good news

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Is there a good-news gene? Sometimes I think so. Whatever the situation or trend or organization, there seems to be a longing A. to put a good face on it and B. realize with investigation that the good news is riddled with saddening and gloomy aspects.

For example, I find it simultaneously exhausting and worth the exhaustion when a friend passes along the latest revelations in the Vatican's priest-abuse policies. The Vatican is in its own version of the good news business and no doubt does some very real good. But peeling back the layers or probing the underpinnings of that good news, suddenly there is a cesspool of heinousness. My good-news gene longs to make lemonade out of lemons ... and can't.

The Vatican is just an example...

An example that made me realize today how grateful I am to those who pass along various sillies, either in email or here on this blog. Laughter is, in my book, unsullied good news.

But there's nothing saying a combination of laughter and sorrow is not possible:


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