Oct 29, 2018 4 min read

At my age – and given the current contentious atmosphere in the U.S. of A. – any good news is usually welcome. That’s why I had high hopes for an article, published by Vox.com, titled “23 charts and maps that show the world is getting much, much better.”

“For most Americans, these feel like bleak times,” the article began. “We have a massively unpopular, scandal-plagued president whose aides are being convicted of serious federal felonies. Overt, old-fashioned racism is publicly visible and powerful in a way it wasn’t only five years ago. More than 200 admired, powerful men have been accused of sexual misconduct or assault.”

All good – I mean, bad – so far.

“But it would be a mistake to view that as the sum total of the world in 2018. Under the radar, some aspects of life on Earth are getting dramatically better,” the article continued.

Great! I was set for the feelgood news of the fall. Yet, upon reading, I came away disappointed Somehow, Vox’s revelation that things are looking up because people have been getting taller for centuries didn’t make me feel much better.

Maybe that’s because I’m barely 5’8″, have been for at least 50 years and will be dead before the next century arrives with even taller folks- who would, probably, make me feel even shorter. So I read on. But some of the other news that Vox wants us to think should make us feel better doesn’t help me much, either.

“Extreme poverty has fallen?” Great news … except for those still in extreme poverty. But maybe those folks are poor because they’re still waiting for delivery of the bootstraps by which some political groups say they should pull themselves up.

“Hunger is falling?” Fabulous … unless you’re hungry. And unless you’ve read elsewhere that Americans throw away 150,000 tons of food every day.

“People in developed countries have more leisure time?” OK. But is it because robots are taking their jobs? And are they using their newly acquired free time to help people in underdeveloped countries?

“We’ve rapidly reduced the supply of nuclear weapons?” Mmm hmm. Except President Trump announced last week he will withdraw the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty and “bolster” the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Because the 6,800 nuclear warheads in stock in this country might not be enough.

You might call me a pessimist, the type of guy who looks up at a twinkling star and wonders not what it is, but if it might not be an exploding asteroid heading for Earth. I wouldn’t blame you. While you’re at it, you might as well call me paranoid. I’m not going to confront someone who breaks into line in front of me or who cuts me off in traffic because I really believe that person might be carrying a gun. I didn’t feel that way 50 years ago, when my shoulder-length hair made me the target of slurs of every kind almost daily. What has changed?

Still, I prefer to think of myself as the male equivalent of Nellie Forbush in the musical “South Pacific”: I’m just a cockeyed optimist.

Fifty-one years after John Lennon first sang it, I still believe that love is all you need. That humans are innately good, if occasionally misguided. I still hold the belief – although it’s getting more difficult with every passing day – that no one person and his enablers can destroy almost everything for which this country has stood for almost 250 years.

Cockeyed optimist? Yeah. I’m fine with that.

Besides, I’m getting taller.