Who are the people who devote themselves to selflessly examining every culinary pleasure and all the wonders of the modern world to see if they are in any way bad for us? Each day's headlines blurt forth a new warning from a government agency or scientific cabal, informing us that life may be hazardous to our health. And every day I rejoin the battle to fight off a deepening paranoia that some new convenience or old favorite food is going to rise up and kill me where I stand.

I'm willing to grant that some of the warnings are grounded in legitimate science and genuine care for the common good. But I wonder: Are they all? Which ones are real, and which are imaginary? How many of them are merely ideas that someone hatched in order to put forth a pet concern? I'm as convinced as I need to be that some of the warnings foisted upon us are the work of well-meaning people whose hearts may be in the right place but haven't done any real research since they opened a science book in junior high. I've even created a name for this group: Hysterical Hacks.

Hysterical Hacks in general are not scientists. Scientists conceive ideas, formulate hypotheses, test their hypotheses, and publish the provable ones. Many times scientists hedge their bets by declaring that more research is needed before an absolute conclusion can be reached. Hysterical Hacks are spokesmen for heaven-knows-who, and they're not bashful about emphasizing that the world will stop right now until everyone falls in line behind whatever idea, provable or otherwise, they choose to spout.

Join me on a typical working day, as it would be if I took every warning at face value. I arise when the clock radio starts blaring. I've already endangered my hearing, I've been told, by having the radio on too loud. I turn on the lamp on the nightstand, burning too much fossil fuel by using an incandescent light bulb. I'd switch to more energy-efficient flourescent ones, but it's been reported that they contain mercury and can contaminate a whole room if they get broken. I head into the bathroom, strip off and step into the shower, allowing a small pond's worth of hot water to run down the drain. According to a news feature that was broadcast this week, if I were environmentally considerate I'd turn the water on just long enough to get wet and then turn it off to soap up. Once I was well-lathered I'd turn the water back on just long enough to rinse and then shut it off and get out. I'd also be cold and have soap in my eyes. I also would either have scalded myself or suffered hypothermia trying to find the right temperature again. But that's the price of earth-friendliness.

Once I've primped for the day and dressed myself (quite likely in clothes that were made in an offshore sweatshop, thus exploiting the indiginous workers and allowing American laborers to be downsized out of their livings), it's time to make breakfast. I put some bacon in a plastic dish and microwave it, thus ensuring my demise from either dioxin exposure or clogged arteries. I crack a couple of eggs into an aluminum frying pan and turn up the heat, on my way to a nice tasty meal that will either send my cholesterol skyrocketing or eat holes in my brain. I skip the margarine on my toast, mindful of TV reports of wandering gangs of trans fats that are just looking for an unsuspecting cardiovascular system to attack. I wash the whole of it down with a cup of coffee, which may or may not be fair-trade and probably carries enough caffeine to keep my heart pounding like timbale drums all morning.

Before I head off to work I pack up lunch. Breakfast was pretty heavy so I'd better keep lunch light. Maybe I'll just have a spinach salad with some diced chicken and a diet soda. Maybe the spinach will be chock-full of e.coli, like happened over the winter. The chicken might have been raised in a cage on a factory farm, poor thing, and never even got to feel the sun on its feathers. And if the soda pop got too warm the sweetener may have turned into formaldehyde! Oh well, at least I'll be well-preserved.

Having run out of excuses not to do so, I leave the house to go to work. I drive a small pickup truck. I'd like to have a bigger one, but all this one hauls most of the time is my sorry behind to the office; I don't really need more. Do I really need this one? Since I live on a farm and occasionally use it for hauling and towing the answer is yes...but thanks for checking. Living on a farm puts me a fair distance from town, which not only increases my carbon footprint due to excessive travel, but it precludes the use of more environmentally-concious commuter transportation, like a bicycle. But riding a bicycle risks a closed-head injury if you don't wear a helmet, and I don't have a helmet, so that's out. Furthermore, all that exposure to sunlight could increase my risk of skin cancer. I'd just as soon not chance it.

Once I'm safely at the office, I turn on my computer and start the day. It's fortunate that I'm not pregnant, as the radiation from my monitor could put an unborn baby at risk. (Being that I'm male, if I was pregnant I'd have bigger issues than working too close to a monitor anyway.) When I get a few free moments I check the online headlines:

I pause at the last one, wondering how they'd work as light bulbs. But I'm bugged as the work day wears on. All day long everything I've done, used or eaten has had some potential to harm me or doom the planet; the stress is starting to get in.

I'm worn down as I leave work. I start thinking about supper. Maybe I'll just swing through the drive-thru for a burger, fries and a nice chocolate shake. What am I thinking?! Snap out of it, man! The radio just said that hamburger could have listeria in it! The salt on the fries could give me high blood pressure which could lead to blindness, diabetes and a stroke! And the chocolate in the shake is toxic to dogs! But we don't have a dog! It doesn't matter! We could get a dog, he might nose out that shake cup, and then where would he be?

Now I'm shaking as I arrive home. I go to the freezer for some dinner meat. How about pork chops? How about trichanosis! Skip it; I'm not hungry. In fact, I have a headache. I go to the medicine cabinet. There's no acetaminophen; the vet says it's poisonous to cats, and we've got cats! Is there any aspirin in the house? We haven't had aspirin since the baby came. Never mind that "the baby" is grown and married and lives several states away; he could have gotten Reye's Syndrome if he'd gotten into the aspirin fifteen years ago!

What's that shrill screaming? Oddly, it's not me; it's the smoke detector. It's a month past the time change and I still haven't changed the batteries! The racket's driving me crazy; I rip the thing off the ceiling, tear open the back door and throw the infernal thing out in the yard! Then I go and retrieve it so the parts can't decompose and leach into the ground water. I can't take any more...I run downstairs to hide in the basement, completely ignoring the fact that it hasn't been tested for radon, and curl up whimpering in a corner, eventually falling into a shallow, very disturbed slumber.

Thankfully, typical days don't end that badly. They could if I walked around worrying about everything that someone says could harm me. But I don't, so they don't. And I do know that some of the things I listed have merit. Once upon a time I took the attitude that I was going to die of something some day, so I didn't pay much attention to a lot of warnings. Then I got really sick and the possibility of death turned far too real. I am more circumspect now, and if I've poked fun at your favorite cause, please forgive me. It's just that too often we get frightened about things that only might be harmful. So let's all relax, take things in moderation, and keep in mind that even though something's going to get us some day, we might as well enjoy what we have before us now...carefully.

Oh and by the way...has anyone ever calculated the toll that Hysterical Hacks take on human existence?