Ignore, for the moment, if you can, the horror that was today's headline. Think about the reactions of those around you. Today, and to a lesser extent, the day of Seattle's Nisqually Quake, I found myself scrambing for information on the 'net. (Today was far more frustrating; far more people were looking for info, and searches were slow.) But just about everyone I knew was hungry for information, and anyone who had new information (or a new place to search for it) was set upon like junkies on their narcotics dealer. Well, okay, maybe that's a bit extreme, but it certainly gave them company in their cubicle, and company, as well, was welcome today. (Note that I am not factoring in those who were looking for information about loved ones potentially involved. The passion involved in an information search there is absolutely understandable.)
It is no joke that knowledge and information is power, and in an event such as today's, it provides perhaps the only ability to feel one is rising above the situation somehow. Like a child whose mastery of the names of dinorsaurs provides them power over the beasts, our thirst and quest for knowledge helps us, in some way, feel we are bigger than the news.
