Blog is back up! Was down for a bit, didn't know when it would be back up so I could ramble some more.

They are hitting us from every side these days, eh? Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, Communists, all trying to get a seat in the boat. Each and every one convinced they are right and every body else is wrong. The "New World Order" is coming and we're all going to be slaves to the rich people! Good grief.

Look, I'm no expert on what's going on in the world, but even I can see we've taken a very high dive into the deep end. I know, I know, if you look at history you'll see just as much loud argueing between political parties and individuals as long as there have been politics. We didn't just dream up dirty politics in this country in this generation, it has a long standing tradition here, as well as around the world. That's the problem.

This attitude of: "I'll do anything, I'll say anything, I'll condone anything in order to get elected to public office is so shameful as to put the lie to anything we say we stand for. Our political process has become so ugly, so stained with vile words and deeds that the people feel dirty after having particpated in even the least important elections. In colusion with the politicians is our media.

We used to be able to consider our media a protector of the people's right to know. We used to be able to actually consider our news media pesonalities as journalists who would bring us the world and tell us what was going on with some credibility. Now, they are no more than entertainers with their own agenda and with license to use the airwaves to tell us what we should think and how we should "feel" about issues they bring to the fore. I remember when all politicians were fair game to the news media, everybody got taken down a notch when deserved, regardless of party. These days, they are more interested in defending one party against the other, instead of defending US against them ALL!

I don't know. I miss Huntley and Brinkley. I never knew what their political beliefs were. I didn't know where they stood on gun control, or abortion. I just knew what they reported in the news. I respected them for that. I used to respect Walter Cronkite, till he went all wobbly and decided expressing his opinion was more important than reporting the news. I know there is so much going on in the world that it is sometimes impossible to get it all right the first try, that's just life. But the cable news folks with opinion piece shows on constantly, advocating either a right-wing or left-wing slant to their entire production, have made it seem that we can no longer get anthing close to an unbiased report on anything! News reporting should very much be like a police report: Who, What, When, Where and How. You very, very, very rarely include the WHY because that is where you get in trouble with trying to be accurate. One source tells you one thing, and another source tells you another thing, and you then have to decide which is more accurate or true. Good luck with that.

Mac