I've come to the conclusion that the issue of global warming would be taken more seriously if it were more frightening.

One of the great joys of growing up down the street from a movie theater was having my popcorn kernels scared off by Saturday matinee horror flicks.

This was a time when someone in authority actually looked at the films before they were released, so we were spared the sight of truly terrifying images -- Jason, Freddie Krueger, Hannibal Lecter, Al Gore (He Drones On and On! He Induces Narcolepsy!! And He's Huge!!!)

What we consumed was a diet of mostly science-fiction fare: lab experiments that ran amok; space aliens who were bent on world domination; hungry blobs that crept over the land and devoured slow-moving buxom actresses.

The best movies, though, were those with a nuclear element. The Bomb was the big bogeyman of its day. Not only could we be vaporized when the Bomb was used correctly, but just testing the thing could wreak havoc.

Hours after an innocent, seemingly harmless little deep-sea multi-megaton detonation, a 100-foot fire-breathing dinosaur would crawl ashore and stomp large cities to bits. The fact that this carnage was confined to Japan didn't lessen my fear of atomic proliferation.

These movies created a unique bedtime ritual that involved a running leap onto the mattress to avoid whatever radioactive thing was lurking beneath the slats. I'm no authority on the Olympics, but I would bet that a Greek child's belief that an army of Persian warriors lived under his bed led to the development of the long jump.

We live in a jaded age now. Things that should trigger incontinence hardly make our hair stand on end. Killer bees didn't do it. Neither did the invasiveness of kudzu vines. Perhaps we'd have gotten more excited if the bees had mutated to the size of California condors and kudzu had acquired a taste for human flesh. They didn't, so we rolled over and went back to sleep.

For this, I blame Hollywood. The film industry has failed to match its 1950s horror-movie record of doing with melting glaciers what it did with atomic weaponry.

It is not too late for redemption. Lately we in these parts hear about "crazy raspberry ants" -- yes, that's how they are officially known -- creating widespread annoyance throughout south Texas. The ants are about an eighth-inch long. Their bite isn't menacing. And unlike Eisenhower-era celluloid beasts, these creatures actually have a good side: they prey on fire ants and, as an added benefit to all of mankind, they eat the innards of electrical equipment, such as computers. As the Earth's fever worsens, these heat-loving little darlings will be making their way north toward Kansas, an eighth of an inch at a time.

This should give Hollywood enough time to turn these benign insects into globally warmed rampaging man-eaters. It has met the challenge before and it will do so again. Having seen enough of this genre, I can already visualize the climactic scene. Without giving too much away, I'll say only this: Don't look under your beds.

nGordon D. Fiedler Jr. can be reached at 822-1407 or by e-mail at gfiedler@salina.com.

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