I came back from vacation a couple weeks ago, and, not surprisingly, the news was grim. Wars here, trampled civil liberties there, hard times all over the place... The lunatics are not only running our asylum, but spending their days either feeding their bloodlusts or trying to remember where they put their keys. If these aren't the end times prophesized in untold numbers of religions, they're a heckuva warmup act.

It would be easy, especially for someone like me who's submerged full time in this stuff, to get discouraged. But then I read my mail.

Or rather, I try to put a dent in it. Here's a random sampling from the top of the stack sitting next to me at the moment: Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action; Left Business Observer; Women Against Military Madness (Minnesota); the Anderson Valley Advertiser (Mendocino County, Calif.); Jobs With Justice; Prison Legal News; Nuclear Resister; the New Hampshire Gazette; Dollars and Sense; Slingshot; Parting the Tide (Los Angeles); Random Lengths (San Pedro); The Match!; Homestead Community Land Trust; Portland Alliance; Justice Matters (from the Western Prison Project); No More Hiroshimas! (a Japanese Peace Group); The Insurgent (Eugene); Oregon Peaceworker; Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting; Nonviolent Action (from London); the Catalyst (from the Children's Alliance); and, of course, standbys like CounterPunch, Z Magazine, the Hightower Lowdown, the Progressive Populist, and even the other things in the publications that I write for, like In These Times and Eat the State!.

Four inches down, about two feet to go.

And that's mostly from this country -- there's a lot we can learn from the staggering number of extraordinary campaigns and victories for freedom, self-determination, and the like being waged all over the world. And that's just the print publications. At the moment I have about 2,100 unread e-mails still to slog through, from before and during my journeys, which might explain why I haven't written back to some of the letters you Kind Readers have sent my way. Some of my e-mail is spam, but more of it is inspiring, and there's an endless profusion of newsletters, e-zines, publications, and web sites, much of it detailing not just what's wrong with the world, but what they're doing to make it better. They're lobbying and organizing to change public policies; they're also creating institutions themselves and not waiting for the resources, community participation and mutual support that government and big business should help foster, but usually don't. There's housing endeavors, alternative media, mediation and conflict resolution, support for domestic violence victims, health care for the poor, substance abuse projects like needle exchanges and community education (as well as treatment programs), food banks, seed banks, sustainable agriculture (and CSA's -- community supported agriculture), barter programs, tutoring programs, workplace organizing, credit unions, arts festivals and music jams and poetry orgies, kids' activities, day care co-ops.

And on, and on, and on. People who care, meeting needs that often could be met for the cost of one cupholder on some new F-35-AX-Fighter-LazerQuestVision Z DestructoJet. While the state extorts money from us and hands it to the wealthy, a lot of ordinary folks of considerably less means are out there making a difference instead.

One of the privileges that comes with making a living by immersing myself in mostly bad news at our country's higher political levels -- but also being able to pay attention to my own community -- is speaking with, and finding out about, all the people doing wonderful and inspiring things at the lower levels, in local communities, under the radar. Such folks mostly draw benign contempt (or the occasional patronizing human interest story) from local TV "news" programs focused on car crashes, sports, salacious celebrity sightings, crime, sports, scandal, program promotions, sports, and five-day weather forecasts. (Not necessarily in that order, because any one story can fall into three or more categories.)

The actual lived experiences of the friends, neighbors, and co-workers in our cities or towns have no more to do with such "news" than do Temptation Island, Survivor XIV, or any other storyboarded, "reality"-themed program. And the real news might be as close as tonight's meeting in the church basement on the next block.

I do a lot of public speaking, especially in schools, and have also been lucky enough to do some speaking tours around the country over the years. One of the unavoidable lessons is that there are good people doing remarkable things everywhere, even in the most unlikely-seeming of places. And in the months since September 11, as the venality, corruption, greed, and organized brutality of politicians and CEOs has seemingly snowballed, so, it seems, has the response from outraged Americans wanting their country back. My mail is way up, including lots of groups and coalitions and projects that didn't even exist a year ago. Every time I talk with an organizer, author, lecturer, or pundit who's touring, she or he reports the same thing: people hungry for information, appalled at the direction of our country, and wanting to do something.

To those folks -- many of whom haven't thought of themselves as activists in decades, or haven't ever even dreamed of getting involved -- I can only offer three things. First, you're not alone. Just because it's not on the evening news doesn't mean it's not happening, and just because this or that skewed polling question shows broad support for or one or another policy atrocity doesn't mean it's popular, cast in stone, or can't be stopped.

Secondly, creating a better world isn't just about stopping things from getting worse -- it's also about creating ways for things to get better. With the spirit and creativity and sheer wealth of this country, it's inexcusable that our government, at virtually every level, is so rarely a force for good -- but that's because it's not designed to be. If it ever was -- and the history of nation-states is not encouraging on this point -- it's not any more. But there are plenty of other institutions, from radical activist groups to church choirs to principled unions to intentional communities to nonprofit foundations to community-minded small businesses, that are doing it instead.

And that's the third item. It's doable. We can make a difference, individually and working together. For some reason, stories of ordinary people organizing to improve our daily lives rarely make headlines, even in papers like this one, but especially not in the dailies and TV shows seen by millions. Those stories should make headlines, and they're everywhere.

In this country and in much of the world, our formal political process largely has been stolen from us, and is being used to inflict a bit of good and a lot of harm. In response, some people are trying to increase the good and minimize the harm in those policies; others are trying to take the system back from the greedmongers and warheads (or is that warmongers and...oh, never mind); and still others are trying to create entirely new long-term systems that will work for the ideals our democracy once promised.

All of these paths are essential, and all of them are making a difference. Plus, getting out and doing something is a lot more fun than just grumbling at the headlines.

Those headlines, in these Dark Days of Dubya, are frequently grim. But I'm not. I'm an optimist; I could hardly be otherwise. I read my mail.