Mama Said

It was 1961. I remember hearing the Shirelles singing “Mama Said” on my newly purchased one-transistor radio. It had a pull-out antenna and once in a great while I could hear CKLW out of Canada at my parents’ home in Akron, Ohio.

When "Mama Said" ended, CK ran a commercial or two and then the newsguy came on.

“Someday I’m going to be a newsguy, too,” I thought.

I did achieve that goal. By the time I was 20 I was working the early morning shift at a Cleveland fm station reading the news.

Radio, TV and print journalism seemed like a legitimate thing in 1970. People had faith in it. After all, it was the Cronkite era. We believed we were hearing truth and reading facts.

Today, things have changed. According to a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute study, faith in journalism is at an all time low, ranking next to faith in Congress, about 6 percent. That’s only 6 percent of those surveyed said that they have a lot of confidence in the media. We already knew that about Congress.

I wonder what my hero, Walter Cronkite would say.

For me, I place my confidence level at the 0% level – meaning I now seriously question everything I hear, see or read from the “legitimate” media. "That’s not all bad," I can hear Cronkite say. Because no matter what we are reading, seeing or hearing, we should always ask more questions in order to ferret out something that resembles “truth”. - RB

This Belief Made the USA

On September 12, 1960 a candidate for the presidency of the United States gave a speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association of Protestant Clergymen in affirmation of the historic American belief in separation of church and state. A belief which he as a Catholic-American, I underscore, put his life in jeopardy to uphold while serving in the Navy during World War II.

Recently, another candidate for the presidency, Sen. Rick Santorum, stated that he “almost threw up” after reading Sen. John F. Kennedy’s comments.

Here is what Sen. Kennedy said that day:

Sen. Santorum does not agree with the view that the government must not endorse one religious faith over another. That’s why I, a Presbyterian by family tradition, believe a vote for Sen. Santorum would be a mistake.

In my book if you want to be the representative of the people of the United States, then you damn well need to represent all of us, not just those who happen to agree with your particular religious view.