I continue to wonder why local news even bothers to exist. Or – if it does, why it doesn’t actually report news, which must be happening in a city of 150,000, surely. As the local newscasters finished the top story tonight, summarizing the details of the Columbia tragedy, I said to Michael, “Now it’s time for them to go to the mall and get local reaction.” I was wrong. It was an electronics store – not the mall. An electronics store so the intrepid journalists could get video of customers watching the news on the store televisions, return to their studios with the footage and put “Witnessing Tragedy” under the interviewees’ names.

What followed was – I’m serious about this – a report that there were no Purdue graduates on this flight. In case you were wondering.