(Roughly) Daily

We live, Taylor Orth reports, in a time in which everything is awful… for everyone else…

Ask Americans about life’s challenges, and you’ll find a common theme: They are, on average, a lot more positive about the state of their own lives than about the lives of everyone else in the country. In a recent experiment, YouGov asked Americans to rate 14 aspects of life on a scale from terrible to excellent. Respondents were divided into three randomly selected groups of equal size. Depending on the group, they were asked either about their own life, the lives of people in their local community, or the lives of people in the country at large.

At least half of Americans rate many aspects of their own life — including their healthcare, educational opportunities, social relationships, and employment situation — as either good or excellent. Positive ratings are somewhat less likely to be given by Americans evaluating people in their local area, and far less likely among those evaluating people in the U.S. as a whole.

The largest gap in ratings of one’s self compared to ratings of Americans overall is on mental health: People are 42 percentage points more likely to say their own mental health is excellent or good than they are to say so about people in the country as a whole. Gaps of 20 points or more are also found for positive ratings of one’s own versus the country’s personal safety (+31), physical health (+28), access to healthcare (+27), housing affordability (+25), and social relationships (+24)…

“More Americans have a positive outlook on their own lives than on their fellow Americans’,” from Taylor Orth at @YouGovAmerica.

Consider with: “Right-wing populist parties have risen. Populism hasn’t.” (“The success of these parties isn’t about a surge in populist sentiments…”)

* Margaret Mead

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As we ponder perspective, we might recall that it was on this date in 1997 that Lottie Williams became the first (and so far, only) human to be struck by a remnant of a space vehicle (a Delta II rocket, after it’s re-entry of the earth’s atmosphere).

Lottie Williams is strolling through a park in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when she sees a flash of light resembling a meteor. A short while later, she is struck on the shoulder by a piece of metal apparently from a disintegrating rocket, making her the only person believed to have been hit by a piece of space debris.

… NASA confirmed that the timing and location of the incident were consistent with the re-entry and breakup of a second-stage Delta rocket that fell to Earth after orbiting for several months. The main wreckage was recovered a couple of hundred miles away in Texas.

Williams was not injured. She was struck a glancing blow, and the debris was relatively light and probably traveling at a low velocity. It was also subject to wind currents, which mitigated the impact even further.

The amazing thing is that, given the amount of space junk that falls to Earth on a regular basis, there have been no other reports of someone being hit. Despite the veritable junkyard raining down on our planet — over a 40-year period roughly 5,400 tons of debris are thought to have survived re-entry into the atmosphere — the odds of actually being struck are infinitesimally small.

“Jan. 22, 1997: Heads Up, Lottie! It’s Space Junk!”

… The rest of the 260-kilogram tank, from which the fragment that hit her had come out, fell in Texas, near a farm. The piece was analyzed by researcher Winton Cornell of the University of Tulsa, who concluded that the material was used by NASA to insulate fuel tanks. The U.S. secretary of defense then sent a letter to Williams, apologizing for what happened…

“Lottie Williams, the Woman Who Was Hit by Space Junk”