“Mr. Derbyshire—The same thought concerning the similarities in lackluster

news occured to me recently as well. You forgot the real similarity,

though: shark attacks.

“The summer before Sept. 11th half the news was about increasing numbers of

shark attacks on the east coast (if memory serves). The hysteria calmed

down for a couple of years and is now back in full force. I pointed this

out to my roommate a couple of weeks ago, and ’slightly creepy’ about summed

up our final take on it.”