President Bush, whose scorn for journalists is balanced by a soft spot in his heart for the conglomerates they work for, threatens to veto the Senate action. Keep in mind that when the public was asked to submit comments to the FCC about consolidation, only one percent approved it. The President may not be listening, but the Senate is, and the public won this round. The House has a similar resolution under consideration.

Unless you're willing to fight and refight the same battles until you go blue in the face, drive the people you work with nuts going over every detail to make certain you've got it right, and then take hit after unfair hit accusing you of bias, there's no use even trying. You have to love it, and I do. You just hope it strikes a spark somewhere in the critical mass of public opinion and helps some people to resist further the seductions of political and corporate advertising.

Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.

Sure enough, as merger has followed merger, journalism has been driven further down the hierarchy of values in the huge conglomerates that dominate what we see, read and hear. And to feed the profit margins journalism has been directed to other priorities than "the news we need to know to keep our freedoms"

We have got to nurture the spirit of independent journalism in this country, or we'll not save capitalism from its own excesses, and we'll not save democracy from its own inertia.

When I was growing up, I never heard anyone pray, "Give me this day my daily bread." It was always, "Give us this day our daily bread." That stuck. We're all in this together.

I take "We, the People" seriously because I don't know how we build a civilization without reciprocity.