Boom
I've been trying to stay away from commentary on real-world news, because frankly, I'm losing interest. Besides, I am not an authority on anything relevant. I can tell you how big a photo should be; I can give you my opinion on the point size and typography of your lead headline; I can tell you why day-to-day consistency in your page design is important. I can't tell you why people go to the local pool hall and blow themselves up. I can't tell you why some bored pampered American college kid feels the need to take a road trip, dropping off little bomblets in mailboxes along the way. Those things I'll never understand, no matter how much I read about them or how much I hear the talk-radio assholes in their glassed-in rooms try to explain them.

So I'm not going to pretend. Partly because of my intrinsic lack of knowledge, partly because I'm losing interest. Readers who have gone deep into the archive will note that I warned you against that very thing. They tell me apathy is dangerous. I respond by saying that when you're bombarded with the same images over and over and over and over, it becomes hard to feign interest. I mean, this thing in the Middle East has been going on since, when, 1967? That's longer than I've been alive. Nobody has a solution. What little I know about the situation makes me wonder if the people in charge even want a solution. Perhaps they understand that any good story must be based around a conflict, and if there was no conflict, they would not be a story. No friggin' wonder the American media would rather chase Britney Spears.

I don't know. I used to wish that I did know. Now I'm not so sure. All I know is that I was given so many keystrokes in this life, and I just wasted a bunch of them. I'm trying to find larger meaning in something that I'm not sure has a meaning.

I shouldn't give up the search. I hope I don't. But I'm not making any promises.