My wife said to me one evening late last month, “Good news!” She proceeded to tell me that the $680 the state of New York thought we owed them, we didn’t owe them. They made a transcription error and attributed to us some several thousand dollars more in income than we actually made. We are relieved, of course, but it got me to thinking: if they didn’t screw it up in the first place, there would be NO news, which, as the cliche goes, IS good news.
Similarly, Scott at Scooter Chronicles noted how he ONLY spent a couple hundred bucks on his car. Since I suppose there will always be car repairs, getting off cheaply feels like good news. But let’s take a more recent example in his blog: the bad news of his son Nigel’s inability to sleep through the night. When he (actually, they – Nigel, Scott and Marcia) finally go back to sleeping through the night, it will surely seem like good news.
Someone has some sort of growth, but it turns out to be benign. Someone’s in a car accident, but he or she suffers only minor cuts and bruises. Good news, yes?
I went to the Good News Network this week, and what do I find?
On this day in History, August 8:
John McCarthy, the British journalist held hostage in Lebanon for more than five years by Islamic Jihad was freed after more than five years in captivity (1991)
A cease-fire between Iran and Iraq was announced by The United Nations (1988) Good news following five years as a hostage and eight years of war, respectively.
So here is my metaphysical question: how often, in your view, does good news depend, in some shape or form, on the cessation of bad news (an unexpected tax bill, e.g.)? I think it’s about 80% of the time. Please give me some good news, other than the a non-complicated birth of a wanted child, that is just good without being a response to a downside.
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Good news: the Christopher Porco murder trial is over. For those not from around the Albany area, think about NOT hearing about the O.J. Simpson trial. You couldn’t, no matter how you tried. And believe me, I tried. THE local media event of the year, by far.
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The parents of Julie Hembeck turned me on to Lipton Green Tea with Citrus.