The Columnist Manifesto

On a previous existential Friday, I addressed the need to prioritize a list of 16 of my worries, and raised the idea of a "worry sharing" cooperative, in which I could assign others to worry about certain subjects for me. In return, I could carry the worry load for them.

For example, if Phantom Scribbler would do my worrying about avian flu, I could do her worrying about what happens to the Supreme Court if Justice John Paul Stevens retires.

This week, I watched a series of programs on the History channel called Mega Disasters. Maybe that was a mistake. The one that really got me worried was the eruption of Mount Rainier.

I've always known that the great coastal mountain peaks of the American west -- Rainier in Washington, Hood in Oregon, Shasta in northern and Mammoth in southern California -- are volcanic. But I hadn't realized that Rainier is a barely-dormant volcano ready to blow at any time.

When Mount St. Helen's erupted in 1980, it released a toxic plume of gas 45,000 feet into the atmosphere and laid waste to over 100 square miles. But St. Helen's was surrounded by remote, largely unpopulated areas.

Rainier is real close to Seattle and its environs. And it's much bigger than St. Helen's.

There's a good news, bad news element here. The good news is that there won't be lava flows. Because of the huge ice-and-snow pack at the peak, the molten lava gets quickly cooled. The bad news is that instead of lava, you get these mud flows described as massive walls of cement moving at, like, 200 miles per hour. One of them is supposed to take out Tacoma. Meanwhile, Seattle will be inundated with ash and poisonous hot gases.

I'm wondering whether my worries can be made more manageable by grouping them. For instance, I notice that a number of them -- terrorism, disease epidemic, and volcanic eruption -- can be grouped as "things that threaten to wipe us out." Any thoughts?