BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

Cronkite Through A Child's Eyes By David Kurtz As a two-year-old, so the family story goes, I would ask my mother to hang a map on the wall behind me while I shuffled papers in my small hands at a desk, pretending to be Walter Cronkite. Around that same time, maybe a little later, when I was visiting my grandfather's farm implement store in the Bible Belt, one of the mechanics in the shop was left dumbfounded when he asked me what my favorite TV show was, and I said, apparently without hesitation, "Walter Cronkite." I'll stipulate that those anecdotes, which I have no direct memory of, probably say more about what a hopelessly geeky kid I was than they do about Cronkite or his influence. But it does give you a sense of his place in the American home in the 1970s. My own memories of Cronkite, who went off the air when I was 11 years old, are tangled up with memories of my dad: the excitement of him coming home from work, the smell of his pipe (Cronkite smoked one, ...

My handful of readers are, I'm sure, tired of me comparing terrorists to abusers. For everyone else - I have to put these articles out there. One after the other. Yes, I do see abuse around every corner. Especially when it comes to these animals. You'll get it. Honest, you will. Now if people like Obama & Biden would just answer the clue phone. TWO LOOKS AT THE CRITERIA FOR THOUGHT REFORM Dr. Robert J. Lifton's 8 Criteria for Thought Reform 1. Environmental Control - The purposeful limitation of all forms of communication with the outside world. 2. Mystical Manipulation - Extensive personal manipulation is used to provoke specific patterns of behavior and emotion in such a way that they will appear to have arisen spontaneously. 3. The Demand for Purity - The world is sharply divided between pure and impure with the group in the role of ultimate judge. Normal urges and tendencies become sins, and shame is used to control. 4. Confession - Carried beyo...

BLOG BULLIES & BLOG SNOBS - PART II Two months ago I blogged about the universal blogger experience of Blog Bullies & Blog Snobs. True to the phenomena - it has cycled around again. Last week I was treated to a slew of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist messages on this blog. I simply deleted them. I don't do HATE. I can deal with debate and disagreement but I won't promote hate. This is my blog so I can do what I like on it. Of course, we have those who can't take that. So they hack your blog. Mine was hacked this past May. Then there's the people my buddy Keli Ata wrote about - those who go to aggregators where you may be and rate your posts 0 or 1 (out of a possible 5). My rule is - if you can't give a 5 or 4 or say something nice... move on - it's a big blogosphere. ( Keli Ata, btw - has a great post about helping persecuted Journalist Bloggers that everyone should see ) I simply don't have the ego involvement with blogging some do. I blog becau...

SAFER? WITH BUSH? NAAH! In the Name of Objectivity, Media Clouds the Reality of Terror Report by Arianna Huffington Here we go again. Another devastating report being spun as a mixed bag -- with the spin dutifully echoed by the media. Another administration brain tumor being "offset" by shiny hair. This time it's the new National Intelligence Estimate report on the threat of terrorist violence against America that is being given the utterly ludicrous "on the one hand... and on the other hand" treatment. A prime example of this came on AC 360, where Anderson Cooper reported that "both sides in the Iraq debate are spinning [the NIE] to support their case." To prove his point, he rolled a video clip of Bush making the case for staying the course in Iraq. Back on camera, he said, "The Democrats, of course, see it differently." "Of course" they do. Not because there are always two sides to every issue, but because the facts are different...