Nothing like disaster to make you feel better

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to college, along comes the news that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" isn't just a campy TV show. It turns out it's also food for thought.

A conference in Nashville last weekend drew students of the show from as far away as Singapore. College courses are devoted to the show, which was canceled last year. There's even an online journal of Buffy studies.

A book editor reports she first was drawn into the show when she was pregnant and up late one night. No doubt, it helps to have raging hormones if you're going to tune into a show about a California blonde high school student fighting modern-day vampires and still managing to have a good hair day in each and every episode.

Personally, I just can't get into the show. I'm sure to some it's biting comedy, although some sensitive souls would say it's not nice to demonize people with bad teeth. The creator of the show says the series is really about adolescence. Now it's really getting scary.

At any rate, I prefer climate-controlled horror as in "The Day After Tomorrow," the global-warming disaster movie which envisions another ice age descending on North America.

The whole family went to see it Sunday. There's nothing like a good disaster movie to make you feel good about your life.

Think things are bad now? They could be worse. You could be frozen in New York City.

Of course, you know this is a work of fiction, if for no other reason than it envisions Americans will have to camp out in Mexico just to survive.

It's reported that the Pentagon, however, really has taken a look at what would happen if there were rapid climate change. The worst-case scenario: European cities would be swamped, China would be overcome by monsoons and wildfires would ravage the western United States.

It's enough to make you want to hit the parental control button to lock out the Weather Channel so your kids don't have to see such a disaster in living color.

By the way, the Weather Channel gets plenty of attention in the latest disaster movie, although surprisingly no one freezes on the set.

Deadly tornadoes whip through Los Angeles, their destruction captured by TV news crews.

Hollywood probably has never before given this much attention to TV weathermen.

But then weather can be exciting, sort of the ultimate TV reality show.

On Sunday, prior to going to the show, we took our St. Louis relatives downtown to see the floodwall murals. Like others there, we couldn't resist walking to the river's edge to view the flood-swollen mighty Mississippi. Much of the River Walk was flooded. The landing was shrinking by the hour, forcing us to huddle like lemmings on a ledge.

Of course, we had the security of knowing that Cape Girardeau is protected by a concrete floodwall and that we weren't going to be washed away by a tidal wave like the one depicted in "The Day After Tomorrow."

Naturally, it was a little bit unnerving to come out of the show to low, dark clouds and tornado warnings.

But after watching an entire nation survive a frozen hell, we figured it could always be worse.

Fortunately, Mother Nature is generally a lot nicer than Hollywood screenwriters envision. For that, we can all be grateful.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.