Two Ways to Read Stories

Years ago, there was a story in the press about a particularly gruesome suicide in which a guy drilled his head eight times with a power drill till he died. Most of the coverage focused on the gruesome.

One article headline read “Man drills seven holes in head and lives!”

I think of that as I read this story:

Still standing: Ancient Alaskan forest thaws from melting glacial tomb

“An ancient forest has thawed from under a melting glacier in Alaska and is now exposed to the world for the first time in more than 1,000 years.”

Lots of people will read this and think “O the humanity! Thousand year old ice is melting! Unprecedented global warming!”

I’m thinking “So it was warmer a thousand years ago.”