Maybe some of that $15 million Columbia University just received for a center devoted to digital journalism can be used to figure out why there are, as of now, two Jersey Shore posts here on this website, over the course of just two days. The same grant can pay someone to parse how Avatar, Katie Roiphe's favorite authors and pop sociology intersect with any of this. Until then, let me do my part.

We know, from reading Newsweek, and from looking around, that our institutions and communities are eroding.