hapless

On NPR tonight the announcer was talking about an upcoming piece on The War of the Worlds seventy years later. He asked if it, meaning the baseless fear that gripped some listeners who didn't realize the radio transmission wasn't real, could happen again.

I thought, ''Could?' It has.' We're at war based on cleverly manipulated fictions intended to scare the bejeebus out of us just as effectively as Orson Welles carefully scripted his radio story to send chills up all those spines in 1938. The only difference is the length of time taken for 100% of those fooled to understand it was all a hoax.

Most of those folks in 1938 probably would've bet money that by 2008 we'd have superior powers of intellect helping us to overcome the Martian threat; given compound interest, that money would've been better invested in, um, anything.

Terrorist Martians are coming to take away your foot massages!