TERROR!

Everyone is afraid at one time or another. Terror, though, is something else. Terror is fear to the 10th power, and when it captures you in its black claws, you are paralyzed. War will do that. Impending danger or death will do that. The loss of what you hold dearest will also do that, for the darkest terrors are those in which you feel desperately alone in an indifferent world.

Terror, though, is not only a feeling but a weapon. Politicians wield it to frighten you into supporting them and their agenda. Clergy use it to threaten you into better behavior in this world before the accounting of the next. Hollywood is especially good at orchestrating little terrors in your life, for they have been offering us slasher & vampire movies from the very beginning.

Turns out we seem to love terror. Well, at least respond to it. It gets our votes, our prayers, and our summer tickets at the box office. Psychiatry explains that we often indulge in terror just so long as we sense there is always some redemption in the end. Like the masochist lover in violent sex games or the parachutist waiting till the last moment to yank the cord.

My only experience with terror and parachutes came in the Air Force. Not in toying with death on the way down, but in convincing myself to climb into a chute in the first place. As I tried to explain to the sergeant, ignore the uniform I'm wearing, because really, sarg, I'm a civilian at heart!

I can report surviving that terror. And a few others along the winding way. What I can't report is why we continue to allow ourselves to be terrorized by the two latest masters of terror: The cable news networks and the giant new pharmaceutical advertisers.

The first are dedicated 24/7 to packaging the news in ways that would scare the hell out of anyone from Jesse James to George Patton. Dark musical intros...flashing graphics...breathless reporters. No item is so sweet and soft that it can't be sharpened into a fiercesome point.

The second is committed 24/7 to burying us in ads and commercials about things we never even knew existed. Vitamin Z deficiency....numbness,...ringing.... and everyone's newest favorite, restless leg syndrome.

Terror is not something to be played with. More to be understood so that this tail doesn't wag our dog...