We're Fine.

An AP story posted on the Drudge Report recites a litany of catastrophes that are currently besetting the world: gas prices, floods, earthquakes, mortgage prices, and so on. Armed with this list, the authors go on to wonder aloud whether “everything is spinning apart” – whether we are witnessing a “great unraveling of some things long taken for granted,” such as our belief that our perseverance and courage will bootstrap us out of our current problems. By writing the article in the first place, the authors remain only one step short of answering their own question, of course.
Lost in the analysis, of course, is any sense for their (and their counterparts’) complicity in creating the grounds for asking the question in the first place. While it might be correct to say that not everything is going exactly as planned these days, it might also be correct to say that not everyone is reporting exactly as things happen, either.
I just returned from a day trip to Kansas City today. Nothing about that trip was any different than it has been in the past. I had a bite to eat at a Ruby Tuesday (I had the Cajun chicken sandwich), I witnessed two people get married (the bride cried throughout the entire ceremony), and I bought gasoline at a price that I’d prefer not to pay (Has anyone ever thanked BP or Exxon for their perfectly reasonable prices?).
In certain parts of the world, people will wake up and fill more sandbags to stop flooding, while others hope their utilities don’t black out. In others, the restaurants will open again, society will see more people wed, and gas might get a little more expensive. And in still other corners of the less-examined globe, people will start what has the potential to be the best day of their lives.
Don’t buy that the world is collapsing. It’s just moving, and we do ourselves no favors by focusing only on the parts we wish would stay still.