As IF Times

link Sideshow: Wholl take Courics CBS anchor chair? | Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/05/2011.

What, are there no hand puppets available?  In this day of computer generated graphics, isn’t it possible to synthesize a cartoon character to read the news?  Although the job probably pays a pittance of only 10 million dollars a year, can’t they find some aspiring model or journalism student to fill the space?  Wouldn’t it be just as effective to have the weather girl on channel 7 read the news?  To be clear, the person is not expected to make the news, only read it aloud on the teleprompter.  Any dummy can do that as we know. Someone has to enlighten us rubes outside of New York city as to why replacing Couric should be that difficult.

In days gone by, a personality like Walter Cronkite was determined to have credibility when he read the news.  He was a familiar face and and even more familiar voice that brought the news of the world to Americans during the all important dinner hour.  Back then, with only 3 major television networks broadcasting, the delivery of what was news was filtered by ABC, NBC and of course CBS.  The veracity of their versions of events were beyond question.   Of course, in those days, The New York Times was a legitimate newspaper.

This grip on information by the major networks has long become a relic of a quainter time.  As the access to information has opened up to all who are willing to look, the importance and even relevance of the major news networks’ version of events have diminished greatly.  Gradually, people could see and think for themselves (well mostly) what was truly happening in the world and opinions often formed which differed from the offerings of the networks.  If CBS had lost Walter Cronkite during the late ’60’s, it would have been a devastating blow since America hung on to uncle Walt’s every word as gospel.  It can be argued that much of how America viewed major issues of the day was shaped by the utterances of uncle Walter.  To his credit, Cronkite seldom betrayed any personal judgement in delivering the news.  It was apparent that he told it, ‘just the way it was’ as his trademark signoff claimed.

When Couric took over the anchor chair, to great fanfare at the time, her background was that of daytime talk show host on another network.   In that role, she often was in the news herself as a personality and celebrity of the New York media scene.  Couric had to transform herself from perky interviewer to somber newscaster.  She never did seem to be able to bring the gravitas and objectivity of news to the public as did her predecessors.  This of course excludes his nutness, Dan Rather, who began the whole demise of the credibility franchise at CBS. But that’s another story.   During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, she was widely lauded by the left for her apparently revealing question to Sarah Palin about what she read.  The implication was of course, not what she read, but if she read.   While the mainstream media credited Couric with brilliant reportage, it begs the question of whether that same question would be asked of any male candidate.

From that point on, her fate was sealed.  Most of America saw this somewhat condescending event as confirmation of her lightweight talk show background.  Any pretensions to being a genuine news broadcaster was shattered.  Viewers left in droves from the CBS evening news broadcast.  To be fair, the other national broadcasters also suffered the same collapse in viewership, but not as dramatically as at CBS.   Couric had to go.

Getting back to the original point then, how hard could it be to find someone to read the news?  Once the insular types at the networks peer out of their towers in manhattan, they may figure out that the U.S. extends beyond mid town New York.  But it may be all moot because the franchise on being the gatekeeper for the public’s news consumption is long gone.  It’s now true that some of the most significant stories broken today are not by the big news networks, but by cable or internet based operations.   It’s also true that broadcasters do not offer the balanced analysis offered by other information concerns.  To add insult, The National Enquirer, known to many as a gossip rag, has broken some of the biggest news stories of the day.   It’s as if Charlie Sheen became Walter Cronkite.  Come to think of it, Charlie may be looking for a job….

link To Protest Hiring of Nonunion Help, Union Hires Nonunion Pickets – WSJ.com.

An Onion piece? No. A Seinfeild skit? Again no. In a free country, there are no real laws against public displays evidencing stupidity or assaults on common sense.  The articulate as well as the addled are free to express their world views to any who would listen. One would think though, that in a country where education is ubiquitously available, is nominally free to a certain point and where information is widely accessible, that the moronic actions of the addled few would be mostly ignored.  One would be wrong. 

Under the scrutiny and analysis by a free press, such inane activity as the one referenced in the linked article should be printed in bold headlines with plenty of derisive tone rather than the dry, bemused presentation by the Wall Street Journal.  Stories like this however should get much wider attention.  While the incident itself is perhaps a local curiosity, the ramifications are not.  The pretzel logic conveyed by the union representatives in their justification for this action goes thusly:

“Low Pay! Go away!” and “That Rat Gotta Go!” the union stand-ins chanted as other workers banged cow-bells and beat on a trio of empty plastic buckets. Eric Williams, a 70-year-old retiree who said he needs extra cash to buy groceries, wore a sign saying that Can-Am Contractors, a nonunion Maryland drywall and ceiling concern, “does not pay area standard wages & benefits.”

so therefore,

“…The union’s Mr. Garcia sees no conflict in a union that insists on union labor hiring nonunion people to protest the hiring of nonunion labor. He says the pickets are not only about “union issues” but also about fair wages and benefits for American workers. By hiring the unemployed, “we are also giving back to the community a bit,” he says…”  As if.

 So who cares if a small union doesn’t understand irony?  Everyone should care because it is this kind of up is down and down is up logic that creates much of the mess that faces American society.  The Arizona immigration debate is one of the hottest issues being contested now, ostensibly by learned people on both sides of the argument.  In the most boiled down essence, the issue is, should non citizens of a country be allowed to come, go, or stay as long as they want? If someone visited Canada, enjoyed the view and the food and decided to stay, would they be allowed to?  If there is no enforcement of immigration laws for a few, why have them for the many?  In fact, why even have an immigration department?  Why not just save the money or have the always pleasant and smiling workers hand out lollipops  and water  to people as they cross the borders?  The INS department can all be re-branded as tour guides. 

In the case of airport security, if only a specific and predictible profile is responsible for inflicting grief, the logical response up to now has been to harass everyone; just in case.  Oddly, this protocol is exactly the opposite of the Arizona edict.  Whereas there is a push to grant leniency to illegal citizens by opponents of the proposed Arizona law, legal citizens at airports are routinely treated as criminals.  Nobody thinks this is strange?

As expressed earlier, idiots are free to do what they want.  What makes idiocy dangerous is when it shapes public policy and the formation of laws that affect the lives of sane people.  The influence of a small vocal minority are creating non sensical and in some cases, dangerous policies which can adversely affect the lives of normal people.  The more insane people that manage to get voted into office, the more mainstream their policies appear.  This can’t happen without an abetting press.  Who would have thought that in today’s modern times,  headlines and stories in the National Enquirer are as valid as anything offered by the New York Times or CBS? Suddently, Martians in Congress and talking dogs don’t sound so ridiculous.  Down is up.