The Brockovich Report

Whenever I go out of the country, as exciting as it is to experience new cultures and see the sights, it is always good to be home. There are drawbacks of course--pedestrian chores pile up while you're away. Phone calls, bills, old mail, a pile of pending work that expands a little daily until you finally attack it: that prosaic stuff is gradually taken care of. Of course jet lag strikes like a ton of bricks so while you're playing catch-up, you're perky while everyone else is winding down, and lurching around like a zombie during normal active time. Or maybe--depending on how laggy that lag is--it's zombiehood fulltime, until normalcy creeps back. But after the long trip to Mumbai India, and Istanbul Turkey, well, there's no place like home.

A speaking tour can be a really breathless rush with no time to think about anything but what's going on in the moment. So an inevitable part of lag recovery/getting back to speed is catching up on the news. And let me tell you what really floored me after this trip: the negativity that is coming from every news channel I turn on, every paper I pick up, every corner of the world I am in.

All we see, all we hear is negative, negative, negative. I know the business of journalism is to report the news that people read, and because people always read the bad stuff, journalism presents that negative information flow that the market consumes--but this is ridiculous. We are listening-- and the media is ensuring that everything that we hear is negative. How about something positive? Come on journalism people. After all this time presenting Obama as the poster child of hope, don't just staple him on the wall and make him your bulls-eye for the next four years.

The press thrives on tearing down, but this is ridiculous. The LA Times leads with "Liberals not pleased with go-slow approach by Obama." And Where's the President Obama who promised to unite us?GOP Senators say Obama Off to a Bad Start This isn't even scratching the surface of the negativity.

Good God. Can we expect the man to cut taxes for 95% of Americans, cure the energy crisis, heal the economy, raise education standards, change bankruptcy law, end the war, and restore our standing in the world (etc...) overnight ?

I would like to remind everyone that we just elected someone who gives us the promise of hope. Remember, he said "It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today."

Remember, we put him in the hot seat. It took a lot of us to vote him in. And he can't do this alone. It's going to take us all.

I look at my own personal backlog of work in front of me. It looks insurmountable; but I know I can do it. And that applies to the country, too. We didn't get here overnight, and our recovery will take time. Let's give our president breathing room. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was the economy. Government wheels have always grinded slowly, in a cumbersome, clanky, make-shift sort of way--but they do turn. Let's at least give President Obama a little time to let his political WD-40 to sink in.

What or who is behind this negativity?

If I could draw cartoons, this is what I would draw:

A few fat cat CEOs walking up a steep hill. Those CEOs who don't have the forethought or vision to look on the other side, where, on that easy downhill slope they expect, where unexpectedly all the rest of us--millions and millions of us--wait in anger at being robbed, disenfranchised, victimized.

Those who have skimmed immense profit packages while millions of people in their financial custodianship have lost their homes, Home Depot's Chief Executive Robert Nardelli who retired with a $210 million package, and the Madoffs of the world, are happy that the spotlight is now on President Obama. But if we look at who stands to profit from all the negativity, is it industry? But what would there be to gain? Who gains but the media--who simply is looking for something to fill their pages. Regardless of where the blame is placed, it is the media who can help light the way with a little change of attitude.

Remember Pandora's box? You know, that mythological box of evils, all of which escaped when Pandora opened it to satisfy her curiosity--leaving trapped in the box one last entity: hope. We should never forget that trapped inside the box of all the evils that inflict the world, there is always that germinal seed of hope. I do believe that if our media is going to talk about the ills and evils of government, let's not leave hope in the box, but put her on the page too, and keep her in our hearts. Because always, in addition to the belief in better time to come, and the work and plans it will take to get there, we all need that ray of hope that lights our way.

America is a place where all things are possible.