Good day and welcome to Denison Forum's Daily Article podcast for Monday, May the 11th, 2026.

Today's daily article is written by Dr. Jim Denison, co-founder, and narrated by yours truly, Chris Elkins.

17 Americans who evacuated from a cruise ship hit with a deadly outbreak of

Hanta virus have arrived in the U.S. early this morning.

One had mild symptoms of the Andes virus, another tested, quote, mildly PCR positive,

according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Officials continue to assure us that the risk of the general

public remains low. In other news, thousands of schools in dozens of states were affected last

week by an attack on a widely used digital learning platform called Canvas. The incident disrupted

classes, coursework, and exams during finals week for many schools

in this latest example of cyber criminals using AI for nefarious purposes.

Here's what the two stories have in common.

I don't want to write about them, and you probably don't want to read about them.

We can't do anything about either threat, so we'd rather not think about them.

We don't want to contemplate the prospects of another pandemic, however low the risk,

or the thought that we could be defenseless victims of a cyber attack.

However, as Tennessee Williams reminded us, quote, not facing a fire, doesn't put it out.

This is a principle that relates not just to the news,

but to our souls, and we'll see today facing such fires can be the best way to embolden our faith.

Johnny Thompson taught philosophy at Oxford for more than a decade and now writes full-time.

In a recent post titled Every Generation Loses

Its Sense of Loss, he discusses what is known as Creeping Baseline Theory. As he describes

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