10/26/05 Fear Factor

I find it fascinating that our culture, so hung up on bravado can be debilitated by fear. We live in a country that has given the rest of the world John Wayne and Superwoman yet we remain myopically paralyzed when it comes to miniscule environmental, medical or dietary risks. Reflect for a moment on the hundreds of substances over our lifetime that were supposed to have caused cancer, but didn't. It is a disappointing irony that while media has become continually more inept, the majority of us still believe everything we hear and read. Thin of the Cortislim ads. Yes should have the freedom to spend our own money, yet I believe we must become astute enough to know where to draw the line when it comes our tax dollars. It is a national travesty that so many lifesaving programs fail to receive adequate funding while billions are squandered on environmental crusades that typically end belly-up. How quickly we forget high speed transit systems that were never ridden, oil tanks that didn't need decommissioning, pesticide spray zones that hurt farmers (and didn't help fish,) all sadly the result of fear, irrational fear, keenly leveraged by groups with special agendas. I'm Susan Allen and this is Food Forethought,