It’s no secret that journalism thrives on nasty bacteria more than life-giving oxygen. But this week’s relentless coverage of Very Bad People is making me want to wash my hands every five minutes. 

Kim Kardashian’s faux-marriage reminds me that, at least in Celebrity-America, marriage equals marketing. Justin Bieber and Herman Cain, whom I would never place in the same sentence at any other time in history, both face sordid charges of power-groping. Conrad Murray (Michael Jackson’s unprincipled physician and convict-of-the-week) showed us all that the Hippocratic Oath means about as much as Kardashian’s Oath.  And finally, the entire Penn State football program appears ready to implode over horrific charges of a pedophilia cover-up.

Just when I’m about to take up drinking, I realize that these are only the national stories. My hometown (and yours) has little celebrity symbolism but all of the same stories: the trivialization of marriage, the misuse of power, the abuse of innocent children. The two-dimensional news stories have real people behind them--people whose sins infect the entire world.