National Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

During his Tuesday interview with Al Gore, Keith Olbermann referred to America's continued state of fear as "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder".

And while that might be somewhat overstating the thing, certainly the government and the MSM still seems, earnest in its attempts to keep the public looking over its collective shoulders (c.f. today's hysteria over the great TB scare).

Certainly though it does sometimes seem that, in addition to non-Texan hot sauce, the biggest import from NEW YORK CITY?! is the paranoid spirit behind its "See Something, Say Something" campaign.

For the latest expression of American PTSD (APTSD) we go to an innocent looking fax machine in Ashland, Mass. From the AP:

ASHLAND, Mass. --A faulty bank fax printed a message that was misinterpreted as a bomb threat Wednesday, leading authorities to evacuate more than a dozen neighboring businesses and a day care center.

The branch manager of the Bank of America called police about 10 a.m. after receiving a fax containing images of a lit match and a bomb with a fuse, bank spokesman Ernesto Anguilla said.

I have no idea how to break the media of its love affair with scary stories, but it would help if individuals at least recognized them for what they are, sensational attempts to garner ratings being promoted out of all proportion to their real importance in our daily lives.