For the first time in my life, I watched The O’Reilly Factor last night. I guess Fox people did a decent job of selling the confrontation love fest between O’Reilly and Steven Colbert. I knew Colbert could play it any direction. I watch him do it (nearly) every night.

There has been great anticipation this week. The key is, of course, the promotional opportunity of both shows to reach audiences they have never reached before–people like me who get somewhat nauseous at the idea of watching Fox. I knew I could just watch on YouTube the next day, but there I was and there the tv was.

I wanted it to be funny. It wasn’t. Just weak. You know, that’s what I often think watching Colbert. Is it just me?

O’Reilly’s talking heads discussed why Colbert is so popular. Why does the press love them? Because they “make fun of the news.” Female talking head says O’Reilly is “generous to fraternize with the enemy.” I think male talking head called himself a dufus. I agree. He’s definitely a dufus (as is his so-called book–I’m not going to name it because I wouldn’t want you to bother reading it). Commentary also weak.

Then, O’Reilly moves on to The Colbert Report. Peak moment: Colbert shows O’Reilly’s book, WITH the 30% off sticker from Barnes and Noble. Seriously, that was the peak. See for yourself.

When O’Reilly told Colbert, “I’m just an act,” Colbert asked the most important question of all: “If you’re an act, then what am I?”

Well, I don’t know what he is, but I do know that whatever he is remains the reason I prefer to watch The Daily Show.

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Last weekend the National Conference for Media Reform met in Memphis, Tennessee. Please don’t just pass over that information with mild interest. Video highlights and all audio are available for you to hear. Click. Listen. The depth of what is available is astonishing.

In particular, I want to mention Bill Moyers. He’s on fire, and I want you to burn with him. Yesterday’s Democracy Now! consisted only of headlines and a replay of most of Bill Moyers’ Plenary Speech to the conference (also available unedited). If you can spare only one hour listening online this week, listen to Bill Moyers.

Moyers hasn’t been silent since leaving PBS. He’s become even more outspoken than I recall him being in his years on television. The call for his return has succeeded. Bill Moyers will be back on PBS this Spring with “Bill Moyers’ Journal.”

A theme Bill Moyers has come back to often is the power of narrative. I’m sure I am not the only one who remembers his series from nearly 20 years ago, The Power of Myth, an extended interview with Joseph Campbell. It is clear to me that this experience had a profound effect on him and his understanding of the ways we use narrative. A speech he gave in December has been adapted as an article in the current issue of The Nation, “For America’s Sake”, published elsewhere as “The Narrative Imperative,” which gets closer to the heart of the matter.

What I hear Bill Moyers saying is this: we have the power, even the obligation, to change the stories being told us about our society. We should not sit passively listening to versions of how things came to be the way they are and why, versions that serve elites who hold money and power so tightly. This is what I have heard from one of my important teachers. Changing the stories is also an important means to change discussed in David Korten’s The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, a book that I read with a community group in anticipation of his visit to SLC last Fall (sponsored by the Sustainability Salon). Change the stories. How? There is no one answer.

After you are burning with inspiration from Bill Moyers’ speech from last Friday, what will you do to change the story?

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I may have been half asleep, but I was sure this is what I read in the Salt Lake Tribune this morning: GOP vows to be more evil in ‘07. I didn’t question it, but I thought, good for the Tribune for daring to print it. Then I stood up and looked more closely at the headline.

Oh. GOP vows to be more civil in ‘07. That, I will have to see to believe. I heard the name “Chris Buttars” this morning on the radio. I shivered.

It’s the opening day of the Utah Legislative Session.

Unlike other state legislatures that work all year (or at least meet all year), in Utah we have just 45 days in January and February of every year to spend our abundance of money and legislate righteousness. (Chris Buttars says don’t prohibit the right to religious expression but he and others want to prohibit expression of solidarity through Gay-Straight Alliances at high schools. It’s important to be selective in order to create [self-]righteousness.)

Thanks to Green Jenni for pointing out that the League of Women Voters of Utah provides an email update during the session (as well as radio and online updates).

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I get tired of evangelical Christians’s idea of left behind. I get tired of hearing how much money other evangelical Christians make off the idea, too. I think, “Just leave me behind already.” It’s what I like to think of as Left Out Front. I don’t buy into their reality anyway, so I anticipate quite a nice world without that particular influence. Maybe not a world without problems, but let’s deal with one thing at a time.

I figured that just to show I know it’s Sunday, I’ll mention This Week in God, a segment from the Daily Show. Rob Corddray’s (formerly Stephen Colbert’s) God Machine landed on a left behind video game in which righteous Christians blow up unbelievers (minus one point) and save others (plus two points). In an Alternet review of the game, you will find all sorts of fun prayer requests from the makers of the game–as well as hundreds of hostile comments, many with local Utah relevance. Remember that violence is cool as long as the Right people come out on top, way up top, soaring into their clouds.

It is any wonder that self-declared righteous are so eager to get their hands on real guns then find and kill an enemy? Their virtual realities prepare them to believe and participate in their other realities. Or maybe their virtual realities make them crave realities that they have to create in order to find that deep satisfaction in this nasty material world.

Happy Sunday.

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I’m aware that not all leftie Salt Lakers (let alone those other Salt Lakers) adore Rocky Anderson. Yes, he has a large ego (as well as “enormous balls,” according to some). I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing–I mean the ego. Or either. I know there are many more complaints. I just want to say this before I launch into the love letter I’m about to write.

• I would vote for Rocky Anderson as Mayor.
• I would vote for Rocky Anderson as Governor.
• I would vote for Rocky Anderson as President.

I want someone who thinks and speaks like Rocky Anderson to represent me and my family to the larger organizations that claim to govern us.

• I want someone who isn’t always being diplomatic and taking important points off the table.
• I want someone who sees big issues like climate change and connects to those issues on a local level.
• I want someone who isn’t afraid to hear what is on the minds of people who elected him.

For exactly the reasons so many Utahns hate and fear Rocky Anderson, I admire him. I agree with him. How often does that happen? Not very–especially when one lives in one of the most reliably red districts of one of the most reliably red states. I’m not alone.

Sasha Abramsky has written another article on Rocky Anderson for The Nation. The cover is scary, but the article is great. This creates more national exposure for the oasis that is Salt Lake City. An article on “Blue-ing the West” will appear in the next issue.

It’s time to listen to the Rocky Anderson mix of “Soul Singing” (by Jon Fox of 12th Harmonic) again. Get your soul singing. Then wonder what he was thinking when he endorsed a Republican to replace him. Wha?

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