I keep coming back to a common theme.

I grew up with a very negative worldview.  The world was getting worse.  Crime was on the rise.  Wars were on the rise.  Poverty, famine, communism, socialism and even totalitarianism was on the rise.

George Orwell’s vision of the future, 1984 was within reach.  It was going to happen in my lifetime.

Then the Berlin wall came down.  No one saw this coming.  I was in Berlin the week before the wall came down.  We crossed into East Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie.  The East German soldiers, wearing red stars on their hats, checked our papers.  No one seemed to have any inclination that the world was about to change in the blink of an eye.

Two weeks later, I was in Berlin again.  There were massive holes in the Wall.  The city was jubilant.  There was a festive optimism in the air.  I climbed on the wall with the Germans, slammed pieces of the Wall down with a sledgehammer, and generally shared in the common good cheer.  Bewildered East German soldiers stood around.  They looked confused.

The next year, in 1990, Germany united.  In 1991, the Soviet Union went out of business.  Communism quit.

No one but college English professors believe in communism any longer.

Meanwhile, AOL started in 1991.  The internet age had gone public. The internet has done more to spread freedom since Gutenburg launched the printing press 500 or so years ago.

The world is getting better.  Infant mortality is down.  Poverty is down.   Freedom is spreading.  The old socialist pushing newspapers are collapsing.  Not long ago, Newsweek sold for $1.

Meanwhile, crime is dropping.  Check this out:

http://www.freerangekids.com/crime-statistics/

Cheer up.  We live in a better world.

Now get busy and do something good for the planet.