The Sun's effect on our national conversation is obvious, but what about the Globe?

It's a straightforward question: what are people talking about? What's capturing their attention and imaginations? Public conversation. Nothing gives you a better sense of a community or a society than gauging what people are talking about. (24/7 on Kim Kardashian? That's got to tell you something.)

It's been one of this little corner's favourite hobby horses for as long as I can remember. Public discourse. National conversation. Provincial. Municipal. Whatever. You want civic ambition, you need to look at the quality of the conversations people are having. (I'm focusing on civic ambition because in a recent piece, the Globe's ideologically reliable urban-affairs curmudgeon Marcus Gee was complaining about the lack thereof. More on that in a minute. )

Far-right hatred is a sickness, but it's a symptom, not the cause | #Norway

Late-night submissions on a heavy Sunday night ...

I thought I'd seen, heard and read it all by now.

That worthless piece of shit used dum-dum bullets. The cherry on the shit sundae.

Another sick, cruel piece of shit says those kids all but deserved what they got because, apparently, they said some things that weren't abjectly devoted to Israel.

And a few other worthless yammering transmitters have been treating the facts as an inconvenient speed bump in their haste to continue repeating their revolting message of Islamophobia and demonization.

Kate's royal ass cheek: #sunmedia triumphs again, @davidakin makes sure we all know about it

Sad, isn't it. When this is what occupies our imaginations and dominates public discourse, is it any wonder that so many people don't bother to take the responsibilities of citizenship seriously? Look at the energy it's consuming, for Chrissakes.  (Yeah, I know. Mea culpa. Now piss off.)