A small rant about CNN

I have almost entirely ceased watching CNN; now I go into the library and work or play while I listen to it off and on. The problem is that when I watch it, I get so upset that I talk (or shout) back, and this disturbs my husband's enjoyment and understanding of the news.

Part of my reasoning is below, in an e-mail I just sent CNN/a.m. What do you think of how the news is reported today?

[Dear CNN:] Re Kiran Chetry, et al.

True journalists don't comment on the news, they simply report it.

I don't want to know how your gorgeous Iranian reporter or your excitable but dignified-looking black male feel about the news items on their show; this isn't about them, it's about the news. And when your reporters do go, "What's that about?" it's always with some childish, Liberal, PC or Socialist slant. America needs Edward R. Murrow or the equivalent in times like these, not the Mickey Mouse Club and Annette Funicello.

They may be fashionable, but it's not reporting. If they want to be stars, send them to the soaps. Please: I don't watch the soaps, but I bet they could use all that acting and makeup talent.

When I turn on CNN, I want to see serious news, not a local coffee club (check out that dress! that Botox! That dental work —the glare from those teeth!) show. These days only the BBC and one local channel are getting it right.

Please go back to being the enviable Cable News Network, and quit with the Comedy, New Dealers and Nitwits.

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All that said, I happened to overhear their "Quick Vote of the Day" — viewers were asked whether the guy with the GETOSAMA license plate (which might be offensive to some) should be forced to give it back. I went and voted No, but then I wrote to am@cnn.com with the subject: The Right Not to be Offended

The body text read, "Does not exist. The right to Freedom of Speech does. What doesn't the State or the DMV understand?"

And then I pointed out, "Speaking of Free Speech, check out how S 1959 and HB 1955, "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007," eviscerates it.

If you ever decide to return from infotainment to journalism, and should you do so before these bills are passed and it's too late, you might warn the American public that the First Amendment is about to be repealed. Maybe you could even help stop these bills' passage; doing so could very possibly save your own industry, if not your job. What will the Administration need with perky infotainers when it controls everything said?"

And I'll be damned if Kiran Chetry didn't read the quip first graf aloud and quote me by name, not 10 minutes after I hit "send." She called my e-mail "interesting." (Wow. So that's what 15 seconds of fame feels like. Sumbitch.)

By pouncing on and repeating only the sound bite and ignoring the serious news in it, the perky infotainer proved my point using my e-mail. I'd lay you odds the director realized it right after she did it.

"In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous." -- Robert G. Ingersoll