Good and bad in the news

There's certainly a lot of bad in the news lately. The last week has been tense at work, watching revenue shortfalls and the budget crisis in state government and all the questions about where it'll be made up has been particularly stressful since this hits pretty close to home. Odds are some big projects at work I've been planning for a long time will be delayed by years, and that's if we get off easy; it could end up a lot worse. While I'm positioned nearly as well as I can be to weather the economic storm, it's reaching me too, and all around me I see friends and coworkers and associates who might be touched even more.

At the same time, the feeling I wrote about previously, that the outcomes of our recent election offered a new hope that hadn't quite sunk in, is beginning to fade and be replaced by a more firm sense of hope. Following change.gov has been encouraging. Today, I read this:

“The truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry,” President-elect Obama said. “It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States — and I could not have a better team to guide me in this work.”

I think I'm finally shaking the sense that it's all not quite real, that things are really going to get better.