Your Virtual Front Page, Monday, Nov. 7, 2011

Here are the headlines, such as they are:

Asteroid to Pass Close to Earth Tuesday (WSJ) — There’s no danger, say the astronomers, so nothing to worry about, as long as the boffins have done their sums right. But I’m leading with it because the freaking thing is passing between us and the moon, and it’s as big as an aircraft carrier. Which raises the question, what do we do about one with a slightly different trajectory? OK, I admit it. I didn’t want to lead with Herman Cain.
Woman says Cain groped her; he denies it (WashPost) It was somewhat graphic. How should I describe this on a family blog? OK, baseball is usually safe… Streaking past first base altogether, he went straight for second base, and had rounded second heading heedlessly for third when he was thrown out. Yep, that’s what she said happened. Fortunately, there’s no video to review. As our standards decline, we’ll probably have that with the next scandal.
Berlusconi stakes future on vote (The Guardian) — Last week it was Greece. This week our morbid fascination focuses on the Italians and whether they will be the ones to act as a millstone for our foundering economy. Meanwhile, Italian “Bond rates are being driven to levels that earlier forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek bailouts.”
JACKO DOC GUILTY (NYPost) — Thought it best to go tabloid with this one. Also, it reminded me that I was working for these guys when all of a sudden they dropped their interest in Mark Sanford to concentrate on the death of the King of Pop.
Murdoch paper spied on hacking lawyers (BBC) — Meanwhile, the guy who took so long to pay me for that work gets into the stuff a little deeper. See how all stories are related, if you look at them right?
You mean, he got PAID for that? (bradwarthen.com) — Mark Sanford makes his first appearance as a paid commentator on Fox. Note how this relates to item 4, which relates to item 5. Oh, and the fact they were talking economics relates this to item 3, which, being about Berlusconi, clearly relates to item 2.

And item 1 relates to everything else here because today’s news is rather unearthly.

There, I did it. Sort of. As I used to tell my friend and colleague Charlie Pope in the ’80s (and he has reminded me many times since), I always wanted to put out one edition of the newspaper with just one story that tells ALL of the days news, in keeping with the principle that all things are related. As I used to tell Charlie, “It’s all in the transitions.”