Jim, I think your point about the geography of the situation is an interesting one – but then I find it odd that just when the world is getting “smaller” (so much easier and faster to travel, email/video/Skype/YouTube all make is so much easier to send and receive info around the world), we seem to be paying less attention to world events instead of more. Or is that not true?

Here's a question: Does not having a military draft make us less aware, as a country, of world events because we're not on pins and needles thinking that our loved ones may be sent to a far away war?

I also think that part of it is the shift from everyone watching the Evening News with Walter Cronkite (or whatever they watched) to people getting their news from so many different sources. I think it's a positive change, overall, but it is more work for us, and we're not all on the same page with the same info anymore.

We live in this massive country isolated by giant bodies of water. We don't live by other countries, other peoples. So for us to be engaged in their stories, it has to be a completely intellectual act. We have to seek out the sources, and then absorb them, over time, while we do all the other things our lives demand. There's no direct contact with those other places.

Also, our media tend to spread outward, with little getting back in. We don't hear the voices and sounds of other people (except maybe if we catch The World on NPR). So I think to a certain degree we need to let ourselves off the hook. And then maybe try to do something about it.

If you have some idea what is going on in the next state, that's kind of like knowing what's happening in the next country in Europe, geography-wise. We really live in a unique circumstance that isolates us. So I say, pick some other little part of the world, and learn a little bit about that (Have you heard what's going on in Honduras? Crazy…). Otherwise, your brain will be so addled you won't be able to tell the good episodes of Weeds from the bad ones, and well, confession – I hadn't noticed how the show had slipped 'til you mentioned it…

I like your idea of picking a country though and trying to understand it more deeply. Maybe we can do it together like a book club? Pass around some articles? I don't know…

As for the foreign news issue, with which I am currently obsessed, I had an epiphany last night: The reason that I personally do not stay up-to-date on a daily basis is that I lack the foundation and the history to understand so many of the current issues, so I am always feeling behind and lost and I can't imagine where I would begin to feel caught up. I'm considering picking one country and trying to understand the history and goings on in just that one country.