TheNextReport

Anna Nicole – Super-Size Me. Stop the presses! Anna Nicole has been embalmed. Americans obsessed with the wall-to-wall news coverage of the trial that will decide who gets custody of the Texas playmate's body can be content that the object of our unhealthy hunger will be preserved. The story reminds us that we live in a culture where size truly matters, often to the point of the grotesque — whether it is maxi-fries, monster trucks, giant slurpees, or Texas tits. Americans are psychopathic consumers who are easily fascinated by what media programmers jiggle before us. It is an unfortunate truth that we rarely bother to stop and evaluate what precisely we are ingesting. For several weeks, US television viewers have been able to tune in their cable news channels and watch the spectacle of dueling claims of paternity, trailer-trash testimony and even a weeping judge. Alive or dead, the media fascination with Anna Nicole's body appears to be an apt reflection of the seemingly contag...

Don't Knock Barack? I would really like to see Barack Obama win the presidency – though I know it will never happen. I will admit I am one of those who have been inspired by Mr. Obama's appearance on the American political scene. There are many, however, who are seriously questioning whether the Illinois senator would truly be a good choice for the Democrats, whether he would be, in a word, electable. One might assume that the person who would be deemed most appropriate to hold the office of the presidency would have to possess the best qualifications to match the following job description: “Wanted: Experienced executive type, learned in American political history, demonstrated mastery of current affairs; a command of economics, international and domestic trade relations, business and labor policies; a thorough understanding of foreign relations and the dynamics of diplomacy; familiarity with military tactics, strategy and weaponry; prefer someone skilled with crisis managemen...

The Urge to Surge The debate over whether to increase the number of troops in Iraq has been raging ever since the Iraq Study Group issued its report a few weeks ago recommending a temporary surge in troop levels to help control the deteriorating situation. The Bush administration now seems to cling to a desperate belief that adding 15-30,000 more troops to the Iraq theatre could at last bring down the curtain of the conflict with some measure of applause from the American public. Reports that the Joint Chiefs of Staff would be opposed to such an increase were summarily denied by the White House. Mr. Bush, who has publicly stated numerous times that his decision making in Iraq depends on the advice of his generals, would be in a difficult position if the reports about the Chiefs are accurate. The election of a new Congress with a Democratic majority has been seen by most observers as a clear indication that the majority of Americans are opposed to extending the conflict in Iraq. Polls...

Responsibility in Washington Dennis Hastert said he accepted full responsibility for the Mark Foley scandal. Donald Rumsfeld said he accepted full responsibility for the Abu Grahib scandal. George Bush said he accepted full responsibility for Katrina, Dubai Ports, the record deficit and the war in Iraq. These statements beg the question: just what does accepting responsibility mean in our nation’s capital? After six long years of the Bush administration, the answer would seem obvious. Accepting responsibility in Washington means getting away with murder. Other than finally giving the boot to Donald Rumsfeld, President Bush, who has never held anyone in his administration truly accountable for the failures of his office, still appears unwilling to take the kind of corrective measures one might expect after seeing his party lose the Congress. By any standard, the Bush Administration has clearly been one of the most irresponsible regimes in the nation’s history. The president and party t...

Reflections on John Coltrane’s 80th birthday. John Coltrane was a poet without words, a holy man without need of a holy book. He rewrote the text every time he played and it was all revelation. In Coltrane's sound, one can hear the glory of the human drama, the story of evolving consciousness and humanity's unique capacity to consciously and deliberately participate in the process. Coltrane's sound was an acknowledgement of our divine mission as human beings, a hymn to understanding our identity, and a recognition of the oddity of being animal, human and god-like all at once. Coltrane first discovered multi-phonic sound -- the ability to play more than one note at a time -- sometime in 1957 when he played with Thelonius Monk. Somewhat a stranger to rational thought, Monk advanced the evolution of jazz by persistently refusing to acknowledge the physical limitations of the keyboard and the structural limitations of Western music. Coltrane would set off on a path that would...

SO LONG STEVO Stevo is gone. The crocodile hunter with the heart of a lion, who thrilled us by confronting some of nature's most deadly creatures, met his end on the tip of a sting ray's tail. His accidental death shocked many. As a television personality he had appeared eminently masterful in the ways of the natural order. He couldn’t have felt more at ease snorkeling the calm waters of the Australian reef -- it was common knowledge that sting rays weren't dangerous. Everyone loved Stevo for his courage; a courage born of an intimate understanding of the animals with whom we share the planet. Steve Irwin befriended the natural world, gloried in its treacherous beauty, and helped us to understand our place within it. Overcoming the instinct to run from danger, Stevo encountered it personally and deliberately. In cozying up to poisonous snakes, toxic lizards, hungry crocs and other fearsome creatures, he helped us to visualize our own animal nature and ponder the evolvin...

CABLE NEWS - LEBANON MAKES WAY FOR JONBENET You have to hand it to the people that make the decisions at CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. They are so certain of the rank stupidity of the American viewing public that they seamlessly shifted their wall-to-wall coverage of the Israeli-Lebanese war to all JonBenet all the time. It is a well known fact that the tradition of insightful and in-depth broadcast journalism that began with Edward R. Murrow has been changed by corporate ownership primarily concerned with ratings and the bottom line. In the struggle for minds and eyeballs, the surrender of broadcast news to the realities of the marketplace is a phenomenon that Murrow himself struggled with towards the end of his career and is a problem that will continue to exist as long as there is commercial television. Americans have become so inured to the watering down of hard news programming and thoughtful analysis that they have come to expect little from their broadcasters. As an avid news consume...