Why Are We Talking About This, Again?

On finding a vocabulary for the meta-conversation in our media

I wish I had a word to describe that particular blend of exasperation and dread one feels when a topic is presented as self-evidently worthy of debate.

We know this irritable sinking feeling when we feel it. A certain public figure might have landed in the news again, and prescient creatures that we are, we’ll recognize that this means we can expect our …