Good Night & Good Luck

This weekend was relatively tame. On Friday, Dean and I saw the new Indiana Jones movie. I enjoyed it very much, although the beginning was just a little slow. Shia LaBeauouf's (whatever) performance was okay, but not great. I think they overdid the 50s "style" a bit too much. The director made it look a little like Grease meets Indiana Jones. I fully expected Shia to break out in song every time he pulled out his comb and re-did his hair. I don't think I put the blame on Shia, because I expect he did was the director asked for.

I was supposed to catch up on my reading this past weekend. I didn't get very far. Instead I watched a lot of tennis and saw the movie Good Night & Good Luck about Edward R. Murrow (that one twice, once on my own and once with Dean). Very good film. David Straithairn was perfect. At least to this person who never watched Edward R. Murrow.

It strikes me that there is nobody like E.R. Murrow today. But worse, it strikes me that, if there were, the American people wouldn't be interested in hearing him. Sadly, our media has let us down so badly, has become so married to the political machine, that the American people simply doesn't trust anybody to them the truth, least of all, a media pundit.

I fully expected to experience some commonalities with contemporary politics, but was unprepared for the force of some of Edward's quotes.

Here are a few:

Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.

Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit.

No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.

Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.

People say conversation is a lost art; how often I have wished it were.

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.

The actions of the Junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his, he didn't create this situation of fear, he merely exploited it, and rather successfully.

We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

If this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.

[Quoting Shakespeare] "The fault dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves...”

Good night, and good luck.