The Good News by Rob Brezsny

Excerpts from Rob Brezsny's book *PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings*

Here's an excerpt:

Welcome to the PRONOIA NEWS NETWORK. Here's the news.

The world has become dramatically more peaceful since 1992, according to the non-partisan Human Security Report. Wars, coup d'etats, and acts of genocide have declined by 40 percent. Weapons sales have dropped 33 percent during the same time, and the number of refugees has decreased by 45 percent. The cause of these developments is the unprecedented upsurge of international activism since the end of the Cold War, spearheaded by the United Nations.
Elsewhere, life extension researchers now believe that there is no absolute limit to the human life span. The average life expectancy is 30 years more than it was a century ago, and is steadily climbing.

Literacy and education levels are rising steadily all over the globe. Since 1970, the percentage of students going to secondary school has more than doubled.
The World Health Organization reports that in the next 24 hours, 200 million people will make love on this planet, as they do every day of every year. Experts estimate that the orgasmic energy generated during a single rotation of the planet could, if harnessed, provide enough power to light a
medium-sized city for a month.
Briefly, here's a look at the rest of the top stories.

Accelerating rates of intermarriage are helping to dissipate ethnic and religious strife worldwide.

Acreage devoted to organic farming is rapidly increasing.

Death rates from cancer are shrinking.

Child abduction by strangers has dropped precipitously.

In 60 years, there hasn't been a lower birth rate among teenage girls than there is now.

The number of America's black elected officials has sextupled since 1970.

In recent years, the rivers and bays of New York City have been almost completely cleansed of raw sewage and industrial pollution.

Vast supplies of frozen natural gas lie beneath the oceans, harboring more potential energy for human use than all of the world's oil reserves, and could be mined with the right technology.

If forced to decide between having a bigger penis and living in a world where there was no war, 90 percent of all men would pick universal peace.

You have at least a million relatives as close as tenth cousin, and no one on Earth is any farther removed than your 50th cousin.

The world's largest private bank, Citigroup, has agreed to stop financing projects that damage sensitive ecosystems.

The giant timber company, Congolaise Industrielle des Bois, voluntarily agreed to stop cutting down trees in a virgin rain forest in the Congo.

Every second the sun generously transforms four million tons of itself into energy and bestows it on us free of charge.

With every dawn, when first light penetrates the sea, many seahorse colonies perform a dance to the sun.

Most HMO executives now believe prayer and meditation can expedite the healing process.

Each of the 50 trillion cells in your body can be considered a sentient being in its own right, and they all act together as a community, performing an ongoing act of prodigious collaboration.

A survey of a thousand poets suggests that the five most beautiful words in the English language are "epiphany," "undulates," "luminous," "crucible," and "melody."

Finally in the news, biologists have proved that with each breath, you take into your body 10 sextillion atoms, and—owing to the wind's ceaseless circulation—over a year's time you have intimate relations with oxygen molecules that have been exhaled by everyone who has ever lived, including Joan of Arc, Gengis Khan, Cleopatra, and Malcolm X.

You have been tuned to PNN, the Pronoia News Network. Our report has been brought to you by the state of mind that the poet John Keats enjoyed when he said, "If something is not beautiful, it is probably not true."

For 1,109 more items of good news, read the book.

Pillow Fights?

In lighter news...

Girl Pillow Fights coming to a town near you?

from Reuters today...

No softies in Canada's Pillow Fight League

By Cameron FrenchTue Jan 16, 4:29 PM ET

Toronto's College Street bar district has seen its share of late-night fights, but a recent scrap was a bit out of the ordinary, as a financial journalist in a '50s housewife get-up tried to wallop the daylights out of a 35-year-old part-time waitress -- using a pillow.

The crowd of nearly 500 did little to interfere, as they had paid to be there.

Welcome to the Pillow Fight League, which has been drawing growing crowds in Toronto since it formed early last year, and is now set to export its campy fun to New York City.

The league is the brainchild of 38-year-old Stacey Case, a T-shirt printer and musician who came up with the idea that people would pay to see young women in costumes beat the tar out of each other with pillows -- and that women would volunteer to whap each other in front of a crowd.

The seeds of the idea came from a New Year's Eve show Case's band played in a Toronto bar just over a year ago. As a local burlesque troupe entertained the crowd by staging a mock pillow fight, they were shocked when women from the audience came forward looking to join the battle.

"It was really, really fun, and really funny that they were actually fighting for real. I woke up the next day, and I was like, "Oh my God, that was awesome," he said.

A few ads in a local newspaper later, and Case and some friends were booking events at local bars. Now they have a stable of 22 dedicated fighters, a growing fan base, and ambitions of turning the PFL into something bigger.

However, they're quick to point out it's not really just about young women in revealing costumes tussling in front of a largely male audience. Well, maybe it is a bit.

"People all have a conception in their head of what a pillow fight is all about," says Don "The Mouth" Lovranski, Case's co-investor and the big-voiced announcer for the shows.

"When they come to it, though, they see it's not hot blonds in negligees; the fights are real, and there's some fun to it. I think that's what the appeal is."

Case himself is league commissioner, a role that becomes part caricature once the ring lights brighten and the pillows come out. As the boss, he has to play the heel. Another cohort, Matt Harsant, becomes Matt Patterson, a throwback-style referee complete with a bow-tie and limited patience.

BOOZY SUZIE AND SARAH BELLUM

But it's the fighters that make the show, and they come in all shapes and sizes, with names like Sarah Bellum, the smart one, and Boozy Suzie, who enters the ring with a beer that referee Patterson confiscates with a stern wave of his finger.

Lynn Somnia staggers to the ring in a hospital gown with electrodes dangling, apparently released from her sleep-deprivation chamber.

Top contenders include Betty Clock'er -- by day a financial editor and by night a cushion-swinging housewife who brings a plate of cookies to ringside -- and Polly Esther, billed as the waitress from hell ("And somebody's gonna get served!," The Mouth bellows as she struts toward the ring).

While the personas are all good fun, the action in the ring is real, and as Case is quick to point out, unscripted.

The rules are simple: women only, no lewd behavior, and moves such as leg drops or submission holds are allowed as long as a pillow is used. After that, it's up to the combatants.

For the fighters, there's a small stipend, and a chance of fame if the popularity of the league continues to grow. But it's also a hobby, and maybe even has a therapeutic appeal for players like Polly Esther, who got her snarky waitress persona the hard way, during 20 years of waiting tables.

"All the people I've served over the years, the bad customers, the bad tips, Polly doesn't take it." she says. "She lashes out. She hates everybody, but she's not going to leave her job."

This past weekend, Polly didn't disappoint, torquing her long arms to deliver punishing pillow blows to Betty Clock'er in a fight to decide who will travel to New York this week to face PFL title holder Champain, an event Case is hoping will give an adrenaline shot to the league's profile.

The bigger picture involves a TV deal. Case says he has already turned down bids that didn't offer the mix of attention to the action and characters that he says makes the league more of a draw to the arts community than the mud-wrestling crowd.

The scene this past Friday would seem to bear him out, as the nearly 500 screaming fans looked more like an art-house movie crowd than a boxing audience.

The cheers reach a crescendo as Betty Clock'er fights off Polly Esther's roundhouse hits, then unleashes a well executed pillow-leg takedown and pins Esther for the three-count.

"I'm prepared for it to tank," says Case. "But I hope it doesn't."