If I Were Czar – Part 2

By Arnold Kirkpatrick
First Published: 05 February 2010 - Issue Number: 15

The Chicken Little Syndrome

“Once upon a time, a tiny chicken named Chicken Little was walking in the woods when – KERPLUNK– an acorn fell on her head.
“‘Oh my goodness!’ said Chicken Little. ‘The sky is falling! I must go and tell the king.’”

Even as a child, I thought of Chicken Little as an annoying little twit who spent her time running around causing a commotion and generating fear through dissemination of bad information. Although she survived in several versions of the ancient fable about courage – and, in the upside down world of political correctness, was even turned into a hero in a Disney film a few years ago –I still view Chicken Little as a panic-stricken busybody, stirring up trouble to little benefit.
Today, there’s actually a Chicken Little Award, a dubious prize given by the National Anxiety Center to people and organizations that they consider to be engaged in deliberately false, media-driven scare campaigns. Recently, some of our leaders have been stricken with what I call the Chicken Little Syndrome, while others more erudite than I might refer to it as the Doomsday Disease.
Now that I’ve been Czar for a couple of months, my patience is wearing thin and anyone who is afflicted with either of those will earn a free trip ...

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