Debbi:
I appreciate your philosophic ruminations. Perhaps because I believe that, in short,
life is a risk - on many levels. In a sense, we risk our lives every day,
especially when we drive. I'll bet most of us know someone who died (or had a friend or relative who was killed) in an automobile accident. So, over the past 25 years, we've insisted that cars and roads be safer and although there are more cars on the roads than ever before, the fatal accident rate has steadily dropped. When it comes to driving, no one suggests that we ban automobiles because of what
might happen. Frankly, living under that kind of mindset -
the world is dangerous and you might be killed - could emotionally cripple a person. Fortunately, most people don't allow that to happen based on 'what if?' scare stories in the media that cynically prey on people's fears and not necessarily unreasonable concerns to capture our attention and - they hope - buy the book, magazine or newspaper, watch the TV show or log on to a website.
I'm sure there are lots of things in our environment that are not good for us yet mankind has survived for millennia. The average life expectancy (for whites) in the U.S. today is 77 years (73.6 years for men and 79.4 years for women). In 1900 it the average life expectancy was 47. Think about that. With modern medicine, better nutrition and generally healthier lifestyles along with safer working environments, much improved pre-natal care and, equally important, the rise of the middle class to a state where it is economically feasible to obtain health care, as we have for our AN's, Americans have reached a point where we are healthy enough to focus on things like the possibility of cell phones 'causing' brain tumors, which, in my opinion, they probably do not. If it can be proven that they do, fine. Let's fix that, as I'm certain the engineering specialists employed by cell phone manufacturers, would. That or they would rapidly go out of business.
Like you, Debbi, I tend to think positive. I try to live a reasonably safe and fairly healthy lifestyle. I refuse to obsess over every silly scare story on TV or elsewhere that tries to make me worry about practically everything that I may eat, drink or come in contact with in my daily life. Maybe it's my accumulated life experience (or you can call it just plain cynicism) but I've grown extremely skeptical of the media and their almost constant attempts to 'inform' us of all these supposed 'dangerous' foods and so on that could harm or kill us. I think a lot of it is overblown nonsense based on scanty evidence and a whole lot of supposition and conjecture. I place the cell phone-brain tumor 'debate' in that category. I don't want to debate the issue. I think the proponents of that position should either prove it - or stop trying to convince people this is something we should now worry about. If it's scientifically proven, which could take years of study, then, if I were still around, I would freely admit I was previously mistaken and, like most folks, throw away my cell phone. Actually, I don't own a cell phone, so I'll have to throw away my wife's cellphone.
In any case, if cellphone use is ever scientifically proven to actually cause brain tumors, I seriously doubt that news will be broken on the Larry King show. Meanwhile, I'll just have to take my chances.
Thus ends Jim's ruminations for today. (Worth about what you paid for them).
Jim
