As I mentioned in my previous post we lost power on Sunday night and we’ve been without power and/or cable for about two days.  A consequence of our blackout is that we (Celeste and I) had no idea that something was going on at Virginia Tech until one of the people sitting at the table next to us at Panera started playing the video from CNN on his laptop.  After that the only update I got for hours was on the radio while I was driving my son to his orthodontist.  We stayed at a hotel last night so I was able to watch the news there, but really I felt like I was in a vacuum.

This reminded me of 9/11 when I was stuck on the streets of DC trying to get home and didn’t hear about the towers falling down until someone told me as we waited to get on the Metro.  After that I had no idea what was going on until I got home that evening and saw for the first time the video that the rest of the world had seen hours earlier. 

This also reminded me that my habits have changed considerably in the last few years. I used to get most of my information from broadcasts, radio or television, but now I get most of it via RSS feeds in my reader or by browsing any number of news sites.  I’m beginning to realize how limiting the broadcasts feel, because when I’m online and getting my usual news stream I’m seeing one story from literally dozens of viewpoints.  With TV I’m getting that one story from a limited number of sources who all feel compelled to package events like this as "The Massacre at Virginia Tech" and then in two days will package it as "The Massacre at Virginia Tech: The Aftermath", and then in two more days will package it as "The Massacre at Virginia Tech: The Recovery Begins", etc.

Of course I could have read my feeds on my PocketPC but I had the slight problem that I’d deleted my mobile feed reader (long story) and had neglected to restore it.  Once I get the chance that’s now a high priority, because I can’t take much more of the broadcasters.