I’ve mentioned a few times in passing the popularity here of watching the news. In any house with a television, between 12:30 and 1:30 the news will be on – the wine glass full of water on the anchor’s desk now recently balanced by a iPad in an odd-looking stand with the bitten logo awkwardly facing the wrong direction.

Two years in and the news is still often the go-to topic right after the obligatory discussion about the weather. News from far off places, many surely had never heard of before yesterday shortly after lunch. In my short time out here my neighbors have watched news of major earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and Japan; hurricanes and tornadoes in the United States; massive protests in Cairo, Damascus and Tunis, a new war in Libya, volcanoes in Iceland, the on-going slide of Mexico in to something most would rather ignore, and an ancient place called Greece cause quite a stir. They’ve watched with interest and wonder and sometimes a little bit of amazement, always ready to talk the next morning about what they saw and where it was. And then life goes on.

All the news from all the world does little to stir the sand on the red dirt road here. Big news, little news, no news. A world apart it seems. A man could land on Mars or a living dinosaur be found at the bottom of the ocean, we’d talk about it for a day or three and then it would be on to the score of the latest Olympia/Cerro match.

I’m amazed at this connected isolation, until I realize it’s not unique to my street alone but the same on the streets you live on as well. (Unless this week you happen to live on Wall St.). For the good most of us, we see the news, or read it or download it and then we like to go about our day thinking we’re effected by it. But truth be told, for the most part we’re all in the same boat as Calle San Blas – and if it weren’t for being the consumers that we are, that would stand even more true.

Tripoli. Port Au Prince. Election cycles. Steve Jobs. Our lives – here or there – chug on. If the news is on or not.

kb