News coverage in the Information Age is a lot different from the days when Chet Huntley and David Brinkley closed their 15-minute newscast by wishing each other a good night. The orgy of news coverage of the trial of the man who is charged with murdering Jennifer Hudson's sister and niece is illustrative.

The good Christians among you will recall the story of Paul. He led a life of sin until God knocked him off his ass onto his ass, and he made a U-turn on the road to Damascus and became St. Paul. I'm no saint, but I too have had an epiphany.

I suspect some people were disappointed that the Mann School test-tampering scandal was limited to a measly two staff members and only 25 individual tests. Like Duke basketball, Notre Dame football and hedge fund managers, Mann School is kind of easy to hate.

The report that the Ernest Hemingway Boyhood Home at 600 N. Kenilworth Ave. was for sale caused me to think about my boyhood home. I lived at 1312 Indiana Ave. for the first 12 years of my life. My dad told me that it cost him $7,500 to build the two-bedroom home in New Albany, Ind. in 1948 — the year before I was born.

I wanted to write a column on Tom Barwin's five-plus years of service as Oak Park's village manager. He deserved a column. Certainly, a lot happened on his watch. He was hired in 2006. Talk about bad timing. About the time he figured out the crazy politics and minefields of our town, the worst economic collapse in almost 80 years hit the nation and the village.

They say travel is good for us because it gets us out of our comfort zone. Living even for a week in a different place and meeting different people presents us with an opportunity to view the world from a different perspective. So Marsha and I journeyed to Naples, Fla. last week to escape a Chicago February.

The high school's teachers and the District 200 school board announced agreement on a new two-year contract last week. The contract provides no pay increase in the 2012-2013 school year, and teacher compensation will be limited to step and lane increases the next year.

Sometimes I feel a little like Neo in the 1999 movie, The Matrix. You may remember this science fiction thriller, written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers. The film depicts a future in which reality, as perceived by most humans, is actually a simulated world created by sentient machines to pacify and subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. Neo becomes aware that perception and reality are not the same thing.

I'm a big fan of OP/FYI "A Newsletter from the Village Of Oak Park." This monthly publication has lots of interesting tidbits like "Be cautious, but don't run from a coyote." Seems counterintuitive. Then there was "Beekeeping approved; rules protect those with allergies." I wonder if Dressel's Hardware sells bees and hives.

As I try to figure out what to do New Year's Eve ( Is going to bed at 9PM an option?) I'm feeling good about the new year if for no other reason than I probably won't have to follow certain stories that seemed so very important in 2011, but weren't. So today I come not to praise, but to bury these 10 stories in no particular order.