IT'S EASY BEING GREENE: Bob Greene has a nice column today on the nature of news. Here's the part I like:

The good news is that the news-is-old theories are dead wrong -- the good news is that there is nothing fresher, nothing more vibrant, nothing that overrides everything else in the world more than news does. Yes, there have been times when the tellers of the tales have attempted to make themselves more important than the tales themselves; yes, there have been times when we who report the news have not exactly covered ourselves with dignity and decorum. But that's us -- that's our problem to repair. The news itself -- in each of its many forms, written or spoken -- is, by definition, brand-new, every day. It can't be preempted -- it's preemptive. It can't be made obsolete -- it's the antithesis of obsolete. It is the story of our world, our country, our town, our block, and the details of it today didn't exist when the sun went down last night, and the details of what it will be tomorrow don't exist even now. The news grow old? The sun will go black before the news becomes old.