A few months ago, Boston-based investment manager Alan Strassman had an epiphany. "Every day the news was just so terrible, in the paper, on CNN. It's not that they were making it up, but there never seemed to be anything good to report. I was getting depressed, like lots of people, and I got tired of being depressed.
"A light went on," he continues. "We ought to cheer up America. I wondered if the domain name cheerupamerica was available, and I phoned my daughter, who knows the Internet. We got the domain and I fed her this idea: Let's start a website that publishes only good news. Its only purpose will be to help people see a little light at the end of the tunnel and have a few minutes of fun."
Strassman's first post was a Howard Beale ("Network," 1976)-like, "We're not going to take it anymore" philippic: "The media is obsessed with the global economic decline and scaring everybody half to death. Guess what? We are in a negative feedback loop that is simply making matters worse. It's time to fight back - Cheer up, America!"
The rest is history, with a very small h. Every day, Strassman's daughter Laura paws through what passes for the news, trolling for positive messages. Yes, there is some good news out there. Rhino Foods in Burlington, Vt., is lending workers out to other businesses rather than lay them off. Scientists have isolated the parasite that seems to be causing the honeybee colony collapse. She posted on Bo, the Obamas' Portuguese water dog, arriving at the White House.
Gimme a break. We covered that! Like the second coming of you-know-who.
What I like most about this story is that no one involved is particularly cheery. Mr. Strassman's friends say he is successful - he runs Martingale Asset Management, is the past president of the Museum of Fine Arts trustees, and now sits on the WGBH board - and sociable but not so cheery. He agrees, his daughter confirms that, and admits that she too isn't pathologically upbeat. Her mother, Ann, is an accomplished artist. "Dad says Mom is a lot more cheerful since she's been going to our website," Laura jokes, adding that "none of us are extroverted perky cheerful types."
Laura also writes a foodie blog called Evil Food Twins but admits, "Unfortunately it's not that evil."
Too bad. There's not enough evil in the world. Just kidding, eudaimoniacs!
Strassman pere has been a money runner since 1962, when he signed on with Putnam out of Harvard Business School. I needed to know: Is he cheery about the financial markets, too?
Strassman is too canny to make predictions. His fund invests in the stock market, exclusively, for clients like
"Personally, I will confess I shifted some of my assets from bonds into equities during the worst of the downturn. I'm not a big risk-taker, and as prices declined I bought more stock." What about cash? I'm a cash man. "I was never tempted to move to cash," he says. "I refused to let myself give in to that."
His final words to me: "Cheer up, Alex."
Naaah.
Be careful what you wish for, Otto! Suddenly the lad enters "a world where everything moves in the wrong direction," author Michael Sussman explains, "and really, everything, from getting a haircut to going to the bathroom." Sussman is a clinical psychologist who practices here and has written two books on psychotherapy. Artist Scott Magoon lives on the North Shore and has written and illustrated numerous children's books for Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com. 
