GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

Kevin Coolidge

It’s cold and quiet, the dead of winter. Life consists of trying to keep warm, shoveling snow, and waiting for spring. It’s pretty boring, and that’s the good news. Your teachers, your parents, and the media have been conspiring against you. The good news is that life is bigger, more exciting, and more interesting that you were taught to believe. The bad news? Life is going to kill you.

There are some facts that are just too terrifying to teach in school. Unfortunately, there’s a book called You Might Be a Zombie from the editors of cracked.com that is more than happy to educate you. You will find answers to questions you didn’t even know you should be asking. Questions like, why is humanity doomed? What five popular brands did the Nazis give us? And is a zombie apocalypse really possible???

The bad news is that the police officer harassing you really was abusing his authority. The good news is according to research, if the roles were reversed, you’d likely be a brownshirt too. Turns out that fear of repercussion is all that keeps us from torturing other human beings.

You may have heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment: a newspaper article asked for volunteers for the experiment. After tests to evaluate health and mental stability, twenty-four were chosen and divided into twelve guards and twelve prisoners. The goal was to test how captivity affects subjects put into positions of authority and submission.

It took less than one day for the subjects to abuse their authority. On day two, the prisoners rioted. The guards saw this as a good excuse to make prisoners sleep naked on concrete, restrict bathroom use, and make prisoners clean toilets with their bare hands. Keep in mind the entire experiment was voluntary and no one asked to be let out of the experiment.

The good news is that most of the natural disasters that Hollywood worries over are grossly exaggerated. The bad news is that nature is full of ticking time bombs quietly waiting to explode, and you’ve probably never heard of most of them.

People worry that the San Andreas Fault will shake Los Angeles right off the continental shelf. What you should be worrying about is the New Madrid Seismic Zone that stretches from Illinois to Alabama. In an earthquake, coastal towns are actually better off, as a portion of the seismic activity gets dissipated out to sea. No such luck for the landlocked inhabitants living in the New Madrid’s million square mile zone.

From 1811 to 1812 a series of quakes cracked sidewalks from Missouri to Baltimore and permanently altered the course of the Mississippi River. The quake swallowed the entire town of Little Prairie, Missouri, when it liquidated the ground it was built on. It no longer exists. Consider yourself warned.

According to Shakespeare and the editors of cracked.com, there are more things in heaven and earth, which are dreamt of in your philosophy. The bad news is that it just may be three-inch, Japanese giant hornet that can spray flesh-melting poison. Now which do you want to hear first???

Good News? Or Bad News? Drop me an email at from_my_shelf@yahoo.com For all the news that’s fit to print, or to just catch up on past columns, check out our blog at http://frommyshelf.blogspot.com The good news is that Hobo is finished with his new book. The bad news is that its release is tied up in litigation over the estate of Gonzo, the big mean cat next door…