Some mornings I buy a newspaper, sometimes not. I used to read the paper religiously — an hour-and-a-half every morning with The New York Times — but that was long ago, before I discovered that the world inside me was at least as interesting as the world out there. Besides, reading the newspaper is frustrating, like remembering only part of a dream. The newspaper reports fragments of a story, usually leaving out the most important parts, the secret meanings, the symbols that bind events.
But I’ve found the news particularly compelling recently, as justice catches up with unjust men, and sweeps them up in the rags of scandal. Ronald Reagan is on his knees at the altar of power, but has nothing left to sacrifice, his soul already mortgaged to the hilt. Evangelist Jim Bakker drifts through the purgatory of ex-stardom; his ministry, through the ghostly miracle of modern technology, showed that the greatest violence on television is done in the name of God. Driven from his PTL empire by a sex scandal, Bakker is at the mercy now of his brethren, who circle him as if he were a wounded animal, and close in for the kill. Amen brother, and good night.
