Opinion/Editorial
THE GOOD NEWS
The vernal equinox occurred at around nine p.m. on Sunday. That equinox, when the sun shines down directly on the equator, giving most of the planet twelve hours of daylight and twelve of darkness, is also called the beginning of the spring season. That’s the first good news for all the population that’s endured a good measure of cold, ice, and snow during the winter months.
The second piece of good news is all about the pandemic. Vaccinations have ripped into the morbidity and mortality rates of those getting the virus. The social and cultural reactions to the pandemic will remain for quite some time but the people getting, being hospitalized, and/or dying from the dread virus are much less than during the two years before. A feeling of relief and social warmth follows this letup in the power of the virus, and society’s reaction to it, to change life as we have known it, especially in America.
The third bit of good news is all about the war in Ukraine, a war that has taken the world by shock and storm, much like the virus did when it struck, but much more one of causal human factors rather than a viral spread without reason or thought. NATO is alive and well again, after experiencing a near-terminal attack from the former leader of the country. NATO serves, when it’s working, as a protective barrier against exactly what the world is witnessing coming from Russia and has been coming from Russia since before almost anyone alive was born.
The second part of this third bit of good news is about the new leadership of the country. This administration is giving a measured and very careful response against Russia and in support of Ukraine without setting off a nuclear winter kind of situation, or series of terminal explosions. This response, both effective and anti-emotional, preserves the human condition and civilization as we have come to know it. The fourth good news is all about the reborn good and warming attitude up and down and all across the country. Gasoline prices are up and refuse to go down, no matter how idiotic the reasons for the rise are.
The fact that high inflation on just about everything else is not deterring a pandemic and war-tested public from traveling by car, air, or even on cruise ships is also good news. None of these mighty threats over the last three wild years are being overlooked, nor ignored. They are being accommodated and adapted to by a population and culture that is the most adaptive and accommodating on the planet.
The fourth great thing that is developing in the USA is the lessening of the great divide of political and social thought that’s so wounded almost every friendship, marriage, family, and more all over the country. There are still the loud and downright nasty voices calling for everything from the persecution of the Ukrainians because they are led by Nazi forces (the president of the country is Jewish and lost family in the holocaust!), to threatened violence against any of the mandates against the spread of the virus that are not even mandated anymore. The near-mythical assault upon U.S. borders by immigrants is barely discussed, and the ‘threat’ is no more or less than it was made out to be over the past five years. Immigration, real immigration, is going on in the countries around Ukraine, as millions are being forced to flee or die.
Quite possibly, if China gives aid and arms to Russia in the Ukraine War, then the U.S. may begin to withdraw from doing business with that country anymore. Along with that, might come not treating American billionaires who took U.S. businesses abroad and stole U.S. jobs, will no longer be seen as leaders in the country or anyone to be admired for what they have done. American workers and production may well return to levels not seen in thirty years. There is a lot of goodness and good news coming out of the current crop of dizzy craziness that began gripping the country five years ago and is only now coming to a point where moderate policy, politics, and social dialogue can once again be resumed, appreciated and even heartily enjoyed.
The wearing of masks is diminishing in number and effect. Vaccinated people have pretty much overwhelmed the more selfish (and foolish) anti-vaxxers. America is headed back to the middle instead of being focused on two extreme and violently separated belief systems about how to run the country, and this good news could not have come at a better time.
