All right, I'll admit it. I am a newspaper addict. It stems partially from my love of reading and partially from the need to make my prayer net be as far flung as possible. How can I pray for the needs of the world if I don't know what is transpiring?

The radio is more up to the minute, but so boringly repetitious, probably because of the lack of reporters. TV has crossed the line from news to entertainment. Someone (who makes these decisions?) has decided that no viewer has a concentration span of more than two minutes. The end-result is sensation-prone, disaster-inclined reportage, in little snippets of info, with longer commercials in between. (And if I were a parent, I'd be in a panic about what my children, at far too young an age, are taking away from those commercials. Are there boundaries?)

No, for adequate and wider coverage, I need my daily newspaper fix. I usually read two: one, my hometown paper where the mayor, the head of the detective unit, and many of the business people passed through my classroom, and a bigger paper with world coverage.

For example, as I folded up today's paper (Jan. 20) and passed it on to a colleague for the next reading, I had picked up ideas that the air waves had missed. I learned that one of my favorite authors had died, Robert B. Parker, creator of Spenser, a long-loved detective with no first name. Parker died at his desk where he wrote 5 pages every day but Sunday. On the facing page, I saw that Erich Segal of both Love Story and classics fame, had also come to the end of his career. I wonder what those two might be saying now from a higher perch.

China has closed down Avatar for reasons of perceived message at variance with its political philosophy, even as the government announced the censoring of text messages for "unhealthy content." Since the criteria have not been disclosed, one can imagine the protests.

On the "disclosed" front, closer to home, there was the intriguing story of a science teacher in a small Ohio town who has managed to divide that devoutly Christian metropolis. His crimes? Burning a cross into the arms of two students and keeping the Bible on his desk as a science reference source. Martyr or zealot? How will it all turn out remains to be seen, but it is one more indication of the deep polarities between science and faith across our land.

And there are the other reports: state budget issues, inaugurations, political scandals in Japan, the good news of the placement of dozens of Haitian orphans with American families that had long completed the paper work which was mired in Haitian legal complexities. One positive note from that incredibly beleaguered land.

Although I also learned that the average American child between the ages of 8 and 18 spends every waking minute, an average of 7.5 hours per day, tethered to some piece of electrical equipment.

I haven't succumbed to the buttons. Instead, I am now ready to wash the printer's ink from my hands and start my daily prayers for the world, some of thanksgiving, some of petition—and quite a few for the newspaper producers.