"Has it ever occurred to you how astonishing the culture of Western society really is? Industrialized nations provide their citizens with unprecedented safety, health, and comfort. Average life spans increased fifty percent in the last century. Yet modern people live in abject fear. They are afraid of strangers, of disease, of crime, of the environment. They are afraid of the homes they live in, the food they eat, the technology that surrounds them. They are in particular panic over things they can't even see - germs, chemicals, additives, pollutants. They are timid, nervous, fretful, and depressed. And even more amazingly, they are convinced that the environment of the entire planet is being destroyed around them. Remarkable! Like the belief in witchcraft, it's an extraordinary delusion - a global fantasy worthy of the Middle Ages. Everything is going to hell, and we must all live in fear. Amazing."
Lets hope election '08 brings us a little something different
UPDATE: Michael Crichton, one of my favorite authors, passed away November 4, 2008 after a long and private battle with cancer. He most notably wrote Jurassic Park, Congo and The Andromeda Strain and is the creator of the hit TV show ER, he was 66.
