By MICHAEL ALLEN @MikeAllenW
Countless headlines about ABC’s massively popular two-hour Bruce Jenner interview were tragically lost Saturday when news broke of 3,200 dead following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Nepal. With both stories deemed newsworthy, consumers of the media zeitgeist were forced to confront the fact that an intriguing story of bravery, introspection, self-identity, and gender politics would be forever emotionally linked to the incomprehensible sorrow of human lives needlessly lost, and the inevitable grim musings on when our own times will come. “Whether it’s hundreds of Nepalese dead at nature’s cruel whim, or a world-class athlete’s lifelong struggle with societal acceptance, the sensational headlines on April 25th force us to confront the physical fragility of life and at the same time the diverse range of internal human suffering that mars our every consciousness,” remarked Michael Allen, writer of this article.“With so many media messages bombarding us at any given moment, eliciting such a diverse range of raw emotion, I’m betting that the average human reader has a lot of trouble contextualizing or absorbing it into anything resembling usable information.” Before confronting his feelings, the author quickly abandoned thinking about either news story to watch an episode of Game of Thrones, play Settlers of Catan with friends, or god-forbid study for an economics final.