The weather media has a new scare story out, they’re calling it a Heat Dome and warning that it is deadly and coming in a few days and will bring the kind of heat that causes stroke, heart attack, collapse and death.

Soon I’ll be getting one of those texts or e-mails warning people like me to stay indoors for a week or so. I keep turning off notifications, they keep coming, like zombies from another world.

In the world of warnings, alarms are money, it is almost impossible to escape them. Lots of people profit from them.  I often wonder what the impact on people is to be reminded every minute of the bad things that can happen in the world and to be warned about life continuously.

It will be hot this week, but it is also the middle of July, and even the weather hysterics say records will not be broken and the “dome” will not last that long? As a former media critic, I understand some of the context for so many of these warnings – the conventions will be dangerous, the country is falling apart.

Bad and frightening news is addictive to people, according to market research, warnings make a lot of money for weather and cable news channels, and bring money, votes and power to exploitive politicians. And I am not persuaded that more people are dying from the heat these days in America than used to die from the heat in America. I think not.

But you will not see that story on the Weather Channel, nobody would pay to get text alerts saying things are better, and no advertiser would sponsor good news. Nobody calls up their relatives to say living in heat waves is easier than it used to be. They’d rather say the Heat Dome is coming! Extreme Weather!

The outrage addicts and political hysterics have seized our public spaces and driven sane and  rational people into hiding. If you are a thoughtful person, you probably hide our feelings and beliefs.

I am no ostrich, my eyes are open to the challenges of these times, but I also love history, and I know that people have faced much worse many times. I don’t believe our way of life is coming to an end, not soon.

I don’t want my head to be filled with continuous warnings as I live my life. There is a difference between being alert and knowing and being phobic and terrified. On social media, that distinction is often blurred.

I don’t think I can remember a day when someone on Facebook has not warned me about my animals, my life, my food, medicines or insect sprays. Why have warnings become the currency of our dialogue with one another.

I expect when I put up a photo of a tired or hot working dog to be warned about heat stroke, collapse, hot cars, brain damage.

It is sort of like background noise for me now.

Border collies run hard in the heat, so we keep tubs of water around for them to jump into and cool off ub. Fate loves her pool, Red doesn’t seem to need it. I’ve had border collies for many years and many summers, heat hasn’t gotten one of them yet.

My concern about summer and dogs begins and ends with the pool. I really don’t think much about it.  If they have someplace to cool off and are not run forever in the hot sun, they will be fine. If they were out in the sun for long stretches over vast spaces, I would think more about it and probably keep the sheep in during the hottest weather.

I  embrace the notion of climate change – you can see it on a farm every day – and I understand that some people need to be cautious about the heat. But we live in a world of warnings now, I can’t post a photo of a dog or cat or horse or donkey or sheep without getting warnings from somebody about disease, vets, dangerous weeds or some other threat.

I hope everyone stays comfortable this week and takes care of themselves. More and more, I embrace the Church Of Minding My Own Business. I am empathetic, but also bounded. I cannot take responsibility for the choices of other people.

To me, there is a difference between scaring people and actually helping them.

I check in on an elderly neighbor once in awhile to make sure she is okay.  A small act of kindness. But I will not stay indoors all week or stop living my life, loving my wife, doing my chores, shopping for food and moving the sheep. Perhaps the Weather Channel will one day take some of their very large profits and buy window air conditioners for poor and elderly people in sweltering tenements and apartments.

I remember a farmer telling me a few years ago that he didn’t know winter was dangerous until his wife bought a TV set. I didn’t know that summer could be so dangerous until corporate media too over forecasting from the government.

Perhaps these channels will one day teach us about climate change rather than showing us how to fear our planet.

Drought, flooding, wildfires, tornadoes are all too real, even if our Congress will not provide money to study their effects.

I choose to be mindful, to live in a state of thoughtfulness and awareness, but not in a state of perpetual warning. I just don’t care to live that way. It seems hypocritical and exploitive to me.

This will be a busy week for us. We are probably getting another Romney rescue ewe tomorrow – a white one. We skirted Izzy’s wool on Sunday and it is beautiful, we’re sending it off to the Vermont Knitting Mill to join the other wool we brought a week ago.

And the Heat Dome has spurred me to try to get a shearer here soon, it is painful to see an unshorn sheep in a heat wave. I’m not ready to call the dog days of summer a dome.