It’s gone beyond sensible.
I wake up at night grinding my teeth because something happened hundreds or thousands of miles away from me, and some woman with bleached teeth and booming timpani drum intro music decided I needed to know about it.

And instead of telling me in a calm, collected manner like the fine chaps on BBC, she frantically, eyes wide and eyebrows plucked, described it in every gory detail.

I subject myself to this willingly.  I choose to learn about things that happen far, far away, things that have no immediate consequences.  I read the articles, the banners, the tickers, the headlines, the blogposts, the captions, the op-eds.  I watch the newsbreaks, the embeds, the slowmo, the pundits, the talking heads, the big glass maps that can be stretched and zoomed and made red and blue and topographical.

I sometimes wish I was stronger.  I imagine a life where I only know what I see and hear from walking around my neighborhood.  Look, there’s a new pet store going up on Hanover.  Oh that’s too bad, the anti-abortion crazies are out again.

But I can’t.  I sit and think “maybe I should buy a gun” as the price of pork drops and kids get days off from school and the regular flu, the one we’ve all had, kills thousands more than its porcine cousin.

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