(quote) "Where once a single front page was called for, we now have stations running 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, needing copy (or its video equivalent) to fill it. And it has to be copy that will attract viewers to attract sponsors in turn.

The one *bright shining exception* is C-Span and Brian Lamb has long replaced Walter Cronkite's former commodity as "the most trusted newscaster in America".

C-Span covers *all* opinions *uninterrupted* and without any network spin pure WYSIWYG coverage with *no* commercial sponsors to pander to. It is gets zero tax dollars directly ,but is financed by all of the commercial cable channels which means all cable subscribers. C-Span covers the range from the "Reparations for Slavery" rally to the every annual "National Rifle Assocaiton's 2nd Amendment Confabs" as well as the ultra-consevative radical "League of the South" making the cae for secession to Noam chomsky lectures and evrything inbetween.

They not only cover both house of congress on floor debates, but many of the key Congressional Investigations and Hearings; fr'instance the various Corproate Accountability hearings involving Enron,Arthur Anderson ,Global Crossing, and Worldcom. I was became a regular C-Span viewer ever since the uniterrupted, un-spun coverage of the "Iran contra Heraings" in 1987 and said goodbye forever to network news for 15 years now and never looked back . No need.

C-Span also covers the various Parliments of the U.K. ,Ireland, Canada,Austrailia as well as the EU in Brussels ,France , Isreal''s Knesset ,and even Russia's and China's gov't gatherings when key issues are in debate or the some grand Pubah is making a speech about some next great leap forward.

Add to this press conferences at any embassy when an issue warrants a public statement by the countries in question.

Add to this all manor of think tank conferences and lectures from Ralph Nadrer's Public Citizen to the CATO Institute and all shades inbetween; Council on Foreign Relations , American Enterprise Institute ,Brookings ,Center for Strategic & International Studies, Urban Institute, Greenpeace , World Economic Forum in Davos.

Add to this one of C-span's channels devoting the entire weekend to broadcasting lectures and interviews with authors discussing their predominantly *non-fiction* books ( history, biography, political scince, etc. )

So to just dismiss T.V. for all the *usual reasons* as the common excuse or writing of T.V. altogether is a kind laziness or even a kind of insular arrogance of *isolationism* not wanting or caring to know more than what I can see out my window, what I read in the Bible or Talmud or Quran or Upanishads or Book of Mormon,Scientology , Necronomicon ,Jedi or whathave you, or whatever I hear from folks I know.

I'm sorry , but this is the 21st century and the now *quaint* fiction of some idyllic self-imposed selectively aboriginal purity in a "what I don't know won't hurt me" atitude just ain't gonna cut it anymore.

So regardless of the followers of the Church of the Forrest Gumpites , Ignorance no longer translates as innocence. To choose to not know when so much alternative sources are avaialble is to try and absolve oneself of participation.

Put plainly ,to those of any spiritual tradition ,try and conront yer maker with " I didn't know " and consider how that will fly.......or not.