Summertime, and the living isn't so easy

Alligators swimming in the streets of Florida. . . . Tragic lightning strikes on golf courses. . . . Tornados touching down in Kansas, New Hampshire, and all points in between. From the first shark sightings in May until the big boomer hurricanes roll in before Labor Day, the American summer - once a time of rest and relaxation - has become one long, terrifying Red Alert.

Is it August? Here comes the annual Eastern equine encephalitis scare. You can set your watch by it.

I've suggested in the past that American summers aren't particularly dangerous but that American summer journalism is. The country's chief mischief-makers, meaning its elected officials, are generally on vacation, depriving us of our usual diet of semi-important news. A lot of intelligent editors also take time off in the summer, editors whose judgment might have protected us from stories like this:

"Barefoot in the Park? Watch Your Step." In this important public service article, The New York Times warns its readers about a dangerous activity once thought to be safe: flopping off your shoes for a stroll in the grass. Watch out! The ever-vigilant newspaper of record enumerates fire ants, black widow spiders, hookworm larvae, deer ticks, and sporotrichosis among the dangers threatening the tender toes of idle gambolers.

You were worried about rusty nails? That's so Huck Finn. Today's greensward, Times reporter Anemona Hartocollis warns, harbors "Nocardia, a soil-based bacterium, [which] can cause an infection that can lead to lumps called mycetomas, as well as abscesses and ulcerations." I'm staying inside! With my Timberlands on.

The Times has been alerting Americans to indoor dangers as well. "What's Lurking in Your Countertop?" the paper asked last month and then answered its own, disturbing question. "Dangerous levels of radon and radiation," say the alarmists, a charge that the Marble Institute of America dismisses as "ludicrous."

Other newspapers have leapt onto the Prius beat, suggesting that Toyota's popular gas-electric hybrid car may emit a dangerous electromagnetic field, the same kind of hazard that has been associated with cellphones. Of course, we already knew Priuses were dangerous. The National Federation for the Blind has been complaining that Priuses - a.k.a. the "Silent Killers" - make too little noise when running on their electric engines, with potentially unfortunate consequences for men and women who can't see.

Then CNN reported that a fully sighted young Minnesota boy rode his bike into one of those super-quiet Priuses, emerging from the crash with bruises and scrapes. This doesn't happen with other cars!

Astonishingly, the House of Representatives is considering legislation that would require a minimum noise level for hybrid vehicles. Just in time, two Stanford engineering students have designed an artificial noise system for use on the Prius. You can search for a video of their invention on the New Scientist website.

Alternative energy, generally, can be quite dangerous. Just this month The Oregonian reported that "residents living near new wind farms that are sprouting hundreds of giant turbines in the Oregon desert are raising concerns about health effects." Dr. Nina Pierpont of Malone, N.Y., has coined the phrase "wind turbine syndrome" to describe some of the symptoms that can afflict people living near wind farms.

"New research suggests that living close to wind turbines can cause sleep disorders, difficulty with equilibrium, headaches, childhood 'night terrors' and other health problems," the newspaper explained. And we thought fricasseed birds were the only ones suffering

You see, the Kennedys in their Hyannis compound were right all along. Keep those dangerous wind farms out of my Cape Cod backyard! And as long as you're leaving, take your Killer Prius with you.

Know your enemy

A beautiful book about sharks? Yes, "Shark," by Dean Crawford is one of a series of gorgeous, small format animal tomes by British publisher Reaktion Books (www.reaktionbooks.co.uk). This 150-page shark primer has lovely color plates on almost every page of art-quality stock, and the writing is good, too: "We thrill to fear sharks not only because our own depths attract us, but also because we love our monsters, their power, their familiar forms, and their dynamism." Dr. Freud, please call your office.

Crawford likes sharks, and even provides a quasi-revisionist account of the famous feeding frenzy that followed the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in 1945. Defending the indefensible! Crawford's the Alan Dershowitz of the finny deep. I loved this book.

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.