My cat leads a charmed life. She has all the food she can eat, she is never cold, she sleeps on a down comforter. But evolution intended for her to live in the wild with constant dangers abounding - her temperament makes her ready to deal with the harshest Nature has to offer. Since these dangers don't exist for her, however, she seems to elevate the most common events to a great level of urgency. Simple noises are threatening specters, sleep is plagued by demons, and the vacuum cleaner is clearly Evil Incarnate. Her world has become filled with the same perceived dangers her feral counterpart faces.

Citizens of the United States live in an era of previously unfathomable prosperity and safety. Dangers of starvation, disease, abject poverty, and invasion feel all but unknown to us. But instead of embracing this peace, into the void we let creep new fears to replace the old. Robbery. Drugs. Carjacking. Blacks. Identity theft. Anthrax. Suitcase nukes. Smallpox. Al Queda. Nerve gas. Arabs.

The present administration has done an impressive job of promoting these fears by yanking the threat alert around to bolster flagging ratings and implying that the Iraqi populace had something to do with Bin Laden. We Americans complied by canceling vacations, buying fallout shelters, and covering our houses with plastic wrap and duct tape. We've been reduced to cowering under our sheets, closet doors sealed, afraid of our own shadow.

I hope we never go back to the time when we have truly frightening things to cope with, but with some luck we can put today's anxieties into perspective and live our lives in accordance to their true importance. My cat, on the other hand, will never understand how good she has it.