Oh boy!

Uncle Walter (Cronkite, not Disney) was heard utter “oh boy” when the first man set foot on the moon.

Besides his tears when pronouncing President Kennedy was dead, W.C. rarely showed “subjectivity” on air.

When that “on air” red light is on, journalists are supposed to deliver the news (and Walter Cronkite also delivered his newspapers in his neighborhood route) not influencing it.

40 years later, we see a reunion in space between International space station and the Endeavour team.

Transistor TV are now replaced by Net TV. And the network TV audience itself shrinks from the day of the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show (even with concert on top of the Marquee to push the product, Dave managed to get three million to watch the show, down from 73 million in the days of Ed Sullivan).

We reminisce the old days, or we look back and understand (Kierkegaard).  40 years ago or today, we all need to say a prayer for  “on earth as it is in heaven”, space walk or on-the-road-to-Woodstock walk, Sullivan or Letterman, Walt Disney or Walt(er) Cronkite.

A generation living in denial, with material possession its chief distraction.

Always asking for the changing of the guards, yet leaving old policies intact.

Maybe I am ignorant, but for the past few years, I feel like I have been played, along with billions of others.

The dollar is up, the dollar is down. Gold is up, gold is down. Oil price is up, oil price is down (after being sold and resold 27 times to get to the pump).

One thing I also notice. While the transmission speed gets much faster, and we have an abundant choices of cable channels to choose from, I am not sure we are more knowledgeable today than 40 years ago. I am not sure we are more connected than we were 40 years ago (watching the concert behind the barricade on Broadway is not the same as sitting shirtless on the grass in upstate NY). And certainly, generation Y doesn’t grow up trusting corporate America

as much. It’s good to know W.C. bounced around from (media) market to market on his way up, paying his due. He belonged to the Greatest Generation, a disciple of Ed Murrow and the good old radio days (jitter bug, anybody?)

Newscasters back then carried with them an aura, an unmatched authenticity (derivative power) knowing that there was a credible news organization behind them, and the multiple layers of editor who had fact- checked everything he said on air.

America needs to trust someone. That someone has now gone. We are now living in a Super Walmart of ideas and our time-money budget is quite limited. Those who are cleverest captures our eye balls. Might not be the best news source though. Oh boy! It used to be Big3Tube. Now it’s YouTube. No more “let’s twist again”, because I am busy “twittering”.