My Mental Frontline Guy

Lately, more and more, I feel like I am living in an episode of Frontline from PBS. I'll be going about my daily business, and all of a sudden I'll feel somewhat disconnected - then the deep baritone voice of the Frontline guy will begin to narrate some aspect of my life. For example, I'll be at work, watching people struggle to change the cartridge on a printer, or conversing informally in a meeting room. Then my mental Frontline guy says:

Businesses in the new technology-driven economy create a demand for a new type of employee. Generalists and information workers have replaced the physical laborers and specialized tradesman of the industrial age.

Or he'll come at me with interesting, somewhat-relevant facts. Such as the other day, while at Easter services. I was absentmindedly observing the ambling, slow-motion procession of churchgoers - young and old, able-bodied and lame. Then wham:

According to 2004 Pew Research Center survey, over sixty-five percent of Americans report some kind of religious affiliation.

Perhaps this is the unintended consequence of swimming in the media firmament. Too many blogs, too many RSS newsfeeds, too many times when my wife slips the remote control from my fingers at 2AM, when I have fallen asleep in front of C-SPAN 3 watching congressional hearings. Call it Lyman's Dementia, a side effect of trying too hard to be relentlessly well-informed.

They should do a Frontline special about it.