I hate the news. And, because I hate the news, I never watch or read the news. Well, that's not entirely true, I will occasionally catch myself watching the 10 o'clock atrocity or reading the front page of the times. Each exposure leaves me curious how so many people regularly subscribe to this poison bullet. It's grotesquely depressing and 95% does not even pertain to the general public, weather representing 4% of what is applicable and what are you going to do about that anyway. Now before you start tisk tisking me too much allow me to reveal that I'm not a total dullard living under a rock of voluntary ignorance.

I treat news like many people treat viewable television. I wait for a show to receive national buy-in, or friendly buy-in at least, before committing my time to it. I wait to hear what's hopping and then bring it up in passing to one of my more scholarly friends. What then transpires is an individual and personalized telling of the tragedy of the week complete with hindsight analysis as well as the speaker's speculatory impressions. Today, I received my update on this row we're having with China. If that's not a Clancy novel in the making, I don't know that hack half as well as I think I do. Almost simultaneously I stumbled upon this letter to China, which certainly proved more humorous given my 12-minute crash course on the topic.