If there weren’t any bad news, maybe there wouldn’t be any news at all…

Don’t you sometimes find that some days are just too much? I mean, personally, my own life is fine. My family is healthy, we have jobs, no real problems for us. But leave that circle just slightly, and it gets so much worse that it’s hard to bear. In our own little town, two students at Maya’s high school died this weekend when they decided to take a raft trip down a raging waterway. Such things should be safe, shouldn’t they? People go whitewater rafting all of the time. But in our local city, these waterways, this creek is not natural, it’s man-made. Back in the 60s there were floods that did a lot of damage, so the Army Corps of Engineers came in and designed the waterway to travel through concrete paths rather than the more natural mud and trees. So they went traveling down this route, and in these swollen waterways, usually safe and sleepy in their journey, there was suddenly a plethora of branches and other debris. Debris that may have punctured their raft, sending them to their watery grave. Two young men, making a foolish choice, with grave, all too grave, consequences.

Leave our local area, and go National. Wisconsin, where people are fighting for the basic right to be heard. I’m sorry if you disagree, but our nation would not be nearly as friendly for workers if it were not for unions. And for a governor to lower taxes, and then cry crisis when the budget doesn’t balance, requiring the disintegration of the local unions, forcing them to give up their bargaining rights, their contracts, etc. It’s not right. It’s not as tragic as 16 and 17 year olds drowning in a swollen river, but it has the power to destroy families, pull them apart due to poverty and discord.

Leave our country, and go global. New Zealand has a huge earthquake, with scores killed, millions, perhaps billions in damage. I’ve lived through this. It’s surreal. Scary and yet somehow, not. For us, in our earthquake in ’89, people were killed, damage was done, but for the majority of us, life was somewhat normal, though our power was out, and our courage was deeply shaken. This is how it is for many in Christchurch, terrified, shell-shocked, but not injured themselves. For those who have lost their life, their home, their security, it’s huge. Huge.

Leave our Western world, and go even more global. Bahrain. Libya. Crap, the news from Libya is scaring the crap out of me. Gadhafi is a nutcase, and if he decides to bomb his people, or blow up a ship of Americans on their way out, things are going to get even more ugly than the stage 10 amount of ugly that they’re already facing. UGLY.

Some days, this is too much. Can you blame me for switching the TV over and watching some Sex & the City, some Next Generation, and a little Good Wife, last night? Sometimes, I can’t concentrate to read, and I just need to move on to some light, easy TV. Lately, the news hasn’t been providing that at all. Then again, when does it, in this era of “if it bleeds, it leads”. Still, on days when the focus of the news is some starlet’s hair color, it’s easier to dismiss as stuff and nonsense, isn’t it?