I’m trying something new with this newsletter: A weekly update that, whatever else is going on, shares some bit of good that’s come from the world recently. Let me know what you think, and feel free to recommend happy stories!
Since 2020 has been, well, a doozy of a year, here’s a brief and incomplete list of things to feel good about this year (and none of them are related to the election):
Vermont schools stepped up bigtime with some quick-thinking ingenuity this spring to keep feeding students even as they stayed home to slow the spread of COVID-19.
In Georgia — not exactly a bastion of positive race relations, historically — a county board voted to rename a school in honor of Michelle Obama. Bonus good feels: Some commissioners voted against naming the school for Obama… because they wanted to name it after the late Rep. John Lewis instead.
In the mountaineering realm, which is often dominated by impressive European and asian teams, a group of Americans took home the highest prize in the world this year: a Piolet D’or (which translates roughly to “golden ice axe”). That’s like the Pulitzer Prize of mountain climbing, and they earned it by being the first humans ever to stand on top of Link Sar, a daunting and remote 7,041-meter (23,100-foot) peak on the border between Pakistan and India. More than a half-dozen teams had tried and failed to summit Link Sar, but these guys pulled it off in August 2019. For some awesome pictures from that expedition and other mountain badassery, check out team-member @grahamzimmerman on Instagram.
A species of chameleon in Madagascar is apparently getting sloppy, because scientists saw one for the first time in more than 100 years. (Also: My joke is better than the joke in the AP story lede. Just sayin’.)
On a personal note, my wife Tori has spent the last two weeks tirelessly working with her team to contact trace multiple COVID-19 outbreaks and combat dangerous misinformation at every turn. She is firing on all cylinders, and the world feels safer and less scary just knowing that there are people like her and her team out there helping.
That’s all for now. Until next time, remember what Martin Luther King, Jr. said: The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
And stay off Twitter. You’ll be happier, I promise.
Hey, this is GREAT! Nice focus and special kudos to Tori in her frontline fight to curb COVID. Saving lives. And really appreciate your highlighting good stories. No profit in that and I guess that’s the point, eh?