Sensational

I was having a conversation with my wife the other night (because people still do that) about the extraordinary deficit there seems to be of actual important information on the news these days.

It's appalling.

When I was a kid, I can remember whining and grumbling because my grandparents would flip (yes, actually flip) on Action news every night at 6 and 11pm. Not 4,5,6,9,10, and 11, because they didn't broadcast at those times back then. If you wanted news, you got it at noon, 6, and 11, or you read one of those fancy, giant, paper things that swelled to cover the entire dining room table.

But I digress...

I would piss and moan because I wasn't interested in the news. It was boring. It was boring, however, because I didn't understand (or even care to) just how important it was to be aware of the world around you. If it didn't concern someone or someplace I knew, I didn't care. My view at four years old, at my grandparents house, was that this is happy, fun, carefree time, not "worry about stuff that's far away" time.

But, I've grown up...

For three decades now...

...and I want to see the news.

I want to know what's going on in my city, my state, and my nation. I want to know what's going on in the world. Instead, I turn on Action news, as reverently as my grandparents did, and I get Beyonce, Chris Christie on Letterman joking about being fat, another football player and his girlfriend (or not, as it might turn out), and special reports on a new dress that makes you look healthier instead of actually working to be healthier.

Of course, these are all peppered here and there with stories about the latest asshole with a gun, but that's just for ratings.