Bird flu Angst
It’s kind of like waking up and finding yourself in a scene from Hitchcock’s The Birds or something. The natives are all hysterical now about this bird flu (avian flu) “threat”. There is no threat yet, of course, objectively speaking, but that is of no consequence here. They’re gone completely ape-poopoo over it. They are now at the point where they are concerned about eating chicken or sleeping with down blankets or putting eggs in their Tiramisu or you name it. Their normal flu vaccination vaccine is long gone. They have noticed strange behavior in the bird population. The strange behavior in their own native population doesn’t seem to be much of an issue, however. It’s all Angst, Angst, Angst here these days. And they’re good at Angst, too. There are tons of books out there about German Angst, a real industry. The latest one is called Lebensgefühl Angst (lifestyle fear or a lifetime of fear). Books like these touch upon things like “the multiplication of fear in consumer society” or “fear dynamics” or “the fear virus”. I recently read that one out of ten natives take anti-Angst medication on a regular basis. I don’t doubt this, either. I also tend to agree with something the author of Lebensgefühl Angst wrote: The more one owns, the more one fears. They do own too much, the natives. Just like the rest of us. Too many down blankets, for instance.
Saw a good Angst-article the other day at www.bloggernews.net, too.
