No Banner

I haven't been keeping an official count, but by my haphazard reckoning, today is the first in weeks when the Washington Post has not had a banner headline. Instead, there was a five-column head, "Stay-at-home orders for capital region," to explain yesterday's announcement from the governors of Maryland and Virginia and the mayor of D.C., that residents can only venture outside for essential business. You had to turn go page A5 to learn that Virginia Governor Northam's order extends to June 10 — which was big news around here.

What this says to me — the monumental announcement and the lack of banner headline — is that this is the new normal. You can't keep slapping a huge headline across the top of the paper day after day even though the news continues to shock, amaze, sadden and befuddle us. At some point the shock, amazement, sadness and confusion becomes the way things are now.

I realize I'm one of a vanishing few who even read a hard-copy newspaper, let alone pay attention to the width and point size of the lettering across the top. But what this says to me is that we are becoming inured to this upside-down world. How inured? Ah, that's the rub. The trick is how we adjust and what we lose as we do.

(Empty roads: part of the new normal.)