I really did try to find something to write about beside Michael Jackson and Mark Sanford. There are significant news stories out there — the ongoing violence in Iran; the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq from most Iraqi cities, towns and villages; the health care fight; the cap-and-trade fight; the financial crisis fight; whatever.

Still, my mind keeps wandering back to Sanford and Jackson and to the late Farrah Fawcett. At the beginning of this week I read that Fawcett’s long-time partner Ryan O’Neal wanted to marry her. Too late, it appears. Very sad.

I think my idea of a perfect world is one in which the big issues are settled so that we can all just focus on the little issues without distraction. I want a world with no war, where people get to see doctors when they need to, where everyone can look forward to a nice supper. And in that world there would be nothing else to concern us but raising our children, pursuing our interests, mourning our dead, loving whom we love.

We’re social animals, after all. That instinct to be more interested in other people’s personal lives than in Big Issues is just too strong to resist sometimes. But maybe the real problem is not that we can’t resist, but that we think we’re supposed to.