Most frightening and/or depressing story:

• The coronavirus thing just continued to grind on and on, and I say that with all due respect to anyone reading this who has suffered serious health or financial consequences, or even lost someone they care about. After saying I was done posting coronavirus tracking and simulation tools, I continued to post them throughout the month – for example here, here, here, here, and here. After reflecting on all this, what I find most frightening and depressing is that if the U.S. government wasn’t ready for this crisis, and isn’t able to competently manage this crisis, it is not ready for the next crisis or series of crises, which could be worse. It could be any number of things, including another plague, but what I find myself fixating on is a serious food crisis. I find myself thinking back to past crises – We got through two world wars, then managed to avoid getting into a nuclear war to end all wars, then worked hard to secure the loose nuclear weapons floating around. We got past acid rain and closed the ozone hole (at least for awhile). Then I find myself thinking back to Hurricane Katrina – a major regional crisis we knew was coming for decades, and it turned out no government at any level was prepared or able to competently manage the crisis. The unthinkable became thinkable. Then the titans of American finance broke the global financial system. Now we have a much bigger crisis in terms of geography and number of people affected all over the world. The crises may keep escalating, and our competence has clearly suffered a decline. Are we going to learn anything?

Most hopeful story:

• Well, my posts were 100% doom and gloom this month, possibly for the first time ever! Just to find something positive to be thankful for, it’s been kind of nice being home and watching my garden grow this spring.

Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both:

• There’s a comet that might be bright enough to see with the naked eye from North America this month.