The word “pathetic” aptly describes the drivel televised, printed and programmed as news everyday in this country. The 1970’s film NETWORK’s famous line “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” was the death knell for news. Real news was swapped for 30-second sound bytes and high network ratings. It was as though a media mogul was perched above Wall Street when he sent out a memo to the media at large throughout media land which said:

“Those of you that desire long term employment will institute, implement, and memorize these new policies. To insure that we have the most uninformed audience in history, we will no longer provide substantive, truthful unbiased news. Our corporate owners and shareholders desire a numb, dumb and ignorant audience. The rule of thumb is to push personalities before people – no relevant, poignant issues of the day. Always report conjecture, probabilities, possibilities, could be, maybes, and someone or sources said. Anchors, radio jocks and talking heads will be mostly white men, and if you question this don’t bother to return tomorrow and pick up your final paycheck now. Our job is to sucker punch our audience with headlines that choke their reason and ability to think. Our job is to control them emotionally, divide and pit them against one another. Scare, anger, incite, and confuse are the passwords that hold our audience hostage as we pander the issues that destroy the soul of America. The more idiotic you think a news story is, will be the one that will be our breaking news. Balloon boy, Sarah Palin’s Facebook page, political party’s infighting, Kate and Jon, Michael Jackson and Anna Nicole Smith is now the news. Under no circumstances will the casualties and cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars be headline news, fit those stories in where you can. Blackwater, KBR and Halliburton governmental contracts that kill innocent civilians, troops and drain the nations coffers aren’t as important as making sure we take down ACORN and the people that depend on the ACORN housing programs. If you don’t agree with our policies – quit, then try to sue us. The people that own us have the most attorneys, lobbyist and two or three Supreme Court justices. If you have any questions, concerns, or a conscience in regards to this memo, file them and spend your time trashing the current administration. That is what you were hired to do.”

I have a strict chain of command in my life that I rarely deviate from. God first, me second and then everybody and everything else. One of my financial gurus, Suze Orman, states it differently –  you, then people and things. I bought that up because during the past month my life and my web mistress’ life faced challenges and situations that involved us being fully present. Every moment required that we be present in that moment so the enormity of what we faced wouldn’t discourage or defeat us. This month demonstrated that life goes on no matter what you are experiencing and doesn’t ask or require your input. I was reminded that the world isn’t changed by my puny efforts, so the best thing I could do was to let go and let life take me wherever I needed to be. What I realized was that I don’t have to know what is going on, all I need to do is trust. Trust that I am doing the best I can and to be the best I can. All I need do is to think about how far I have come, even when I didn’t know where I was going and what I would do when I arrived.  During this month that flashed by, I reveled in the gloriousness wonder that life is and continues to be. I didn’t have time to wonder what was going on, and more importantly, how I was going to fix it. I thought about the goodness and the good people around me. Then it dawned on me that one major habit I had let weave itself into my life was squeezed out. MEDIA. The news in every form from newspapers, to television and radio had taken a back seat. Everything was sweeter and all things became possible. I had allowed the insidious habit of filling my mind, ears and eyes with the programmed garbage to alter how I viewed others and myself. I realized that no matter how positively I live my life, the poison fed through media is meant to defeat, deflate and destroy. Strong words, but the next time you tune in to radio or television news or read your paper, notice how you feel. Do you feel hopeless, angry, judgmental and amazed at the atrocities and pain that we perpetrate against one another?  Now I say “no more”.

My new business has taken up most of my time this month. www.greatworkplan.com/muldrowrobertsp encourages personal development at least 20 minutes a day.  It’s a time to feed my mind and spirit, food for thought that will change the way I think, which in turn will change the way I live. This pass month my friend Peg sent me the funniest e-mails that made me laugh so hard that my endorphins engulfed my office. Thought, compassion, love, laughter and peace are the tools I want to build my life on. So I have decided the news, and all other entities designed to determine how and what I feel, go to the bottom of the list in my life. I get to make that determination every moment of everyday. I know that changing the world doesn’t happen on the outside of me. Think about that today. Think about if you are ready to take the leap of faith and trust that God will make sure you show up where you need to, and know what you need to know when you need to know it.

Our planet appears to be in chaos, and if you only see the world from a myopic view, that would appear to be the truth. The real truth is that there is beauty that abounds, good and loving people that are showing up and silently changing the world. Turn off the outside noise and tune in to you. Feed yourself with good words, music, people and situations, and I’ll bet the world that you see will become the blessed, beautiful place you desire.

I would like to end this post with some of the memorable, thought provoking and funny stuff that strengthens my resolve to change me and therefore I will change the world. Will you join me?

Here’s the Puppy Who Can’t Roll Back Over.  Next is the Will Ferrell plea to protect the health insurance companies.  And then there are the Billionairs for Wealth Care.  The Billionairs are so patriotic that they even sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic at their rallies.  And last, but certainly not least, the ultimate love story of Suryia and Roscoe.

A good friend and I went to see Julie and Julia yesterday, August 16, 2009.  It was a perfect reprieve after viewing the Sunday morning line-up of talk shows masquerading as news. I did get particularly excited when I saw that Rachel Maddow was going to be a guest on Meet the Press.  Great! A woman with balls that will set the male dominated panel straight. Wrong – but I will get back to that.

My girlfriend and I enjoyed Julie and Julia immensely, and agreed that if we had believed the reviews of the critics we would have missed a delightful film.  I left the theater with my head brimming with the dishes I would prepare, loaded with butter of course, and a bowl full of cooking metaphors to write in this posting.  The movie reminded me that you don’t have to be Parisian to master the art of cooking French food.  So it stands to reason that you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out there is something amiss in the kitchen in the House – and I don’t mean where they cook the vegetables planted in Michelle’s White House garden.

Over 56 million Americans decided in 2008 that the cook that had been in the White House for eight years, and his prep cooks, had not only ruined most of the food they attempted to cook, but poisoned most of the country that swallowed their concoctions as well. We, the people, decided to get a new cook, new apprentices to assist in the kitchen, and feed the American people something that had been missing from our country for a long time – truth, change, courage, civility, non-partisanship, hope, empathy and leadership.  Ingredients that are essential to this country and remedies to help us recover from the food poisoning that still has us retching.  Remember those main ingredients the last cook left in the White House kitchen?  Big banks and wall street bailouts, GM, Ford and Chrysler hearings, the Iraq war, loss of jobs, lack of health care, homeless, trade agreements that benefit everyone but Americans, torture, deceit and cover-ups.  To say the new cook got stuck with a filthy kitchen and rotten food would be an understatement. But I know (as an experienced and great cook myself) that you work with the ingredients at hand. Mixing ingenuity, creativity and purpose you can make something delicious out of the bland. In this case feed the multitude with a lot of hope and very little help.

Now back to Meet the Press with my hopes pinned on Rachel Maddow turning up the heat on the invincible cast iron skillets known as old white men. It didn’t take long to see that she was like the newly elected cook, President Obama.  Both expected to prepare gourmet food with not a hint of gourmet ingredients.  Rachel and President Obama had the same instructions to prepare a recipe for change and truth in common;

1)      White males, including the moderators, dominate the show, congress, corporations and the media. To add flavor there is a sprinkling of women and people of color. Not too much though lest the dish be strange to the right.

2)      The show and the White House have the same talking points delivered by the same old         chefs so that one would have to conclude that the same program director writes copy for all of the shows and the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats share the same agenda which is the status quo. This of course keeps the pots boiling over food burning, and what is left is for their constituents and donors only. The rest of us can go to the empty shelves of the local food bank.

3)      All of the experts that appeared with Rachel peppered and poisoned the dialogue just as they do with the White House. The experts either passed legislators, disgraced legislators, legislators with questionable ethics and/or under investigation, or people who show up Sunday after Sunday that agree and demand that the status quo remain.

4)      If Rachel or President Obama dare try and change the recipe to give more palatable information or food for thought they are not called upon by the moderator/right wing constituency, drowned out or called out, shouted down or intimidated and/or threatened.

5)      Lastly Rachel and President Obama are dealing with people who have not a twit of knowledge about cooking.  What these people do bring to the table however, are unannounced guests, lobbyists, special interests, alliances and associations with unnamed and concealed donors. Unexpected guests can ruin a perfect meal.  Wouldn’t you view these shows differently if you knew who these people represented and where they usually cooked and ate their meals?

Haven’t you considered that what you are being spoon fed by the media is not fair or balanced, objective or truthful? Nor is the kitchen at the White House staffed with a congress that is cooking for the left, independents, and progressives that elected them. Put your fork and spoon down and stop shoveling in the horse manure.  Acquaint yourself with some chefs that are mixing up digestible fare. Take your pick. National Public Radio (NPR), Democracy Now, Huffington Post, AlterNet, The Ed Show, Rachel Maddow and Rollin Martin to name a few. Taste them and see if you might push back from the table of one-sided information without indigestion and heartburn.

Over the pass six months we have been fed a consistent diet of all the things the newly elected cook in the White House has not done. Let me remind you of some of the dishes he has prepared; He signed a stimulus bill that was imperative to quiet wall street and jump start a economy on life support, He signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act aimed at eliminating wage discrimination, a bill expanding government health insurance for children, a bill that advocates for consumer against abusive credit card lending practices, a measure giving Food and Drug Administration regulatory authority over tobacco, a cash for clunkers program to save auto makers behinds, encourage the manufacture and purchase of fuel- efficient vehicles (which incidentally helps our environment) and the nomination of the third woman and first Latino on the Supreme Court.  The preparation of these dishes feeding a hungry country might not seem like much to the minority of naysayers but for a President/cook that started with no money, whining children a/k/a congress he has accomplished in six months what the last administration took eight years to destroy.

This President has much left to do in the kitchen in fact his most challenging dishes to date; Health Care Reform with a public option, green jobs for a green economy, strong international alliances, an end to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, care and support for our Veterans and most importantly a different way of doing things in Washington and in this country. He needs a few adequate cooks to help do the job are you available?

The cable networks and mainstream media seem to relish the idea that Obama’s popularity with the American public is falling and they have covered their hands with lard to insure that he fails. Is it clear to these short order cooks/media that if the chef fails so goes the kitchen/America?  Have we, the guests at the table, recognized that it is we that he is trying to feed? Do we not recognize that the rising number of hungry, lack of health care and loss of homes could be us and ours?

In conclusion, the President, our cook, needs your help to keep the country from closing down and the kitchen from burning up. If we do not stand up and support the change in the kitchen we voted for, there will be no need to pull a chair up to the kitchen table because there will be nothing left to eat. Get off of your attitude and kick some apathy. Do it now, and just maybe tomorrow we all can eat.

How much fast food can we eat, liquor should we drink, or drugs do we swallow to continue numbing ourselves to the dearth of “factual and truthful” news we get in this country?  Reality shows are competing with the reality of news networks that are reporting everything but news.  The lack of substantive news is not limited to television and includes radio and media print. The competition is for higher ratings, more sponsors and careers based on popularity versus responsible journalism.   Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia, has a word that aptly describes the type of news reporting we are getting in two words “Weasel words”.  A weasel is a small slithery mammal but the word is sometimes used to describe certain homosapiens.  According to Webster’s dictionary, weasel also “means to escape from or evade a situation or obligation.” Webster’s dictionary definition for weasel word is “the weasel’s habit of sucking the contents of an egg while leaving the shell superficially intact; a word used in order to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position.”  Weasel words are words or phrases that seemingly support statements without verifying if the source is reliable.  They give the validity of authority to a statement without giving enough information to determine if it is true.  Weasel words and the human weasels that use them don’t have a neutral point of view.  They sit at their desk and spread hearsay and spout their personal opinions. Condescendingly they pass along unsubstantiated, vague and colored words and phrases to provoke, enflame and divide.  Some weasel words used liberally throughout the news reporting community or; “They say that… Some sources claim… Critics/experts say that… It is believed… Research has shown… It is rumored that… Many people say… presumably, allegedly, arguably, supposedly, actually… the mainstream scientific community…it is claimed… studies show… it is notable… etc. etc.   Summed up, television news and its affiliates pose as information when, in fact, its value and purpose is entertainment, nothing more.  The past two weeks I purposely sat down and observed mainstream and cable news stations from A-Z.  It couldn’t be a co-incidence that the only stations I viewed that reported specific sources and names were primarily supported financially by the public and its viewers, (PBS) Public Broadcasting Stations and Link TV which broadcasts Democracy Now.  The mainstream and cable news I viewed was pitiful, self-serving, biased and repetitive.  How could the entire world be in turmoil and the news cherry picked about what we will see and hear?  Brain washing, indoctrination and propaganda seem to be the goal of current news reporting and journalism.   We should take a hard long look at how we are being manhandled and manipulated in our own country by corporations and people that own our news organizations.  Reflect on the news coverage of this past two weeks. If I dropped in from another planet I would assume that Michael Jackson, Sarah Palin, and congressional in fighting was all Americans wanted to hear about. I was disgusted then infuriated as I watched and listened to commentators, journalist and seemingly intelligent news anchors drool over the death of a pop star, (Jackson) the resignation of a governor whose only interest seem to be her own (Palin) and the daily belittling, back biting an arguing between the two political parties that run this country (Congress). What has become of us to allow the people we pay to represent and inform us to treat us like imbeciles and zombies?  Where is our outrage as we watch people, families and situations reduced to name calling, labeling and outright hate-filled and venomous rhetoric?

I am tired of it. I am tired of being told that if I don’t like it – don’t watch it or read it. That comment should be reserved for television shows and publications whose purpose is to entertain, not to inform.  I remember as a child watching the news or reading the daily newspaper with my parents because it was a source of information they trusted and relied on to stay abreast of the issues of the day. Weasel words were the exception not the rule.  I deserve to know that when I tune in or read a newspaper that I will be given enough information to draw my own conclusions and opinions. You deserve the same.  How do we change what we see and hear?  I have the following suggestions. First, let the advertisers and sponsors that monopolize news programming know that you will no longer support them or their products until they stop controlling or manipulating what is said or written.  The people that own television, radio stations and newspapers listen with their wallets. Money is all they understand, so let’s make their pockets lighter so we will get their ears.  Money is the only power outside of our vote that gives us power.  Second, write, call and e-mail your favorite television, radio or newspaper and tell them unless they stop giving us crap and passing it off as news that you will stop watching, listening or reading and then do just that immediately. Everyday that we allow this charade that masquerades as news into our homes, we contribute to another generation becoming numb to the truth around them.  We teach them by our apathy that we are powerless to demand better and thereby become better. Changing the world we live in starts with changing our own lives on the smallest most basic levels. What we allow into our minds and hearts affect how we see the world, each other and ourselves.  I don’t like what I see and I want to change it but I can’t do it alone. I need you to get aboard.  In conclusion I call on you to become involved for the sake of us all.  If not, the hatred, prejudices, self righteous, one sided news will continue to erode any sense of morality and honor we have as a nation. The fall of Rome imploded from within as the citizens danced the night away.  Are you prepared to let weasels that spout weasel words bring the walls down around us?