I finally picked up The Culture of Fear, one of the dustier books on my shelf that I couldn’t stomach when the weather was colder and there were no flowers.

But it’s springtime so I need something to keep the darkness of winter brooding in my mind. Barry Glassner’s 1999 book on why Americans are so scared will certainly do the trick. He looks behind the made-up alliterative epidemics of the 1990s: killer kids, road rage, mutant microbes. The frequencies of these things are anomolous, says Glassner: 19 violence related deaths out of 54 million children in the nation’s schools during the 1996-97 academic year. About 200 of 250,000 total roadway deaths between 1990 and 1997 were attributed to angry drivers by the AAA. And don’t even get me started on flesh-eating bacteria.

Why do we make these fears up? Glassner’s not just blaming the media, though they take a beating. And he’s not agreeing with Roosevelt here. He’s just saying that the real trouble is misplaced and overblown fears. Road rage took the focus away from drunk driving, because people were sick of talking about drunk driving in the mid-90s, but drunk driving caused 17,000 deaths in the same period from 1990 to 1997, so it’s definitely still a worthy fear. Asbestos removal from schools in the 90s cost us $10 billion and posed more health hazards by being removed than if we’d taken no action. Glassner backs his assertions up with plenty of statistics and references (I’m sorry I haven’t included references for the stats I’ve given here, but they’re all in the book).

It’s interesting to read this pre-9/11 book post-9/11. I think there’s even more fear mongering right now than in 1999. And more things to be legitimately fearful of. But Bush is really feeding on it. (Glassner: “[people reacting to fear] is the sine qua non of contemporary political campaigning”) It cuts across party lines and it plays out at federal, state, and local levels. I’m terrified and angry, and so should you be. Lets riot!

Here’s how I’m rioting: in a fit of rage I got rid of my TV, shut down the computer, quit my job, and got outside to see how the world is these days. I got ice cream. I went to the library and started reading some books. So far I’m pretty happy with this strategy.

(The Culture of Fear was referenced when Michael Moore interviewed Glassner in Bowling for Columbine)