The world is a horrible place, at least if we believe what the newspapers, politicians, and pundits tell us. Enemies are lurking in our own neighbourhoods waiting to blow us up with the fertilizer they bought at the hardware store. Terrorists are massing at all of our borders waiting to move here and raise broods of little terrorists who will grow up to be the enemy.

According to some people, last Tuesday, 06/06/06, was a sure sign that the apocalypse is on its way. You don't even have to listen very closely to hear the hoofbeats of the four horsemen pounding down the highway. Look at the state of moral decline we are in: men laying down with men and women with women and being allowed to get married, people using birth control to prevent the spread of disease, which means they're having sex for pleasure, and women are taking control of their bodies and refusing to let men dictate how they should live their lives.

There's violent crime in the streets of all our major cities. The news anchors take delight in reciting the latest shooting and updating the tally of those killed by gunfire. Civilians and soldiers are dying in wars every day in places some of us can't even pronounce. Volcanoes are erupting in Indonesia, threatening the thousands who survived the earthquakes that happened only last week.

It seems every month a new disease sprouts up somewhere that either makes part of our food chain a danger to us or another part of nature our enemy. Mosquitoes and birds spread West Nile, chickens (and maybe cats) spread avian flu, and cows are tainted with Mad Cow disease.

Every month a new wonder drug is rushed on the market that will save us from some evil or another only to be pulled a month later because it creates more problems than it solves. There are fewer and fewer days each summer when the air is of fit quality to breathe and less and less places where it is safe to swim as the bacteria count in our lakes, rivers, and oceans rise, or used medical supplies wash up on shore.

Our popular culture, books, television, movies, and video games are full of images and themes of paranoia and violence. Instead of providing a relief or a break from the litany of implied danger and horror, they reinforce the perception that the world is horrible and ugly.