Behind the Headlines

“With concerns about the world getting warmer, the people thought they were just being rewarded - now we can swim any day in November…”
Ahh, global warming. It’s slightly difficult to blog about, because separate from the political firestorm, it’s snowing outside right now.

Sunday, I was asked this question: “Hey Steph, when you become a reporter do they make you take the oath or is it voluntary?”

My dad was doing the asking. When I inquired what oath that is, he retorted, “the one apparently all members of the media make to protect and serve the agenda of the liberals…” so on and so forth.

Yep. My dad is a conservative. He loves watching The Factor, but would never wear a fleece advertising that fact (you know who you are). Something else about my dad is that he’s fairly quiet and reserved, though cobra-like in debate, with pointed questions.

Sigh. Since it was Easter, since there was a room full of people and since I was hungry, I sarcastically conceded. Oh, yeah, they make us sign it and then we get sworn in. It’s like the Hippocratic oath Doctors take, but with a clear agenda and political bias. Then I asked him if global warming was still fake. This is a particular sticking point for my dad when it comes to liberals and doesn’t necessarily indicate my views on the subject. It was just a way of capturing one’s goat.

On Monday, I covered the green building and environmental town hall at the IHM, featuring Dingell. The talk inevitably turned to Al Gore and global warming. Representatives from LaRouche’s camp (Political Action Committee that states warming is a fraud) were there, asking long-winded questions about third-world economic genocides and those who stand to gain from such a hoax. They presented interesting views, some I had never heard before, eventually flat out asking Dingell how he could believe in global warming.

I’m able to keep an open mind, in fact, my livelihood depends on it, so when others were dismissing the LaRouche peoples’ questions, I tried to listen more. Instead of discounting them because it went against popular opinion in the room (and those nuns have some sway!) I wanted to make sure I was accurately hearing what they were talking about.

After the presentation, they asked me what I thought about global warming - where I stood on the issue. An impossible question! I told them I didn’t have enough information either way to make any decisions. I live in a natural state of skepticism. They seemed slightly taken aback when I told them they had some interesting ideas.

Why would this surprise them? They must have found out about the oath.

Sometimes I wish I could just sleep in, like the Postal Service song suggests, not having to hear the constant hum of these things, but then what fun would that be?