In a time of universal deceit, the truth may first appear as graffiti.

Which is unfortunate, because graffiti is also where you find the full spectrum of human consciousness: everything from Bob Dylan to bowel distress.

That’s not a metaphor. That’s geography.

When I was in college and living off campus, our neighborhood tavern was a proper dive – sawdust on the floor some nights like the owners were trying to absorb the sins committed on the premises….

I'm not a doomsday prepper. I don't have a bunker stocked with freeze-dried meals and ammunition. I'm not an optimist either—optimists don't make it in journalism longer than a year before reality beats it out of them or they transition to PR. I'm just a guy who's been told THIS IS IT enough times to recognize the pattern.

And here's the pattern: the apocalypse keeps getting scheduled. Keeps getting hyped. Keeps getting monetized. And then keeps not quite arriving the way we were promised.

OK, our national media has two basic functions. The media's primary function—the one it won't admit—is managing scandals, not exposing them. It's a sophisticated filtration system that processes raw, disruptive truth into pasteurized product that protects the powerful and preserves the delicate "arrangements" holding everything together. The second-most important function is to deny the first function….