Thirty thousand (30,000) kids died of hunger in my TV today. I can’t process that information. I just can’t. Would it register differently in my mind and heart if the TV added another zero (300,000) or another two zeros (3,000,000)? I changed the channel. To an ad for that kind of deodorant I can’t stand. Reminds me of the smell of my custodian job back in first year college. But I was still thinking about Alex Trebek trying not to look awkward beside that little orphan in Namibia, or was it Nigeria? Such big, sad, knowing, dark eyes. I’ll take “Soul-boggling, conscience-numbing facts” for twelve hundred please Alex.

This article first appeared in Geez magazine Issue 5, Spring 2007, Humanity Has Big Issues.