I was teaching at a small college when it hired a new biology professor. His fame preceded him and before he arrived on campus he had been christened, "The Snake Man." His research involved snakes and their sounds.

Before I left campus he gave me a tour of his snake lair. As you can probably imagine, he had an impressive collection of rattlesnakes. However, the crown jewels of his collection were two King Cobras. (They make a sort of hissing sound in case you didn't know.)

He genially answered all my questions but when I queried him on what the most poisonous snake in the world was he hesitated. "Your question is more complex than you realize," he told me. Some snakes have particularly toxic venom and a small amount can kill you. Some snakes are extremely poisonous because of the high volume of poison they can inject into their victims.

King Cobras are highly poisonous for that reason.

I was reminded of this experience when I encountered the article, "How the King Cobra Maintains Its Reign" in the New York Times.
But what the king cobra lacks in potency, it makes up for in volume. Its half-inch fangs deliver a huge dose, up to seven milliliters of venom, or about one-quarter of a whiskey shot glass. The lethality of venom depends on a combination of its potency, the volume delivered and the size of the victim. A king cobra bite can kill a human in 15 minutes and a full-grown elephant in a few hours.
As Mormons we seem to be very careful to avoid media that is high objectionable or extremely poisonous. However,  I wonder if we are being equally careful about the sheer volume of media we are taking in. The sheer volume could be just as poisonous.


How careful are you being? Maybe it is time for some course corrections. . . 



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