It's true that we seem to have been having more than our fair share of calamitous events in recents months. There have been a number of awful earthquakes and one disastrous tsunami. There have been troubles around the globe, from wars in various modes (Libya, Afghanistan, The Congo etc) to major economic collapses (the GFC), global warming and so forth. I'm sure you can add to this modest list.
And so it's tempting to ponder whether matters are genuinely getting worse (more terrible events, closer together) or whether we are just perceiving them to be so. There will always be merchants of the apocolypse in our midst and they are at work now, reading this or that occurrence into some prophetic text. You know, it's not hard to shape any text into what you want, if the desire is there. If you are pre-motivated by things that you are actually seeking, then you may well find them.
I think that you'll find that we are having a pretty much average amount of everything awful (wars, natural disasters, recessions). I think that if you pick out any one year in the last two centuries, you will find average amounts of stuff or predictable fluctuations occurring. That doesn't discount the human cost - the loss of life and suffering is something for all of us to mourn over, but that we probably shouldn't get into a lather when disasters occur.
What is different is the way events are communicated and how they are reported. And that's a whole other blog for some other time.
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