Today I Woke up 10 Years Younger

In his book Little Children, author Tom Perrotta regularly makes reference to the Gary Condit case. That news story, in the summer of 2001, elicited a media frenzy and marked what seems to be the end of this over-intense focus on mundane matters of celebrity, sex and suspicion. Yes, there are still plenty of stories about Britney and the like, but they don't dominate the top of every newscast the way that Condit did. Perrotta put that tidbit there to place the story firmly in the pre 9/11 world, one in which we cared more about the sex lives of an elected official and an intern than much else. In a way he was declaring that summer the end of our innocence.

Today we're more concerned with the safety of air travel.

That's why I'm actually surprised at the media frenzy over the Jon Benet Ramsey suspect. Yes, I expected it to be big news. This is a story that fascinated the American public throughout 1997 mostly for its titillation factor. Dan Rather compared the story to "kiddie porn."

I turned on CNN last night to see them focusing intently on that story, and it led most of the evening newscasts in Boston. This on a night that a flight enroute from London was diverted to Boston for security reasons.

I'm not sure what to make of all this, but I find it rather fascinating. And, suddenly, I feel 10 years younger.