...to think the world is imploding?

[woollyideas]

Libya.
Ireland.
New Zealand.
Greece.
Berlusconi.
Condems.
Tunisia.
Egypt.
Bankers.

So many BIG stories in the news, all clamouring for our attention...

Well, without wanting to upset the Irish...I spent a large portion of my army childhood waiting for the IRA to blow me and mine sky high, and the news was full of the Cold war, nuclear testing and plane hijacks.
Being alive has always been scary, but beats the alternative.

Oh yes, beautiful song, and that line is even more poignant than the one I remembered. I have all EBTG's cds somewhere, big part of my 'formative' years. DD (3) is currently into 'Bwuno Maws' and Rihanna. Must start 'guiding' her musical tastes!

Bupcakes, you are not Mystic Meg.

You just read Closer magazine. I read the same story.

Nah, its SNAFU

There are always earthquakes, mudslides somewhere.

Always financial scandals and sleazy politicians.

Always unrest somewhere in the world.

And MN is always going bonkers.

We had 3 earthquakes last week... small ones mind you. Actually, we get them a lot. We are always on the brink of The Big One that will lay Vancouver Island under the Pacific Ocean. I grew in Ontario, my hometown GE factory could be turned into a Nuclear Warhead making facility in 48 hours. There is a massive bomb shelter downtown that can house 2000 people under the movie theatre. I grew up being told our city was on the USSR's hit list and nuclear bombs would be exploded above our heads if them and the US went to war. All I'm saying... we are always at odds. The news does themes though... around Xmas time there always seems to be lots of families having house fires and no insurance. Come late spring, its all about skin cancer.

Pretty small fry compared to 1944

Berlusconi, I don't care.

ah dont stress, we have about 7 years left :-)

@casbie love that song by the levellers!

bear in mind that news coverage is a million percent more than it used to be so we hear about every twinge/earthquake/mudslide/forest fire far more than we used to.

Nibiru is coming. The earth will stop spinning for 3 days and the Poles will reverse and where land was there will be water and where water was there will be land.
NASA know but they're denying it.

It's true. I saw it on youtube.

As long as you practice the big 10, you should be ok!

chipmonkey I heard we were heading into a black hole in 50 years.

I thought that what happened in Tunisia and Egypt was GOOD news on the whole! Nasty dictators gotten rid of with minimal bloodshed...

Berlusconi is irrelevant, Greece has been bailed out by the Germans. What's weird is how the OP left out some other huge events in 2010/11 like the vote for secession in southern Sudan or the floods in Pakistan or the earthquake in Haiti. Far more momentous than Berlusconi!!

Still, could think of other years in the past when things may have seemed a lot more gloomy.

OP left out the massive floods in Australia also.

Just realised we're probably not helping the OP by pointing out all the disasters/huge events that she's missed out on!

Shit happens, it always has and always will. Dictators come and go as do empires. Queensland is in the tropics and Christchurch is on the edge of a tectonic plate. These things don't lesson the suffering but the disasters are not surprising.

The world changes in the West we often think we ate immune to this because we think we have subdued nature, it isn't true, the safety and stability we live in is astonishing when viewed on a world/historical level.

I agree Morloth.

OP didn't want to mention Australia, Haiti or Pakistan floods (terrible and shocking as they were) - she was just reflecting on all the major things from the last few weeks. (Listen to me talking about myself in the third person - queenlike, or what?)

I know some of them were positive (Tunisia and Egypt) but they were still historical. What struck me particularly is how many protests are going on all over the world (people power!). Yesterday the Greeks took to the streets again to protest... still angry at their situation months after the shit hit the fan.

It's a bad day for dictators/dubious politicians everywhere.

Berlusconi was on my list because after years of his revolting, ageing-lothario eccentric lifestyle, which the Italians just seemed to accept, the tide has finally turned against him. I wonder what causes this sudden revolt?

And now China has announced a one dog policy.

I dont think the liberation movements of the middle east are depressing at all, im excited for them.

i imagine this might be the end of the world that the 2012 calender recognised, the end of the world. not literally but the end of the world as we know it.

.

It is too early to say that Tunisia and Egypt are positive.

Egypt has replaced its dictator with a Military Dictatorship - this may end up being the status quo (or at least until the Military select the new President).

And this is why learning history is so important.

1. Earthquakes - always have happened, always will. The first major one I remember is the one in San Francisco in the late 90s (it sticks in my mind as our cousins lived near there). And that's not the only natural disaster - hurricane Katrina? The tsunami?

1. Unrest in the Middle East/North Africa. How's this a bad thing? You have a whole bunch of dictators who have been hanging around, oppressing the people and taking all the resources, and now they're being overthrown. I think it's reminiscent of the French revolution and subsequent nationalist revolutions across Europe, or the collapse of the Soviet Union, or the ousting of all the dictators from Europe (Mussolini, Ceaucescu etc.). It's a very important change, and I imagine a lot of people in those countries are pretty happy about it

1. Financial crises constantly happen. They're pretty predictable and we were due one, hence it happened. This has happened before - Great Depression, South Sea Bubble and on and on and on.

Get yourself a history book (the Davies one on Europe's pretty comprehensive) and trust me, it will calm you down. none of this is new - I think the biggest change is the speed at which things are communicated, so we are more aware of all the crap that's going on elsewhere.

Isn't It's The End of the World As We Know It by REM?

Or is that irrelevant?

your absolutely right!