Good News, in mid of chaos

My former mentor Anu Parmar emailed the following photograph in response to my article, Good News, Any one! posted on this blog on February 20. This photograph is a good news. Despite human rights violations in the military prison at the Guantanamo Bay and invasion of Iraq looking for not-to-be-found WMD, a US soldier demonstrates the postive and loving side of humanity in the image below. He comforts a wounded Iraqi girl – indeed a humane gesture in the middle of chaos. Please click on the image to read full description.

Good News, Any One!

Yesterday we received unemployment numbers for Canada and the USA. As expected, the situation is bleak and so is the short-term outlook. Canadian economy shed 129,000 jobs in January 2009 pushing up the unemployment rate from 6.6% to 7.2%. The US lost 598,000 jobs last month increasing its unemployment rate to 7.6%. The economy has taken a down turn, we all know this and in fact many people have been feeling the pinch for last few months. Whether you choose to call it by its first letter “R” or by full word “Recession”, we are in it.

Most of the news is of despair. Business confidence is very low! Consumer sentiments are down! Bad news sells faster so media accentuate the feeling of despair by abject reporting, by floating phrases like Cash is King, Hold onto your cash – Do not spend. Deep-freeze winter, record level of snow and winter blues don’t help either. Bad news works as a catalyst in the economic downturn, bringing down business confidence, consumer sentiments, spending and demand, and the economy. I think the only good news we had on politco-economic front during last few months was the inauguration of Barrack Obama and it is too early to expect positive outcome from the change. As the bigger the ship, the longer it takes to turn it around.