Back off, Merry's ranting...

I usually try to keep my blog free of any negative stuff but I just can't keep my typing fingers still anymore.

I have avoided the whole VA Tech story. I don't know the name of the murderer, I don't know the names of the victims. I don't know exactly what happened. I consider grief a private thing and if anyone ever stuck a camera in my face while I was grieving, no matter how newsworthy, he'd probably be picking up his teeth with a broken arm if he could walk on his broken legs. (I use the male gender identification for expediency).

Last night while down bothering the parents and eating dinner, they had the TV on and I caught the NBC news anchor (sorry, don't know his name) giving a stumbling verbal non-apology for broadcasting the murderer's manifesto or something. He really needs a new writer. Seriously - if that little speech was planned, that made it even worse. The mealy-mouthed diatribe sounded so completely insincere that if a lie detector was attached to him it'd probably be going off the chart...or graph or whatever lie detectors do that show the person is lying.

Second, I am tired of the airtime given this MURDERER. MURDERER, people. This guy killed a bunch of people and the nation is watching in slack-jawed drooling fascination while they dissect his life and tell us all about his mental abberations and social negativity. What about the kids he MURDERED? Oh, wait. They're dead. As peripherals to the MURDERER's story, of course, someone is doing a tribute where people can sign online and leave condolences or something. But wasting good prime airtime on dead college students when you've got a dead MURDERER to draw the crowd? For four days...FOUR days, this MURDERER has held the newscasters hostage. Thank God I have a choice and can turn the TV off.

I wish there were hard-hitting journalists who go digging for the truth instead of talking heads who speculate, titillate, grandstand and then report their OPINIONS as news.

If there must be reports on crises in our country - here's a few that my buddies and I would like to see.

I wish someone would do a complete story on the crisis with our military vets. I know many of the military who joined for the benefits offered. They went off to war and did their part...and now that they're back and retired, the benefits they were supposed to have are now cut or gone or they're required to pay for what was promised as free. They kept their end of the bargain. The American Congress did not. A week-long mini-series profiling government promises and vets lost in the system would be enlightening.

I'd like to see a hard-hitting report on the elderly. I want to know why they often live in squalor while MURDERERS, RAPISTS and KIDNAPPERS are given a roof over their heads, three square meals a day, the right for the American taxpayers to pay for prisoners' college education, television, exercise rooms and other amenities. Prison is supposed to be HARSH, not a country club. And the elderly who paid into the system are treated as lepers while people who commit crimes get to do time...with luxuries many of our elderly can't even afford.

I wish there were newscasters who would doing a glaring expose on the debacle of foster care and CAPTA and the horrors that has caused. CAPTA allows the government to take a child from his home for nothing more than a SUSPICION. According to the American Constitution this is illegal. There has to be proof, a right to face the accuser and speedy trial. The CHILDREN are given none of these things. Thousands of children are languishing in governmental care (and I use that term loosely), living in squalid conditions with abuse rates 4 times the national average in foster care and 10 times the national average in group homes and our government just keeps picking up kids to service the bureaucracy they created to "protect" the kids. The government is NOT a good parent. Thousands of children are missing and more than twice the number of children are dead within the system than the national average of children in homes with real parents. This statistic is alarming and worth further study.

I wish there were newscasters who would do a weeklong series on healthcare and the shortage of nurses. Maybe they could skew it to the proud traditions that nurses served, from Molly Pitcher, Florence Nightengale, Clara Barton and Martha Ballard. Everyone knows that Mary Todd Lincoln's mental health was fragile, but does anyone know she was a Civil War nurse of some fortitude and often helped clean and bind the wounds of the soldiers? To me and the severely deficient health profession, maybe broadcasting a proud tradition will encourage young college students who aren't sure of their life's work to follow in the footsteps of great women and men and help beef up American healthcare.

And another thing, while I'm on this rant. About those women and children left in limbo after divorces. The working husband keeps his healthcare and can even add his new wife to it...but the former non-working wife is left without healthcare or benefits of any kind. Where's the justice in that? She worked in the HOME all those years but suddenly she's not entitled to anything. But the husband can just continue on with his life...no harm, no foul. Seems to me in cases of divorce, the insurance company should carry the former wife or else the husband should continue paying until she gets insurance of her own.

I think news stories about small slices of American life or American people is great. Profiling people of talent, courage and simple every day happenings is fine. But don't make it the lead story.

To me, a news show would begin with global affairs that affect Americans, then go to local affairs that affect Americans (and I don't mean titilating stuff about pop stars and murderers) and then move into hard-hitting journalist stories of potential affairs that might affect Americans.

The yellow journalism of today is all about who does the most shocking thing to get on the news.

American broadcasters need to go back to their roots. They need to report things that can affect EVERY American...not articles that only affect the Hollywood crowd. And they need to allow people to grieve in private, not stick a camera in the faces of the survivors to boost ratings.

(end of rant) For now.