“If it bleeds, it leads.” Have you heard that before? “If it bleeds, it leads” has long been the mantra determining the biggest news stories on any given day. The more gory, gruesome, or grizzly a tale to tell, the better chance of it grabbing our attention and keeping us tuned in. Bad news, dour predictions, impending disaster, keep us riveted.

As Samuel Johnson famously noted, “Nothing focuses the mind like a hanging.” One’s own, especially.

So it is little wonder that “risk management” has given us all sorts of “disaster preparedness” plans—-personal, community, state, and national.

We get flu shots.
We get pneumonia shots.
We make a family “escape plan” for getting out of the house if it catches fire.
We keep an emergency roadside kit in the trunk of our car.
We participate in “fire…