Commentary on News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091120/ap_on_en_tv/us_winfrey_show_ending

Here is the announcement of the end of the Oprah show and the show's history. It's big news on the national reporting scene. While the end of Oprah's program is worth noticing, I question the amount of hype it is getting. We are in an age when entertainment is news.

Oprah, the queen of talk, is very influential, possibly the most influential American woman of our times. She has brought attention to many important issues and causes. She has done it on her program, in contrast to lackluster reporting of similar issues on television newscasts. Maybe talk shows are becoming blurred with newscasts and commentaries. I watch news commentaries on the Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Countdown, the Rachel Maddow Show, Bill Moyers Journal, and others. I do not watch or listen to the Fox network or Rush Limbaugh. These programs are expressions of impacts and editorial conclusions about what is happening. In some cases they are satirical and humorous. In some cases they are the only news programs that some people watch or listen to.

CNN seems to continue to report straight news, along with the nightly newscasts and NPR. This week we are hearing some actual news, such as action on health insurance reform, uproar over recommendations on mammograms, and Obama's deliberation about what to do with our unpopular wars. We heard about a boy who made news by refusing to say the pledge of allegiance in school because he said that homosexuals do not enjoy "liberty and justice for all." Then I heard Stephen Colbert reciting his rewritten pledge of texting to the flag, a satirical twist on human interest stories.

Our nation has ongoing editorializing overtly through the importance given to various events, and we have editorializing by omission. When we spent months seeing and hearing about the death of Michael Jackson, the king of pop, and days enjoying the balloon boy, we undoubtedly missed some other newsworthy issues. As a nation, we love entertainment over content. If that is what we are getting, I am glad to have the intelligent satire of the Daily Show and Stephen Colbert.

The Great Emergence

The Great Emergence, by Phyllis Tickle

Here is a book written for Christians, mostly North American protestants, that examines history in the churches and the world to explain the big changes that are happening in North American Protestantism. Tickle is a church historian and Episcopalian. She covers the historical causes of the Great Reformation, then what she calls the Great Emergence that is happening now. She says that every 500 years the church has a big rummage sale that cleans it out as part of major change. She gives credit to communications changes for today’s situation, along with Freud, Jung, the automobile, and much more. The book is short but filled with content. She mentions Roman Catholicism and European churches in passing, but does not dwell on them.

Tickle demonstrates that changes in religion are part of changes in the world. She points out that the question of where authority lies is at the heart of the Reformation and today’s church issues. It’s not hard to read and will help us to understand what’s going on.

Library Editorial

Rob Rogers - Yahoo! News

This editorial cartoon is a commentary about libraries and the economy. The Edgerton Public Library, where I last worked, has reduced its hours while having a beautiful new building. I hope the library board will reconsider and restore the service time. But then I don't expect pigs to fly soon either.

Politics of Medical Care

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/editorial/article_e3c4aa9f-0976-524e-b0c9-4676f0630094.html

The senate has a long way to go to get a reasonable "health" care bill. Feingold is right. This isn't about health, and sort of is about medical care, and mostly is about profits continuing for the insurance companies.

Scat, by Carl Hiaasen

Scat, by Carl Hiaasen

Here is a book for everyone. Carl Hiaasen has given the world another funny but serious story about crazy people and respect for the environment. It’s a great story. This one is for teenagers, so it is minus the vulgarity of his books for adults, and it is just as good. You will like this book if you are an adult. Like Hiaasen’s other books, this one has an easy-to-digest message about protecting Florida’s natural environment.

Nick and Marta are the two students who are concerned about their very unpopular biology teacher, who doesn’t return from the school’s field trip to the nearby swamp after the swamp is set afire. They set out to do detective work to get to the real truth about their teacher. They find her doing an environmentally good thing, they save the boy who is being framed for setting the fire, they get involved with typical Hiaasen crazy guys (substitute teacher, student’s father, and the swamp man), the oil speculators get caught setting up an illegal drilling operation in the swamp, and everything ends up ok. Oh, and there are a couple of panthers. That’s how scat enters the story.

Hiaasen’s characters are well developed. Even the crazies are believable. The reader cares about the good people and cringes at the actions of the bad people.

Scat received a starred review from School Library Journal. That review and one from Booklist are on the Amazon.com website.

CBS News Poll Comments

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090928/ap_on_re_us/us_tv60_minutes_vanity_fair_poll_2
CBS News recently conducted a 60 Minutes-Vanity Fair Poll. How could they have forgotten to ask me what I think? Here is my commentary.

It shouldn’t surprise me that Walmart is the institution that best symbolizes America today. It won over Google, Microsoft, the NFL and banking. I am wondering if there were some other choices, even though everyone seems to crowd into the nearest Walmart store except my son who takes Walmart’s ethics very seriously. I am wondering how many people voted for the Christian churches, or McDonald’s. The answer to this survey question says a lot about American economic thinking on the local level.

Should the US tax the richest Americans by at least fifty percent? Only fifty percent of the respondents said yes. What’s wrong with us? If I remember my American history correctly, when the income tax was put into place, the idea was to have it graduated according to ability to pay. The people with the money are running the government, so they make it sound as if taxing them without regard for their financial largesse is a burden on them. This question applies to taxing people for their purchases, too, I think. Of course there should be a large sales tax on their yachts and Porsches. It’s not that I want these things. It is that they are examples of American greed.

The luxury people hate to sacrifice in tough economic times turns out to be dining out, according to the poll. Television talking heads say that many people eat most or all their meals in various eating places. If people can’t afford to eat in restaurants, they will have to learn to cook and maybe find the grocery stores that no longer are near their homes. Construction workers would go back to work designing functional kitchens for the homes of people who suddenly need to use them. It could be good for the stomach and the economy. The losers here would be the people in urban areas who can not get to stores other than convenience stores.

Fighting obesity among users of fast food chains is interesting. The paragraph above might be one solution. Dining out seems to be a luxury. The biggest (pun intended) response was to put scales in the eateries. I suspect that the people who eat there would be the last ones to get onto the scales. I suggest that one way to lessen obesity is to avoid the fast food chains.

People said it is much worse for politicians to take bribes than to have extramarital affairs. I agree. The sins of the spirit (i.e., ethics, etc.) are worse than the sins of the flesh. However, I sympathize with the plight of Elizabeth Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Jenny Sanford and Eleanor Roosevelt.

When will Obama bring the troops out of Afghanistan? Probably in time for the next presidential campaign, but maybe in time for the mid-term elections. I believe the people are becoming cynical. It’s likely to be that way. Where is change we can believe in? This is a war we can’t believe in.

Here comes pop culture. Who is the man with whom to trade places for a week? I think I could trade places with George W. Bush for a week and enjoy life on the ranch in Texas, doing nothing except visiting with Laura, Mom and Poppy.
The top responses were Barack Obama, Tom Brady and Bruce Springsteen. Obama has the hardest job in the world and lives with constant barbs against him for his race and his actions. Tom Brady is a professional football player. Who would want to be pounded physically into a life of disability at a young age, even for a week? (He's not Brett Favre, after all.) Bruce Springsteen is a more reasonable choice, but not for me. My father and my husband were celebrities, although on a small scale. Forget it.

Top responses for the women with whom to trade places were Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Angelina Jolie, and Beyonce. What? Not Sarah Palin? Not Oprah? Certainly not Lynn Cheney. I could try Barbara Walters or Rachel Maddow.

Maybe all this explains why CBS news didn’t call me to ask these questions.

George McGovern on health care reform

This newspaper article by former Sen. George McGovern is very good. Needless to say, I agree with it. McGovern favors Medicare for all. He points out that the idea is having trouble with congress because the powerful insurance lobby is "too powerful to resist."
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/guest/article_255d23c6-a2f2-11de-bcb1-001cc4c03286.html

In my opinion, as long as insurance companies call the shots, universal access to medical care is not likely to happen.