Today's New York Times book review included mention of a book, The Whole Five Feet, by Christopher R. Beha, who set out to read all 51 volumes of the Harvard Classics (known as the five-foot shelf) in one year. I could totally relate.

But I was struck by the fact that today's book review included nothing about the King of Pop or one of Charlie's Angels. I was an Michael Jackson fan, though less so after he started grabbing his crotch. But what a dancer!

And my freshman year I tried to cut my bangs ("wings") like Farrah's in the girl's bathroom, a fact I had forgotten until my best friend from junior high reminded me on Facebook today.

Anyway, my point being that I liked these people. Still.

When I turned on cable news last night looking for news out of Iran and could not find anything even on the bottom-of-the-screen scrolling from any of the three main news-providers, I felt like I had subscribed to Cable People Network and Fox Entertainment. Gimme a break. We have North Korea turning nukes at Hawaii, Ahmadi-nutjob (as one of my students calls him) in Iran squelching free speech, and a host of economic crises across the world. C'mon people! At least the NY Times demonstrated a little perspective here. But what does it say about our culture that they're going bankrupt?