Tom Rupp commentary: Every day is breaking news

OK, here we go. November is officially underway. The mornings are noticeably chillier and Thanksgiving arrives in three weeks. And dare I even mention Christmas (53 days away)? Did you see the massive full moon last weekend? And just below it shone the bright orb Jupiter. It was lovely. I always look for Orion in the autumn night sky. That starlit hunter always presages the cold winter. So much is constantly happening in (our planet's burning core), on (air masses on the move) and above our planet. It is never ending. And not only on the natural sphere, but also on the manmade scale of events. The Telegraph relates events within our small circumference. A lot is happening around here. Then, as you expand your view, there's Sacramento, then California, America, and the world. The cycle goes on and on, and our little weekly paper can only cover so much in our parochial attempt. National and international events are usually beyond our ability or desire to cover. I often get a kick out of television news almost always opening with "breaking news." It seems to act as an attention grabber, to "keep it right here, we have something important to tell you." Then again, there always is and always will be breaking news. Something is always happening. And when it is over, something else will be there to take its place. Sadly, much of what at first passes for breaking news soon passes into forgetful obscurity. It's the opening story tonight, and next week most people have forgotten all about it, gone on to other things. Robert Frost wrote a poem titled "Out, Out-," a title taken from Shakespeare's line in Hamlet – "out, out brief candle." The poem details a normal day on the Vermont farm, with a boy working the buzz saw before dinner. Suddenly in a moment his hand is badly, mortally cut by the saw and soon he dies. The poem ends – "and that ended it. No more to build on there. And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs." It is a sadly, truthfully accurate depiction of how the mass of humanity act, react, move on. We bemoan our shrinking attention span. It is surely a thing, to some extent wired into our system. Amid the cacophonous chaos of our time, take a moment to survey the night sky. It's breaking news every night. Tom Rupp is a Folsom resident and weekly Telegraph columnist. He can be reached at truppfolsom@yahoo.com.