Most frightening and/or depressing story: Israel-Palestine. From the long-term grind of the failure to make peace and respect human rights, to the acute horror causing so much human suffering and death at this moment, to the specter of an Israeli and/or U.S. attack on Iran. It’s frightening and depressing – but of course it is not my feelings that matter here, but all the people who are suffering and going to suffer horribly because of this. The most positive thing I can think of to say is that when the dust settles, possibly years from now, maybe cooler heads will prevail on all sides. Honorable mention for most frightening story is the 2024 U.S. Presidential election starting to get more real – I am sure I and everyone else will have more to say about this in the coming (exactly one as I write this on November 5, 2023) year!

Most hopeful story: Flesh eating bacteria is becoming slightly more common, but seriously you are not that likely to get it. And this really was the most positive statement I could come up with this month!

Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: The generally accepted story of the “green revolution“, that humanity saved itself from widespread famine in the face of population growth by learning to dump massive quantities of fossil fuel-derived fertilizer on farm fields, may not be fully true.