Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass.... On one of the Sunday morning talking head shows this morning someone was wondering if any newscaster had the power to change the direction of the war as Walter Cronkite did when President Johnson learned Cronkite no longer supported the war in Viet-Nam, believing that if Cronkite was lost then so was mainstream America. The answer was that America's news viewers were too fragmented in their viewing habits to allow the existence of another 'Cronkite', meaning too many sources of news were now available Via cable and internet etc. and that had diluted the power of any network news anchor preventing any one from getting the stature powerful enough to change much of anything. The word 'fragmented' is an interesting descriptive term and can cover lot's of things about us and the world we live in. First off, our families have been fragmented, divorce courts and incidence of single parenting proving that point. But fragmentation goes much farther than that. When choices are widened, fragmentation occurs, and there's a price to pay for that. Automobile manufacturers have been fragmented with the importation of foreign made vehicles, now the American who builds them isn't feeling very secure. Health care has been fragmented so much that there's more Doctors and supporting personel, but less care available. Communication has been fragmented so badly that it's very hard to speak to anyone, even your friends without talking to a machine of somekind at least twice before speaking to a real person. The power generated by each of us in our daily life by the clothes we wear, the jobs we work at, the politics we profess to, the religions we believe in, the cars we drive, the doctors we visit, the schools we attend and the dreams we have is fragmented and diluted until direction is very hard to define. This is a world not comfortable for anyone over 50 years old. It is also a world not very promising to anyone under 50 years old. Fragmented...... that's a hell of a word.............