Nigeria has the largest economy in Africa but the greatest inequality of wealth. This has helped spawn Boko Haram, the fundamentalist Islamic sect which made international news by kidnapping 276 Christian (read also, well-off) girls.
In addition to wanton slaughter of thousands of unbelievers, the group - like Isis - is now seizing territory thereby threatening not only the oil-rich and corrupt Nigerian Government but also Chad and Cameroon.
In Central Africa, an outbreak of Ebola is seemingly unstoppable in three states Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone.
Not to be outdone, Europe displays sabre-rattling by Nato and Russia that seems to threaten the restart of the Cold War.
Then, at the weekend, Kiwis went to the polls and gave the National Party another chance despite evidence of governmental spying on citizens and smearing of adversaries by proxy.
What's next?
Rather than indulge the impulse to hide under the bed, I prefer a feel-good story.
This past June, in New England, a family feud erupted among the two wings of the Demoulas family which owns the Market Basket chain of 71 supermarkets with 25,000 employees.
The battle engaged allies of cousin Arthur S (owner of 50.5 per cent of shares) and those of Arthur T (chief executive and owner of 49.5 per cent of shares). Consistent with the share ownership, the board of Market Basket removed Arthur T Demoulas and replaced him with two new chief executives who were to lead the company towards new and more profitable short-term efficiencies in the interests, it later emerged, of selling the company.
That might have been the end of the matter and of little notice at most companies, but Market Basket is not like most companies.
The employees went on strike. Employees staged one of the largest collective actions in modern workplace history, one uniting checkout clerks and truck drivers - none of whom are members of a union - with their counterparts in mid-level and upper management.
Employees went on strike out of loyalty to Arthur T. Under his leadership, the company had created an employee profit-sharing programme and offered scholarships to employees in college. Non-union Market Basket paid starting workers US$12 an hour (the minimum wage in Massachusetts, home to the majority of the chain's stores, is US$8 an hour).
Of equal or greater weight was Arthur T's personal involvement in employees' lives, viewing their graduations, visiting the sick, attending their funerals.
The board threatened and cajoled - all to no avail. Employees stood firm despite rough times and the endangering of their livelihood. The six-week strike engaged public sympathy with a customer boycott effected through Facebook, and even brought out Massachusetts' governor with an offer to mediate.
It was costing Market Basket US$10 million a week. Finally, the board accepted a buyout offer from Arthur T and the company was back in business.
There is a moral to all this. It's that the bottom line is not always the measure of success in business. Often enough it's the friends you make. In Arthur T's case, when his biological family tried to eliminate him, those friends - his work family - had his back and repaid the trust he had placed in them. You can't buy that. It doesn't show up in an accounting audit, but it turns out to be invaluable.
Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.
