Listening to this weeks Gabfest I was particularly hit by David Plotz's observation about how America has transformed into a fearful nation. I liked his expression "terror pornography" because in many ways it seems that is what of the media does nowadays. As Gore noted in An Assault on Reason, and Drew Curtis noted in It's Not News, It's Fark, our current media culture has become more and more about scaring the crap out of people and less about actual discussion of issues and the education of ideas. Michael Moore even hit on the theme in Bowling for Columbine. I'd enjoy greatly an article written by David Plotz expounding on this theme, as I think it is time for reason and respectability to reclaim our media.