Musings on the Importance of “Tone”
America is an amazing country. Yes we have our share of problems, but by and large we have a good thing going and a lot to be proud of, particularly in terms of our political process. There are few times where the unique qualities of our democratic system are more front and center than during Presidential election season. Now I am a self-confessed political junkie, and TIVO has enabled me to watch up to 5-6 different news programs a night sans ads (bless you TIVO) to get all sides of the day’s events: NBC for big national headlines, BBC for global perspective, Chris Matthews for political commentary, Jim Lehrer to dive deeper into policy issues, Bill O’Reilly to see what the right wingers are saying, etc. The media is in full swing now covering an election that may be the most important in many generations in terms of the myriad serious issues we face ranging from global warming to terrorism to health care to immigration. As the ancient Chinese proverb goes “May you live in interesting times.” We certainly do.
