Remembering How To Cope

by Anne Applebaum - February 4th, 2009 - Slate

This column is arriving late this week. It is arriving late because, among other things, my flight out of London Heathrow Airport on Monday was canceled. Not delayed, canceled. So were almost all other flights out of London Heathrow. This stunning disruption to one of the world's busiest transportation hubs was not caused by a terrorist attack or a catastrophic computer failure. It was caused by 5 inches of wet, rapidly melting snow.

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It is perfectly true, as one indignant Briton noted Monday, that the mothers of Oymyakon in Siberia allow their children to play outside until the temperature drops below minus 40 degrees Celsius. (Only at minus 52 degrees Celsius do they close school.) On the other weather extreme, mothers in Abu Dhabi forbid their children to play in the extremely rare episodes of rain, lest they catch a chill.

Perceptions. Oh how they do color our reactions to things. At this very moment we have people in Washinton D.C. who are in a panic over 6% unemployment. To fix this they are making legal changes to adopt economic policies which in Europe consistently result in 12% unemployment as a normal situation.

Is there any greater description of panic than stupidity such as this?