freezing cold.  Why do we think we should be afraid just because someone in a cozy TV studio, under megawatts of bright lights tells us we should panic? 

I'll keep my eyes open.  I'll be surprised if there is more than two inches of snow on the ground tomorrow morning -- I'll be surprised if there is one, actually as today was totally without percipetion.
I simply protest the penchant of all news media to try to instill fear. 

I'm reading an article in the current New Yorker magazine about the effects of Hurricane Sandy on Staten Island. It was very serious understand that. Now that the papers have once said "Super storm" they've added the words to their vocabulary.  G'mme a break.