Where to find the silver lining in all the bad news

So when the Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee today that the economic crisis is "severe" and that it could get worse than predicted, I admit a chill went up my spine.

But then as I always do, I took a few breaths and reminded myself that so far, I'm not seeing a lot of stories about people in soup lines, and that there's still a lot of good news out there, although I confess, it's hard to find. So in the spirit of optimism, I detail a few of the bright spots for readers here:

Some industries are still hiring: The health care industry is adding 300,000 jobs a year, according to the St. Petersburg Times, which got the numbers from a spokesperson at CareerBuilder.com. Education and "green" jobs are also considered solid professions to find work in. (Conversely, the most fragile industries right now are construction, manufacturing, finance, insurance and retail.) And if you are thinking of going into health care, nursing is by far the most recession-proof job out there. Nurses are always in demand. Medical technologists are also apparently in demand, at least in Utah.