Heroes and Villians

In the news, upstanding people standing up…

Jimmy Carter becomes one of my heroes for the Nth time. In this opinion piece he wrote for The Age, the 60-year member and Deacon formally cuts his ties to the Southern Baptist Convention — which would be kind of a big deal anyway, except that he did it because of how the Church (and Christianity as a whole) has treated and continues to treat women.  I was floored.  Also, I welcome another ex-Christian for equality to the fold — I beat Mr. Carter to the punch by seventeen years, but since he’s a guy (and an awesome one at that), I won’t hold it against him.  ;)

…And upstanding people laying down…

Walter Cronkite, emblem of public trust, dies. Will his style of courageous, high-quality, human-centric reporting (which a Google search will soak you in; but here are some great blog-posts he wrote on powerful topics) die with him?   Writer Dan Abrams puts it very well, I think:

…[S]howing one’s respect for Walter Cronkite also means paying homage to what the Cronkite name has come to represent — a time when it would have been unthinkable to cover Michael Jackson’s death day after day. When the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would still be front and center rather than the vicissitudes of the hottest reality show. As some in media speak wistfully about the Cronkite days, they are also making decisions that would make Cronkite cringe. To watch a rerun of a Cronkite news program today is to see something more akin to a current PBS broadcast than much of what appears on network news.

…And presumably-upstanding people failing to stand up, yet again:

Funny and sad at the same time…I’ve been listening to NPR’s coverage of the health-care reform efforts with my wincing-face on, because it shocks me how much insurance company ass they’re kissing.  I mean, a little is one thing — you expect a public broadcast in money-uber-alles America to be wussy about attacking wealthy corporations, I guess.  But this crap is ridiculous…a week ago I heard, “So what is the cause of America’s health care woes?  Is it hospitals?  Doctors?  On All Things Considered we consider the question:  Could the patients actually be the problem?” No mention of the possibility of insurance companies sucking [CENSORED] at all.  Noooo, surely it couldn’t be that.  I think I screamed at the radio so hard I scared the lady in a car next to me.

And then today, the announcer mentions that when they recently polled NPR listeners about what the problem with health care was, the answer was overwhelmingly that the problem was the insurance companies.  AND SHE SOUNDED SURPRISED, in this genuine chirpy little Squirrel-Girl way.  “Omg!  Can you believe it?  The very idea!”

So, I got irritated enough to try hunting around for some mention of these incidents, and Google turns up an article titled “NPR Health Care Reform “Debate” Needs Second Opinion”.  And this article is hilarious, and here’s why.  This is the main sentence, early in:

But on the healthcare issue, NPR‘s point-counterpoint team are working for the same side–the side of the health insurance industry and healthcare companies who have a strong interest in preventing any meaningful healthcare reform.

…And actually I read quite a ways further down before it clicked with me that this was an article from 1994.

So at least I guess I know where we stand, NPR, with you and health care.  I guess once a news organization is unfaithful, you can pretty much bet that it will be again.  (Is that what Walter Cronkite would have said?)

*sheesh*

P.S. Though maybe NPR deserves a second chance…they seem to be running a story on ATC later today about the propaganda efforts by the insurance industry to influence the reform…the word “lies” was even used!  So we’ll see; if they can actually throw a punch or two, there’s hope.