Most people get up in the morning, and check some news source to see what happened while they slept. What, within realistic parameters, would be the worst news you could hear? News that would tell you that your life has just changed forever, for a reason that could not have been foreseen when you went to bed the night before?
By realistic, I exclude things like the Sun has just supernovaed, and we will know about it in 3 minutes
Rule out nuclear war, the only nations capable of reaching us with a nuclear weapon would give off diplomatic jitters in advance.
Even 9-11 didn’t turn into a catastrophe until hours later, and it was the response to it days and weeks later that changed people’s lives.
Economic meltdown won’t happen until after the AM news cycle, when the panickers show up on Wall Street at 9 oclock.
So what is the worst news you could hear in the morning?
I was off work on September 11, 2001 and was awakened to that news. My alarm clock was tuned to the local NPR station (still is) and they were running a feed from the BBC World Service. I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing, so I got up and turned on the TV, and yes, it was true.
Yes, family bad news is what I worry about each morning when I reach for my phone. (although I comfort myself with the idea that if anything truly terrible happened, I would have received a call on my land line).
As far as real news, not much beats going to be thinking Trump would be destroyed and learning in the morning he won the election (I was in Europe at the time and went to bed before the polls closed).
I hate to turn this into another anti-Trump thread, but that was worse than 9/11.
I suppose other bad news could an actual war that started overnight, although in recent decades that type of event isn’t usually a surprise.
War, assassination, natural disaster, and major terrorist attack come to mind.
It was an immediate catastrophe for me. The World Trade Center was within walking distance of my previous neighborhood, and I had two friends who worked at Canter Fitzgerald. It took a few days to confirm that they had died. One of them had left behind an infant daughter. But even before I knew of their deaths, the impact to me was immediate.
And yes, the November election was, and still is, up there in personal devastation.
Well, if we’re talking about shocks to which we have woken up, the Brexit referendum was one for me. I went to bed expecting a solid victory for Remain. Boy was I wrong on that.
I was already awake and at work when 9-11 happened, so I can’t count that as “first thing in the morning.” And while I knew when I went to bed on election night that Trump was leading, it was most definitely a kick in the nuts to wake up the next morning and hear he had been elected. So I’ll go with that.
The worst news I’ve read in the morning so far is that Trump was elected.
I’ve lived through Nixon and the Bush presidencies, and I’ll live through this one.
Wouldn’t we see a supernova, before any actual physical manifestation of the event reached the earth? Since light would be the first emanation from it to reach us?
Right now, I’d say the worst news I could see in the morning is that North Korea had lobbed bombs into South Korea and/or Japan. WW III… here we go.
9/11 was pretty bad. I had the Today Show on in the background as I was getting ready for work and struggled to get ready while simultaneously watching as the first tower burned. Then the second tower was hit as I watched. At first, my brain wouldn’t grasp what I was seeing. Then it became obvious we were under an actual, deliberate attack.
I went to work and virtually nothing got done… we took care of mandatory hearings and nothing else. Then we were glued to a television a bailiff scared up until the decision was made to close the courthouse and send everyone home, in case (remote as the possibility was) other government buildings would be attacked, too. Surreal.
As for watching Trump “win” the election, that felt as bad as 9/11 and the day I learned my husband died, though the ensuing bad feelings didn’t last as long. It felt like my country died that night.
Not meaning to downplay the millions of deaths that would occur if NK went full on apeshit, but I don’t think that’s super-likely to lead to full on global WWIII. Something like Putin invading one of the Baltics, or China making really aggressive naval moves around Japan would be more likely to snowball into something global. As for nukes and death, the most devestating “limited” nuclear war that’s at all plausible seems likely to be India vs Pakistan.
Another thing that could just happen more or less out of the blue would be Israel-vs-Palestine-and-arab-neighbors flaring up into a hot war once more.
And then of course there’s the yellowstone supervolcano…
I used to think the assassination of a sitting president and his family by a terrorist organization would be as bad as it could get. I no longer feel that way for evident reasons.
However, a situation like that depicted in the tv show Designated Survivor would be a crushing blow and a horrific thing to wake up to in the morning.
“A report from the US Geological Survey indicates that the Yellowstone Caldera has erupted. The previous eruption ejected approximately 240 cubic miles of rock, dust and ash into the sky covering the majority of North America in a layer of ash. It is expected that this eruption will disrupt travel, trade, and electronic communications for the majority of the United States, with a death toll expected in excess of xxxxzzzzz…”
I don’t think Putin will invade one of the Baltics at the moment. He is not nearly as popular a leader at home as he’d have us believe, and his resources are already overstretched with Ukraine, Crimea and Syria. As for China making aggressive moves around Japan, I see that as less likely even still. As much as they may quietly scorn and despise Trump, they badly need our trade to keep their economy humming along. No sense directly poking the stupid bear so long as NK can do it for them. Ironically, NK is keeping Trump a more reliable ally to China than China could have done by itself as a “currency manipulator.”
Agreed re India and Pakistan. That one’s been brewing for such a long time. Also agreed re Israel v. Palestine and Arab neighbors. But that one is never far from hot.
Yellowstone super-volcano… I’m guessing if that one went, it would take out enough infrastructure I wouldn’t find out about in the morning news, as Ethilrist points out. I try not to expend too much energy worrying about things over which I have zero ability to control the outcome. And for that one, it may be better not to know what was coming.
We talking one hell of a lot of light … enough light to vaporize the entire Earth in just a few milliseconds … luckily, and under current theories, our Sun will never go supernova … she’ll experience a far meeker death, though still enough to vaporize Earth …
Iran conducting a missile attack on Israel at local dawn … that would be a game changer … maybe us on the [del]Best[/del] West Coast would get news of this at 11 …
ETA: Very unlikely Yellowstone will erupt without any precursors … we have the ability to detect the magma chamber filling up … the land would start bulging … maybe even a few steam eruptions … we’d have warnings of any serious eruption … I think there would be other issues involved trying to evacuate Nebraska … and Iowa … and South Dakota …
Dammit Max! I wanted to bring up the Yellowstone Supervolcano!
But your post has me wondering. If full out nuclear war were to break out between, say, India and Pakistan, sure it would make the news. But how much news? Would we shake our heads, say, “Wow, that’s really horrible! Hundreds of millions dead or dying. Tsk!” And then go back to what we were doing? Or what?
And for that one, it may be better not to know what was coming.