It’s easy to look around at the state of the world and see nothing but doom and gloom. It’s tempting to throw up your arms and concede it’s too late. All is lost. Disaster is imminent, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it anymore. It gets easier every day to fall into this trap because alarm-ism is an industry bigger than most world governments. We recommend taking a break from the news and considering all the ways in which the world hasn’t suddenly and violently come to an end.
One: A meteor crashed in Michigan and instead of being an apocalyptic, fiery inferno, it was… well… kind of pretty! It lit up the sky and gave a great show. It even did an encore! On the scale of 1 to bye-bye dinosaurs, this isn’t even a 1. Sure, it may smart if you are Russian to admit that America even has better meteor impacts, but even for you, comrade, it’s still a net positive. Now, there IS a potential world-ender headed our way, but that one is expected to comfortably miss us — this time at least. Like so many of these issues, it sounds like a problem for our descendants.
Two: Global warming still hasn’t plunged us into Game of Thrones-style seasonal chaos! Yet! Winter came, and it came hard. Just ask Texas. And before you say “phrasing,” consider the forecast:
Three: Snow in the American South didn’t kill everybody! It is not ridiculous to imagine an inch of snow wreaking havoc on the southern states. They’re just not prepared to deal with it, mentally or physically; most of them have seen too few winters, or too many. In any case, even a little bit of the white stuff can really put the hurt on states that aren’t used to it (no excuses, Virginia; why can’t you be more like your sister, Maryland?). This time, it fell more like a soft blanket than like a smothering pillow.
Four: Speaking of winter, this season’s flu still hasn’t killed us all! I mean, it’s killed a lot of us. And it’s almost definitely going to kill a lot more. But hey, 10 percent vaccine efficiency is better than zero! Just keep taking those vitamins. And avoid sick people like, well, the plague. Maybe even invest in a pointy beak plague mask. Those worked, right?
Five: Korea is finally reunified! Sort of. At least, they’re set to march under the same flag for the upcoming winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, proving the age-old saying, “You have to launch a few nukes to build a hockey team.” (It sounds a lot better in Korean). This has been done before, and made little to no improvement in overall relations. Furthermore, the current generation in South Korea is much less committed to the ideal of a unified Korea than previous generations. In fact, the move has been met with ambivalence and vocal criticism. At the very least, though, this will bolster expectations of good behavior from the North among the international community.
Six: But that’s not the only good news out of Best Korea: we still haven’t started a nuclear war! For real, this is the most surprising, and the source of the most relief, since citizens in Hawaii were literally told to duck and cover, ICBM inbound! (This was later corrected to “Lol jk” followed by a tone-deaf “U up?”). Now this is not great, but you know what is great? Not being incinerated by an unavoidable nuclear blast! Also making the list, not being blinded, not being irradiated, Mad Max being a movie and not just some guy you know one bunker over, not living out your days as a shambling grotesque with some sadist’s idea of mutant superpowers. So yeah, let’s chalk that up as a win.
Seven: And speaking of nuclear annihilation, our President isn’t crazy! According to a man in a Navy Uniform who was Chiefly Commanded (and paid) to say so. Sure, the White House is on record lying about the POTUS’s height (and let’s be honest, his weight), but why would they ever lie about this? This is great news! It means we can keep enjoying good newses numbers one through six.
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