DAVID GUILBAULT

HEALTH REFORM VILLAINS

I have not had much faith in the political leadership of House leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate leader Harry Reid in the health care reform debate.  Today, Pelosi, finally got some guts and laid the blame for our broken, greedy system at the feet of the real obstructionists of reform - the health insurance industry.  Some of her comments today:

Pelosi: Health Insurance Companies the Real Villains

"They are the villains in this. They have been part of the problem in a major way," Pelosi said of the insurance industry after her weekly press conference. "It's almost immoral, what they are doing," she said, referring to industry lobbying against a public insurance plan option. "Of course, they've been immoral all along. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening, and the public has to know about it."

The current system works so well for insurers that they don't even want subsidies, Pelosi claimed. "They've had a good thing going for a long time at the expense of the American people and the health of our country," she said, adding that it will be tough to keep them from getting their way. "This is the fight of our lives."

- Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House

LOWERING FEAR

Today, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano gave an honest assessment of the current threat of terrorism in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations.  It is worth a read.

Homeland Chief Offers Shift in Tone

"Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano on Wednesday called for closer collaboration with foreign partners, more intensive cooperation with local law-enforcement officials, and greater involvement by citizens in watching for and responding to terrorist threats.

For too long, we’ve treated the public as a liability to be protected rather than as an asset in our nation’s collective security,” Ms. Napolitano said during a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “This approach, unfortunately, has allowed confusion, anxiety and fear to linger.”

“The consequences of living in a state of fear rather than a state of preparedness are enormous,” she said. ...

“The terror threat is even more decentralized, networked and adaptive than on 9/11,” she said. “The United States needed an approach that was “more layered, networked and resilient.”

In her speech, Ms. Napolitano seemed intent on a shift of tone, a recasting of the way Americans view the terror threat. Implicitly, she seemed to rebuke the approach taken by the Bush administration, which critics said too often seemed to exaggerate threats and sow a sense of fear.

- Brain Knowlton, The New York Times

PHOTO: Chris Hondros/Getty Images

A BABBLING BOOB

Once again, Sarah Palin delivers a rambling, babbling, insulting speech about patriotism, militarism and freedom of speech.  The woman can't put a coherent sentence or thought together.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

RIGHT ON CRONKITE

The New York Times' Op-Ed columnist Frank Rich has it exactly right about the importance of Walter Cronkite in his piece, "And That's Not the Way It Is."

"What matters about Cronkite is that he knew when to stop being reassuring Uncle Walter and to challenge those who betrayed his audience’s trust. He had the guts to confront not only those in power but his own bosses. Given the American press’s catastrophe of our own day — its failure to unmask and often even to question the White House propaganda campaign that plunged us into Iraq — these attributes are as timely as ever.

That’s why the past week’s debate about whether there could ever again be a father-figure anchor with Cronkite’s everyman looks and sonorous delivery is an escapist parlor game. What matters is content, not style. The real question is this: How many of those with similarly exalted perches in the news media today — and those perches, however diminished, still do exist in the multichannel digital age — will speak truth to power when the country is on the line? This journalistic responsibility cannot be outsourced to Comedy Central and Jon Stewart. ...

Watching many of the empty Cronkite tributes in his own medium over the past week, you had to wonder if his industry was sticking to mawkish clichés just to avoid unflattering comparisons. If he was the most trusted man in America, it wasn’t because he was a nice guy with an authoritative voice and a lived-in face. It wasn’t because he “loved a good story” or that he removed his glasses when a president died. It was because at a time of epic corruption in the most powerful precincts in Washington, Cronkite was not at the salons and not in the tank."

- Frank Rich, The New York Times

EDITORS, NOT AUDITORS

"There are things wrong, with probably the most obvious manifestation being the tabloidization of too much of our work. Mainline journalism seems to have accepted the standards of what once was known as the penny press. It is to worry.

And, of course, the bottom line of our discomfort is the bottom line itself.

With almost total unanimity, our big, corporate owners, infected with the greed that marks the end of the 20th Century, stretch constantly for ever-increasing profit, condemning quality to take the hindmost. If there is any solution to this problem it might be found in educating the share-holding public to their responsibility in owning this business which is fundamental to the preservation of our democracy.

If they understood the nature of this public service and treated their investment in it accordingly, we would be saved from compromising journalistic integrity in the mad scramble for ratings and circulation. In other words, if they did not expect the constantly increasing, unconscionable profits now expected from most investments but accepted a rational and steady return on their investment in this essential public service of newspapers and broadcast news. ...

But we all know what is wrong--and as professionals, we all know how to fix it if given the mandate from our bosses, or if we can wrest control from the bottom liners. Let our battle cry be: Editors, not auditors.

- Walter Cronkite, 1987

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"I'm mighty proud of our profession. I'm proud of the physical courage shown by many--in war and civil insurrection and in dozens of less spectacular ways.

I'm proud of those who expose the culpable even at the risk of their freedom, or even their lives.

I'm proud of those who have the courage to reject the favors of the newsmakers; those who do not become part of the establishment, who preserve access to the inner circle without becoming members of it.

I'm proud of those with courage to withstand the wrath of their neighbors and face social ostracism in pursuit of the truth.

I'm proud of those who have the courage to reject conformity with their colleagues and hold on to their vision of the truth while others around them seem blind and scornful.

I'm proud, too, of all those who work in the backrooms of our media--on rewrite, copy desks, assignment desks, editing film and tape--professionals all. Their devotion to this business may be greater than all those media stars they make look so good.

There are bad apples in our barrel, of course, but as a class, there is a purity of intent and purpose in journalism that is unique:

We are good conservatives, demanding proof of the need for change. We are good liberals, ideologically bound to no cause or dogma. And, so unfettered, we can make a claim of selflessness denied to other persons.

Our only enemies are those who would erect barriers between the people and the truth. And the perpetual struggle against them--ah, my friends, there is a crusade that's worth the ride."

- Walter Cronkite, 1987

THE EAGLE HAS LANDED

July 20, 1969

TRUTH & TRUST

NYT:  Walter Cronkite, Voice of TV News, Dies

CBS News:  Walter Cronkite (1916-200)


Watch CBS Videos Online

"When Mr. Cronkite was No. 1, the nightly news mattered. College students nowadays get their information from blogs and Comedy Central, not CBS. Families don’t gather in the den to eat dinner in front of “World News Tonight With Charles Gibson.” Brian Williams and Katie Couric wouldn’t dare sign off with the words “and that’s the way it is.”

The television news business long ago lost that kind of prestige and importance; the audience for evening newscasts has so dwindled that this year there were more viewers on an average night for “American Idol” than for the programs on CBS, NBC and ABC combined.

Anchors try to project authority with sprawling desks and fancy computer graphics: “The CBS Evening News” studio today looks like a NASA command post. When Mr. Cronkite became anchor, the setting was somber and almost touchingly low-tech."

- Alessandra Stanley, The New York Times

"In 2009, even trust, at least in the public realm, seems an uneasy notion. It's something we continue to desire, But in an age of wholesale, instantaneous, unprecedented lying, trust is something that may not be that wise when it comes to evaluating our sources of information.

That's what has changed since Cronkite's heyday.

Today's model works more like this: Everyone vies to get his personalized, customized, agenda-driven version of "that's the way it is" enshrined in the cultural canon. We shout, cajole, maneuver, horse-trade. We demonize the opposition. We brand ideas as products and send them on their way, ready to do battle in the marketplace."

- Ted Anthony, Associated Press

"Network news anchors still aim for that mix of eloquence and authority that Cronkite embodied, but they compete, at a disadvantage, with the noise of an ascendant punditocracy and the mountain-from-molehill nattering of cable news organizations that live on crises -- it's not the old voice of reassuring honesty that they cultivate, but one of perpetual anxiety.

There are many more rooms in the mansion that is television news nowadays, but they have grown proportionately smaller; they are no longer fit for giants."

- Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times

"Black and White" by David Guilbault from David Guilbault on Vimeo.

OFF TO THE MOON

The Apollo 11 mission was the first manned mission to land on the Moon. It was the fifth human spaceflight of Project Apollo and the third human voyage to the Moon. Launched on July 16, 1969, it carried Mission Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr. On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon, while Collins orbited above.

- From Wikipedia

The mission fulfilled President John F. Kennedy's goal of reaching the moon by the end of the 1960s, which he expressed during a speech given before a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961:^[2]

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

BUSKING IN SEATTLE

I have to believe from my experience that Seattle's announced commitment to support music is a bit disingenuous.

I notified the Parks & Recreation Department a few months ago to get a permit to perform in the city parks.  They informed me that there were no more available this year.  My understanding was that "sanctioned buskers" could perform in the parks from noon until 2p, and that anyone could perform other times.

So, I have performed twice by the pergola in Pioneer Square near where I live.  One of the security guards for a tourist tour that starts there told me I was the best performer they've had there.  The audience has been supportive and mildly generous.

But, today the Park Rangers told me I couldn't play without a permit, couldn't sell my CD's and couldn't use amplification.  Yet, the so-called "official buskers" can plug in their instruments and plug their recordings. You'd think I'd be able to scratch out a few dollars singing for my supper.  But not in this "arts" town.

Firstly, I don't understand why a busking permit is needed in any event.  And I certainly don't understand why the number issued is limited.  In this town, you have to know who to know and when to know them in order to be "official."

I'm just trying to live and eat and spread my original music.

I also tried playing a few blocks away in Occidental Square.  But one of the managers from the art galleries that line that pedestrian park asked me not to set up and play.  Another so-called art patron preventing an artist from performing.

It's all very frustrating.  I live in Pioneer Square and you'd think I could share my music with my neighbors and accept their gratuities.  For all its progressive posturing, this is a town of draconian restrictions.  Next the panhandlers in this town will have to be licensed.

Oh, well, such is life in Seattle.
Cheers for now.  David.

EXHUME CHENEY-BUSH DEEDS

The secretive dirty deeds of the Cheney-Bush administration need to be investigated.  Let's see if the mainstream media spend anywhere near the time and resources on this story as they have on investigating the death, familial dramas and peculiarities of Michael Jackson.

"Cheney is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project"
Scott Shane, The New York Times

"Cheney Linked to Secrecy of CIA Program"
Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times

"CIA Had Secret Al Qaeda Plan"
Siobhan Gorman, The Wall Street Journal

"Bush Anti-Terror Policies Get Reluctant Revisit"
Carrie Johnson & Joby Warrick, Washington Post

WADING IN ON SARAH

In her column, "A Farewell to Harms", Peggy Noonan writes why Sarah Palin was (and is) bad for the Republicans, and the republic.

"In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.

In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying....

Here's why all this matters. The world is a dangerous place. It has never been more so, or more complicated, more straining of the reasoning powers of those with actual genius and true judgment. This is a time for conservative leaders who know how to think.

Here are a few examples of what we may face in the next 10 years: a profound and prolonged American crash, with the admission of bankruptcy and the spread of deep social unrest; one or more American cities getting hit with weapons of mass destruction from an unknown source; faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate.

The era we face, that is soon upon us, will require a great deal from our leaders. They had better be sturdy. They will have to be gifted. There will be many who cannot, and should not, make the cut. Now is the time to look for those who can. And so the Republican party should get serious, as serious as the age, because that is what a grown-up, responsible party—a party that deserves to lead—would do.

It's not a time to be frivolous, or to feel the temptation of resentment, or the temptation of thinking next year will be more or less like last year, and the assumptions of our childhoods will more or less reign in our future. It won't be that way.

We are going to need the best.

- Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal

A RAMBLING FOOL

Sarah Palin steps down.  Here's her speech - Huh?   It's a rambling, incoherent, clearly insincere performance.  And, she's clearly lying through her gleaming white teeth.  Something's up. Every time I hear this buffoon speak, I think the same thing, "Oh ... my ... God."

"We're fishermen. We know only dead fish go with the flow."
- Gov. Sarah Palin

SARAH'S STRAIGHT TALK

"Truly, Sarah Palin has come a long way. When she ran for vice president, she frequently became disjointed and garbled when she departed from her prepared remarks. Now the prepared remarks are incoherent, too.

“And a problem in our country today is apathy,” she said on Friday as she announced that she would resign as governor of Alaska at the end of the month. “It would be apathetic to just hunker down and ‘go with the flow.’ Nah, only dead fish ‘go with the flow.’ No. Productive, fulfilled people determine where to put their efforts, choosing to wisely utilize precious time ... to BUILD UP.”

Basically, the point was that Palin is quitting as governor because she’s not a quitter. Or a deceased salmon.

Sarah Barracuda made her big announcement Friday afternoon on the lawn of her home to an audience that appeared to include only Todd, the kids and the next-door neighbors. Smiling manically, she looked like a parody of the woman who knocked the Republicans dead at their convention. She babbled about her parents’ refrigerator magnet, which apparently had a lot of wise advice. And she recalled her visit with the troops in Kosovo, whose dedication and determination inspired her to ... resign."

- Gail Collins, The New York Times

PALIN AND HER ENEMIES

"If Palin were exactly what her critics believe she is — the distillation of every right-wing pathology, from anti-intellectualism to apocalyptic Christianity — then she wouldn’t be a terribly interesting figure. But this caricature has always missed the point of the Alaska governor’s appeal — one that extends well outside the Republican Party’s shrinking base.

In a recent Pew poll, 44 percent of Americans regarded Palin unfavorably. But slightly more had a favorable impression of her. That number included 46 percent of independents, and 48 percent of Americans without a college education.

That last statistic is a crucial one. Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard"

- Ross Douthat, The New York Times

MY POOR CAR

I’m grieving.  My car has died.  My poor car.  I’ve owned this wonderful Nissan NX 2000 for 17 years, since buying it new in 1992 in Chicago.  It has a little over 91,000 miles on it.

It’s death is not an insignificant event.  That car was as much a part of me as my breath.   Now, it breathes no more.  In it’s last throes it has been trying to speak to me.  It’s been telling me that life is running out.

That car represented a hold on hope.  It kept me going - literally and figuratively.  I poured hundred of dollars into it in the last two years, trying desparately to keep it on the road, and on the mend.  I paid for overdue parking fines and overpriced parking spaces.  I put new tires, brakes and  radiator into it.  I nursed it like a loved one.

But, it would keep failing on me.  During those times without transportation, I was off my game.  I felt trapped and powerless.  When it was running, I felt I had options, the possibility of freedom and prosperity - maybe even, perish the thought, happiness.

My poor car has endured the travails of my life.  It has carried me through good times and bad, surviving blow after blow.  It has been a faithful mechanical steed.

Now, it has given up the ghost - given away for scrap parts.  Rest in peace, my friend.