From the North 40: A rarity: helpful newsy news

I think I can be honest here, so I'll just say right out: I should not be reading, watching, listening to, discussing, covering, or otherwise interacting with news, like the kind found on the other pages of this newspaper. No one should. No matter what my boss says.

An elite 5 percent of news is just news. It informs you. It delights you. You recognize this 5 percent when your first response is something like “huh” or “Well, I’ll be …” or “oh” or even “awww.” Yeah, “awww” is good. The rest of it will just doom you to the crazies, either clinical depression or clinical anger, which might not be...