Finding the deadly poison ricin in a Senate office building is not something anyone would have wanted.

But, after everything that has happened in the past two years, it is not completely unexpected.

And at least it happened, in a sense, to the right senator &045; the one who literally wrote the book on bioterrorism and whose office, we hope, knew how to handle it.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a physician, wrote a book not long after the anthrax scare in 2001 titled &uot;When Every Moment Counts: What You Need to Know About Bioterrorism from the Senate’s Only Doctor.&uot;

He taught his own staff and other offices how to deal with such threats.

So far, no one has fallen ill, although federal officials are now testing suspicious powder in a Connecticut post office, and much of the Senate’s work has been shut down, possibly for the rest of the week.

These are the kinds of things we have to be prepared for, believe it or not.

Senators reacted, at least outwardly, with calm on Tuesday after Frist announced tests on the substance in his office had tested positive for ricin.

It’s a good model for how the rest of us should act. When the anthrax scare happened, people were afraid to get their mail, to visit the post office, to send mail.

It’s become far too easy in the wake of anthrax, mad cow, SARS and bird flu to seize upon every new scare and overreact.

The chances that ricin poison will harm anyone in contact with it are high; the chances you will be in contact with it are pretty low, however.

We need to take common sense precautions, but we can’t let fear completely disrupt out lives.