not having any more luck there than I did as a Hil supporter.  I was for Germany in the European Cup and Roger Federer at Wimbledon.  This morning though I flipped by MSNBC and since Joe Scarborough's "I am the story" sidekick is apparently on vacation, I hung around for a few moments.  JS had recently taken his son to a filming of Conan O'Brien and had been much impressed with both the technological expertise and the political apathy of the audience members who were about his son's age.  After realizing that complimenting their political apathy probably wasn't a comment that would endear him to his viewers, Scarborough backed up and complimented how informed young people are and how they seem to be concerned with so many things other than politics.  He pointed to how comfortable Generation X, Y, Z, Alpha, Delta, Zeta and on and on are and the fact that they watch The Daily Show to back him up on these assertions.

I readily agree that "young people" - you know you're old when you use that phrase - are fluent with technology in a way that I will never be.  My son can multi-task (Meaning among other things he can flip through all the e-mail on his Blackberry with one hand while talking to me.  He is aware of how acutely annoying I find that habit and has promised to refrain from it when he takes me out for my birthday.) with the best of them.  He downloads what he wants to see.  Television is so yesterday.  He plays games with friends in multiple locations throughout the country wearing earphones to talk with them and actually "seeing" them on his Mac's camera.  None of these skills are anything that he was taught, he picked them up in the same way that I used a phone when I was his age.  He can also come back at me with chapter and verse on virtually any political subject; however, while he watches Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, those are not the places from which he derives his information which brings me - after two paragraphs - somewhat to the point of this post.  Satirical television shows - no matter how intelligent - are not meant to be the basis for an informed citizen's viewpoint, nor is Wikipedia, nor is a blog, nor is any television station or newspaper.  Intelligent viewpoints result from the synthesis of reading and viewing a variety of sources, some of which may not agree with one's own thoughts.  Shoot me, I watch Fox and that includes an occasional dose of Bill O'Reilly (who is far less condescending and divisive than the increasingly unhinged Keith Olbermann).  I also read conservative magazines and visit conservative websites just like I read The Nation and visit HuffPo. 

Without a doubt the textbooks that were in common use when I was in school (yes, we had books with pages not stone tablets) were white European male centric as were the news media.  I still remember how exciting it was to see Liz Trotta reporting from Vietnam (and how disappointing it was to rediscover her a few years back as a harsh, mean spirited, humorless contributor to Fox News).  Having written that, there was - and still is - no news voice I respect and trust more than Walter Cronkite.  Having a loud, opinionated voice - no matter what color or gender you are - does not make you any more informed than anyone else, it just makes it easier and sometimes more fun for people who agree with your viewpoints to listen.  Nor does the fact that something appears in a blog - including this one - or is found on the web (including Wikipedia) make it true.  Witness the continuing power of the "Barack Obama is a Muslim and was sworn in on the Quran" lunacy.  "Well, you know someone sent me an e-mail..."  Just last weekend while planning a trip I came across online information posted on two sources that was historically inaccurate.  Had I not had a friend who immediately knew the "facts" to be laughably wrong, I would have accepted them and repeated them, so skepticism is a lesson that we who have come to depend on the Internet must learn over and over again.  Independent research from a variety of sources is a must.

During the writer's strike that paralyzed the LA area last winter, I spent a little time surfing blogs written by people on both sides of the issue.  While a lot of well reasoned opinions were out there, I was amazed at how many otherwise intelligent industry people said they got their news about the strike from entertainment blogs and The Daily Show.  Many folks even professed to reading and watching no other "news" programming.  Thus, they were making decisions about their livelihood based on gossip columns and satire on the Comedy Network.  It is testament to how little we as viewers require of our media that with 100s of cable channels available for in depth coverage of important events, at 2 a.m. most of them are showing paid advertisements for quick weight loss and get rich schemes or reruns of "classic" sporting events (is the 1974 PBA Bowling Championship really classic?  I guess if by classic one means more than 30 years old.  From now on I am going to refer to myself as a classic).  I am not a Luddite.  Technical virtuousity is admirable.  I stand in awe of anyone who receives 150 RSS feeds on a daily basis.  I can't figure out how to set mine up.  I am more impressed though by my sainted daddy.  Born in 1912 he learned how to use a computer in his seventies; but he also read, studied and listened to the viewpoints of others 'til the day he died.  It doesn't matter how many friends you have on Facebook if all of you have just one opinion and you got it from Jon Stewart.