Journalists are doing what they can do.

With a shrug and a smirk, the woman from the LA Times response to criticism of the business media on News Hour, PBS. Great defense. Though some don't think that's enough.

Thanks, in large part to Jon Stewart, the world today (finally?) has been talking about what role the business media play in the economy and to what extent are they culpable for the mess we're in.

The breathtaking interview (more like debate... really a bitch slap) last night with Jim Cramer and Jon Stewart on the Daily Show was one of the peak moments so far in the aftermath of this money-mire. You have to give Cramer credit for diving head long into the home turf of a pissed-off Jon Stewart.

Of course, Jimmy was no match for Jon. But what got me was the attitude of disgust with which Stewart seemed possessed: he wasn't just showing Cramer as a fool, all too easy for the master, but chided him like a child who refuses to take serious his irresponsibility and lacks the gravitas of the situation.

"It's not a fucking game!"

"They burned the fucking house down, then walked away rich."

"This song ain't about you."

I haven't seen Stewart like this since after 9-11, when he broke out of his normal role (a good one to start) and helped to make TV something more than entertainment or advertising or even education. He was directly linked to us, the audience--at least here, in NY. He was living in the same world, with the same things going on around him. He didn't laugh because we weren't. He got choked up because we did, too. He was confused and scared and pissed--kind of like he was last night--and so we're we.

She Told You! Hm!

Where is the great Arab culture we have learned about in school? Why don't they [other Arab nations] help us [Palestinians]? Shame on them!

- displaced Palestinian mother in Gaza recently on World Focus, PBS

Revelation: Macabees Revisited (or: Festival of Slights)

Watching BBC World on PBS the other day; and to my shock, discomposure and disorientation, I was shown something I had heard and read about but not ever seen shown on TV: kippah'd and taleet wearing Israeli-jewish settlers living on Palestinian land (according to internationally recognized borders), throwing rocks down a hill onto non-violent Palestinian civilians in the town below--just because.

(Plainly, there's not much to do out in the desert. Things can get a bit tense with one group on the top of the hill praying and bobbing and swaying, and the other at the bottom kneeling and bowing and praying... and praying and bowing and squatting and kneeling! Oh my!)