...and Glenn Beck is a dick.

I'm in the mood for a little rant. Let's just say I'm a little pissed that no one seems to be paying attention in a time when paying attention seems like a really good idea.

The government, as usual, is a great place to start. Partisanship is a publicist's dream. Constituents?, who cares what constituents want after the vote is in? Those worries come with the next election cycle, right now it's time to land a book deal. And getting some solid network or cable face time means every Senator and Congressman who remembers the name of their home precinct is conducting town halls, where, surprise, the only TV coverage is of shouting, fisticuffs and hate mongering. Excuse me Senator, it's your publicist tweeting to remind you that any press is good press.

Recovery programs? Sure, it seemed like the thing to do. Getting old, bad gas milage cars off the road to spur some new car sales? Solid. Cash for Clunkers is signed and out the door when... wait, Congress starts to question why they're doing what they've already approved. A little discussion, a little camera stealing on the steps of the capitol and they add half again to the funds available. There's adding courage to your convictions! Personally we like the program, but it's a little unnerving to think government programs aren't really approved until Washington reads tomorrow's headlines. That is, unless there's some influence to peddle.

How about Space, the never-final-budget frontier? NASA fights for the money to float (get it?) a space plan that it gets approved and then, years later, admits that the funding they fought for can't hope to pay for the plan they've sold. They've got the brains to put a nearly completed space station, a space shuttle and some 13 astronauts in orbit as I write, but can't figure out how to keep it running much more than another 5 or 10 years. That's after some 100 billion or so in investment. Was I the only one who thought the International Space Station was supposed to be more than a temporary clubhouse for the geeky physicist kids?

Now there's an entirely new "moon" initiative underway that comes complete with the development of two new rockets, one of which no one seems really sure they want or need. What to do? For starters, three of our most respected NASA veterans, men who flew the first moon landing mission, go up to tell the President that we should change our focus entirely. Maybe they could have spoken up before that new rocket got built? Ahh... just a letter guys? Something? Before swapping our focus to Mars, maybe we should focus on a little well laid out planning? Measure twice, cut once? Seems to work well for most carpenters I know.

Onto the bastion of uninformed rhetoric and misinformation, cable news. Americans across the country buy into a 24 hour news cycle that, at its best, can only agree that the passing of a broadcasting great like Walter Cronkite harkens to an era of news coverage renown for accuracy and integrity. Click back to today's news and the coverage is provided by highly compensated pundits, reckless interviewers, make-up models, runaway egos and stand-up comics, all touted as journalists. Forget accuracy, let's just get through the big words in the next line of copy.

In the meantime, these one-step-ahead-of animatronic talking heads augment their personal worth by using their privileged positions to popularize books, speaking tours and assorted paraphernalia. Creating comic book personas to exaggerate their points of view, they cater to the dense and belligerent, who themselves seem incapable of examining an issue with even the slightest hope of finding or supporting an opinion of their own. Followers, who read what they are told to read, make of it only what they are constantly being fed, while effectively unable to correctly breakdown a single sentence. From the ridiculous to the absurd, no matter - the President doesn't have a U.S. birth certificate, he is a muslim, torture is effective interrogation, whatever they say. World and U.S. news as might be delivered on a cable shopping channel.

Which brings me to the inexcusable. The Fox Nation "Tea Party Express", a "news" network that is organizing, promoting and merchandising a nationwide speaking tour to hype its on-air personalities and shamelessly labeling a marketing gimmick as "grassroots patriotism". Grassroots. As if YOU thought of it. As if YOUR COMMUNITY has been involved in some kind of planning and open debate. As if YOU are printing the t-shirts and the placards and getting YOUR neighbors to take the soapbox.

Wait, and how about this? TV talking heads seeking to radicalize the debate on gun control by encouraging, and in some cases advocating, the open carrying of loaded weapons to public political rallies, even presidential town halls, while the actual "issue" at hand is a pursuit of a national discussion on HEALTH CARE! Irresponsible is the first word in a sentence that ends with horrific.

Hello? Anybody out there? With a brain, that is? A conscience? Common sense? I'm sorry, am I asking too much?

This all amounts to a Mount Rushmore size "What the F*!K?" in a year to be forever known for an avalanche of "what the f*!ks". But there is a solution.

Read. Don't browse, don't glance, peruse. Read the detail. Read for deeper meaning. Read to sense the author's point of view and then read a contrary opinion. If you're getting your news from cable, it's better than house odds in a slot parlor that you aren't getting any news at all. If you care so little that you're listening to the opinion of someone trying to sell you a stand-up comedy show ticket & a coffee mug in the guise of patriotism, go ahead and listen. But please God, don't participate outside of anything that happens between your two logic-dead ears.

This is not a time to be confusing hucksterism with patriotism. This is not a time for passing decisions without grasping the fine print. This is not a time to be cultivating racism and hatred as desirable audience demographics.

There is not now, nor ever, a time when news and public debate can be allowed to be commandeered as entertainment. Objective journalism does not spring from the proving ground of stand-up comedy. Marketing cannot be allowed to become the bedrock of public debate. Journalistic integrity has never been synonymous with personal agendas.

Truth comes unfiltered.

Trust comes with proven credibility.

Honesty is a decision.

Authority is granted with constant and intelligent questioning.

Opinions have meaning when they are formed by curious minds.

Curiosity leads to enlightenment by never ceasing.

Don't take my word for it. Inform yourself.

Oh, and Glenn Beck is a dick.

By the way, the screenshots from the official websites of "Fox Nation" and Mr. Beck are real and were taken on the day of publishing this post. Only a 3rd party advertising banner was deleted from Mr. Beck's header. Mr. Beck, himself, calls his "act" comedy. We bow to his opinion in that matter alone.