Crap is king

You are sitting on the edge of the bed watching your wife get dressed for the party. You have been ready for an hour a she is almost ready. You are already thirty minutes late. She walks in the room, stands in front of you and asks the dreaded question. "Do these pants make my butt look big?" Hell yeah, you look like a circus bear! Can we just go now! What do you think? You are not going anywhere now. Well this is not really going to happen anywhere, It is an old joke. But what if it is the truth? Should that make you tell her? She is entitled to the truth. Of course not. It is not the right time.

There is a time and a place for everything. Having been married (to the same woman I might add) for over 20 years I could give the newbies some tips, but that is for another day. What bothers me is that as 21st century people we seem to think that we are entitled to know the absolute truth and complete story about everything. News is on twenty fours a day and a click of the mouse will instantly tell you the story, give you the images and help you with an opinion on any current topic. This is a monumental leap from the weekly smoke signals from not too awful long ago. But with this there is a cost. It has happened so quickly that we forgot to draft a code of ethics. I don't want "sugar-coating", I just want responsibility. I don't think we have any more rapists and murders than we used to, just more news coverage of where they are. Is this a good thing? I'm not sure.

The accused soldiers...did I mention accused...ok. The story about the soldiers accused of killing Afgan civilians that was on CBS news last night is a good example. Who thought that was a good idea. We are hated around the world so why dont we parade an accused criminal across the screen as an example of what we represent in our war effort. Because it sells more soap. Crap is king. What CBS (and I'm sure other networks) did was unexcusable. Guilty until proven innocent.

When I was in boot camp my company commander told me that one of the reasons my uniform, conduct and just general military bearing were important even when he was not around was because I represented him. You don't have to be military to understand this. You don't want your daughter to wear a mini skirt and a tube top to school because your friends will look at her and think of you. She represents your household. Well I hate to tell you that the national media represents you and I both in the eyes of the rest of the world. We used to ride horses and rope cows while singing from the saddle, and now we burn Korans and kill foreign civilians. Sterotyping, as we all know, is wrong.

In my mind this issue has nothing to do with politics. We, as a country, are a team. We get a new coach and quarterback every few years, but we are still the same team. The rest of the world sees us as such. I bet you couldn't find an Afgani that has ever heard of Nancy Pelosi. We can fight as hard as we want to amongst ourselves, and back seat drive, but to the rest of the world we must at least give the illusion of a united front. A team. The fire is burning just fine, let's not throw more gas on it.

You may not have a family member in the military but if you have a son or daughter at college they are in danger. If you decide to go to New York to look at Christmas lights you are in danger. How long before this threat moves to small town America? War, for most people, is "something you can't see from my house". Theory. A chess game. Those that have loved ones in harms way can certainly see it from their house. When you allow the rest of the world to assume we, as Americans, are like the criminals displayed on the news we will have real problems. The "information age" has to develop a concious.