I make my living off the evening news/Just give me something- something I can use/People love it when you lose/They love dirty laundry

Every once in a while, I hear Don Henley’s hit song “Dirty Laundry” in my travels, and it makes me wonder how he feels about the state of the world these days. The song was released in 1982 on Henley’s first solo album I Can’t Stand Still, and it laments sensationalism in the news and everybody’s abject obsession with the misery of other people. Things have certainly gotten worse in that respect over the past three decades, what with the Internet and 24-hour “news” networks that project disaster and despair on an endless loop. Continue reading →