There are some people whose self-inflicted anxieties drive them to a state where sighting an unfamiliar new channel causes them to break out in cold sweat. While hoping for a decent daytime job, some of such elements opt to peddle doses of paranoia, expecting to end up as hawkers for an alarmist lobby. H.L. Mencken once declared that “the whole aim of practical politics” is “to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” Perhaps with such elements in mind, last year, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg actually went so far as to urge people to “get a life”, pointing out that “you have a much greater danger of being hit by lightning than being struck by a terrorist.” On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, ABC’s Charles Gibson somberly intoned, “Putting your child on a school bus or driving across a bridge or just going to the mall—each of these things is a small act of courage—and peril is a part of everyday life.” Amazing then, isn’t it, how without spending much time thinking about it, Americans seem somehow to have been able to summon the bravery to carry out those perilous tasks.