Good news for the new year

January 1, 2003 6:27 PM

Ring in a New Year with good news from the web: Infamous Ugandan rebel ends years of reclusion to call for talks. Peace may be coming to Sumatra, Sri Lanka, Congo and Cyprus. Bill Gates, Sr. wants his kid to preserve the estate tax. Sudanese women launch sex strike to end civil war. Sentimental, choked-up politician says, "If at the end of my mandate all Brazilians have the possibility to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, I will have fulfilled the mission of my life" -- and is honest enough to admit this won't be easy.
posted by sheauga (8 comments total)

GoodNewsFilter.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:28 PM on January 1, 2003

No, these are good times. Lots of people are seeing sense. Thanks for collecting it all together.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:29 PM on January 1, 2003

Thanks, sheauga. There is so much good stuff happening woldwide that we don't hear about because
1) schadenfreude sells better than feelgood stories...notice the disdain implicit in the word "feelgood" and 2)hearing stories about people trying to better the lives of their families and friends does nothing to advance corporate revenue.

Stories about taking control over family and workplace issues is anathema to megacorps...and mass media are not disinterested observers; they are part of the problem.
posted by kozad at 7:37 PM on January 1, 2003

Also, Kenya's one-party rule ended with the election of a humble economist who refuses to have pictures of himself distributed to homes and businesses, as was a Kenyan practice.
posted by Kevs at 7:37 PM on January 1, 2003

Not to ruin this good-news feelgood session, but i bet that by the end of 2003 Lula is a shill for the IMF/Worldbank, just like Cardoso.

The alternative would be equally interesting; the end of the pax-jpmorgan/federal reserve raping of emerging economies? If there is an inbetween, its not obvious to me.
posted by H. Roark at 8:24 PM on January 1, 2003

I bet by the end of 2003, developing nations will learn to stop screwing themselves by printing money for decades every time there's an economic crisis, failing to pay back loans, and then using state-run media to blame foreign multinationals. But I don't see that happening either.

(Though Lula, for one, seems to have his head on straight about dealing with Brazil's very serious problems)
posted by Kevs at 8:31 PM on January 1, 2003

Would Lula shilling for the IMF / World Bank necessarily be a problem? If it results in every Brazillian getting breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I'm certain World Bank President Wolfensohn would be delighted.
posted by sheauga at 6:40 AM on January 2, 2003

"Wiping out hunger" is the only campaign commitment Lula has made, and boy, what a fantastic marketing scheme: Brazil is not Ethiopia, famine is not an endemic problem, which means that this task just looks harder than it actually is. He'll go down in history as the man who wiped out starvation in Brazil, though he is riding on Cardoso's socio-economical conquests.
posted by falameufilho at 6:45 AM on January 2, 2003