The obligatory Irene post

Yawn.

Another inconsequential hurricane that sputters and comes apart upon coming ashore.

May all the flooded roads and downed power lines get fixed quickly.

Seriously, I don't mean to sound flip, but the big story here - and even that has been covered ad nauseum elsewhere - is that our postmodern 24-hour-news-cycle reporting media have a vested interest in making anything they possibly can into the story of the century and milking it until the cows come home (couldn't resist).

Well, you might say, how are Drudge and Breitbart and even a rightie blogger such as myself exempt from the charge that they are driven by cheap zeal for the eye-popping headline?

I'll confess that even truly big-deal natural disasters and accidents such as plane crashes (that are caused by mechanical failures, as distinguished from those caused by jihadists) only hold my interest for so long.  Unless there are larger trends or principles to be gleaned from them, they quickly devolve into ain't-that-awful voyeurism or, worse, excuses to wallow in feeeeeeelings. Toward the end of his CNN run, Larry King used to relish opportunities to line up guests who'd been through an ain't-that-awful experience and spend his entire hour asking them "What were you feeling when . . . "

Now, the stuff that, say, Drudge generally considers radar-worthy is of a different sort.  It has an ideological charge.  It is chosen for the front page because it has good guys and bad guys.  It has implications for freedom, prosperity, the prospects for common sense.  Statistically necessary occurences in which no human will was a factor come and go.  Virtue and vision and their opposites, on the other hand, create ripple effects in our civilization for good or ill.  They have ongoing impact.  And the most savvy of those who bring us the real stories know they are helping us, citizens who wish to be not only informed but truly sharp and guided by core principles, to cultivate an instant sense of what such a story is likely to mean.

Back to Irene, there is that ridiculous series of photographs of the MEC holding forth at his "command center," but that is by definition a forgettable by-product of the whole episode as well.