• by Thom Forbes  @tforbes, August 11, 2011

We're all looking for good news this week, and producers and editors feel our pain. They, too, have 401(K)s, own homes with plunging market values and nurture work-in-your-pajamas schemes that will have a hard time gaining funding in this climate. But some of the cheery things they're coming up with make me think that the news must be even glummer than the headlines would have us believe, and that's pretty glum.

The top three stories in New York Times Business Day this morning are: "Financial Turmoil Evokes Comparison to 2008 Crisis"; "Banking Sector Punished Over European Debt"; and "In U.S. Stress Tests, a Tool to Gauge Contagion in Europe." The next few pieces don't get any better.

As I was driving around the other day, the reader on a news radio station offered up this bit of good news amidst all the carnage taking place, real time, in the financial markets: The Noid is back.

According to a press release I tracked down, "Domino's Pizza, the recognized world leader in pizza delivery, will no longer 'Avoid the Noid' and plans to pay homage to its iconic former mascot, for one week only, by launching The Noid's Super Pizza Shootout game on Facebook," and that's pretty much how I heard it over the air.

Now I can't say I was an aficionado of the floppy-earred spokescharacter for Domino's when it made its first appearance in the 1980s, but I take it he was something of a wisecracking imp. Quoth he, in the release: "Being 25 is pretty cool. I believe I can legally rent a car now."

Which presumably means that he will be cheered by that other piece of cheery news we keep hearing and seeing this week: "Not all of the economic news is bad," writes Eleanor Kennedy in the Charlotte Observer, for example. "Uncertainty and falling demand are driving down gas prices -- good news for consumers, transportation companies and the economy, analysts say."

The average price of a gallon in the U.S. was $3.64 yesterday. And, if you ignore the fact that it was almost a dollar less a year or so ago, that might be news to rejoice about, indeed, if only we felt we could afford a vacation.

The Steet's Robert Rapier, in fact, takes a big pin to the tiny bubble of positive thinking about the stuff that fuels our getaways: "The reason oil prices fell by so much is not because a lot of new production came online, but rather because the economy is very sick, and a lot of people are out of work ... . In short, not as many people can afford oil and the things made from oil."

Similarly, "the Federal Open Market Committee's decision to keep rates low for more than just an 'extended period' -- as it has previously stated -- is an indicator the Fed expects the economy to remain sluggish," FoxBusiness' Kathryn Glass tells us. "That could mean we will see continued high unemployment, low consumer confidence and slow economic growth, all factors that do not give one much impetus to borrow and spend money."

How this Financial Times lede for a positive spin (if you're a Gold Bug of long standing): "Gold has breached $1,800 for the first time as sickening lurches across many risk assets continue to polish the luster of the precious metal." Where's William Jennings Bryan when you need him to rouse us rabble?

In "Macy's and Polo Ralph Lauren Deliver Strong Quarterly Results," Stephanie Clifford is able to tell us that "so far, at least, the tumbling stock market has not hurt one of the country's biggest department store companies nor one of its most popular specialty retailers."

Barclay's Capital analyst Robert Drbul was cheered by the results. "Right now we're all sort of holding our breath waiting to see if there is a reaction [to this week's market plunges]," he tells Clifford, "but it appears to date that you really haven't seen anything," Then again, as even the optimistic Macy's CFO, Karen M. Hoguet, puts it, while the company has not yet felt any penny-pinching at its upscale Bloomingdale's division, "I think it's a little bit early to be judging."

I'm every bit the sucker for something cheerful myself. Amidst all that bleakness in the Times this morning, who could resist an obit about M. Kenneth Oshman, a fellow "Who Brought Fun to Silicon Valley"? The data tell us, in fact, that it was the fourth-most emailed piece of the mirthful early-morning crowd, running just behind "Financial Turmoil ..."