For us caring Cal Thomas obviously gives light to the notion that editorial Pages carry too much pablum and not enough hot pepper opinion. It also means we take a lot of Guff to sample letters. Please cancel our subscription. You can chalk this one up to Cal Thomas. Giving editorial space to him insults my sensibilities and deeply felt Notions of right and wrong. It's more than just disagreeing with his stand on certain issues healthy debate is what an editorial page is all about. But his meanness and intolerance for other ideas is a revolting. I am disappointed that your paper feels that giving him space is a blow for informed discussion. How some ever another subscriber and the recent past the Pioneer president dispatch has shown itself to be totally in the liberal left gutter. For once I'm very delighted that this left of left paper even publishes Cal Thomas is articles if you keep this up, who knows I might even renew my subscription. Mmm. Cal Thomas is a native of Washington DC is 43 years old and a graduate of American University, even though as he says he flunked out once he was in broadcast journalism for more than two decades and is one of those rare persons to move from broadcast and to print journalism. He also was held prisoner by the Moral Majority for five years. Has written five books the last one being liberals for lunch. It has both cartoons and he is the author of the text. He says the texture for those liberals and the cartoons for the conservatives who can't read he has said that he wants to change the image of the typical fundamentalist from being to quote him a polyester suit White Sox burr haircut American flag tie lapel pin gum-chewing white person who barely graduated from high school as a paneled Recreation room with a National Rifle Association certificate and a Kmart frame and drives a pickup truck with a gun rack and a Jesus saves bumper sticker on the back. Our religion writer put it this way Evangelical Christian colonists. Cal Thomas is a man with a big mouth and fast answers. Hmm Cal you make no secret of the fact you talk to God, but I would really like to know what he says back. Deborah that is the greatest introduction I have ever had since Jr. Richard of the Houston Astros said before I spoke once while you all know Cal so here he is. I'm about to tell you what God told me cause me to write it down right here and my speech today. May I say as an aside congratulations to Deborah and the entire staff of the st. Paul Pioneer Press dispatch for the recent Pulitzer Prize the paper one in the days of big journalism and big conglomerate Acquisitions of newspapers and to a lesser extent television station their acquisition limited by law. It is nice to see that a newspaper, even though part of a major organization night, like knight-ridder can win such a prestigious award as the Pulitzer Prize. For consistent journalism in a I would say medium-sized market like this and it's an excellent newspaper and I would have said that had my column not appeared in the newspaper. I really would well I suppose because of the title of the topic that has been assigned to me today. I ought to say something political. So the gentleman with a camera can get 30 seconds on the six o'clock news before the weatherman turns to the sports person. The phrase on the book liberals for lunches has a deliberate double meaning one might say that we can have them as a cannibal might have a missionary for lunch or one might say that we can take them to lunch to build bridges of understanding and relationships while I've done both and it was not by accident. It was not by accident that that I asked Senator Kennedy to supply a review Line, which I use at the top on the back of the book. Now. I was told I could bring books today if I wanted to make them available, but I would not have thought of doing so with my good friend Sherman Swenson the chairman of be Dalton bookstores here. So I will tell you to run to your nearest be Dalton and pick up a copy of Deborah's introduction has titillated your interest or anything that I have to say might cause you to want to investigate further. I do believe the Classical liberalism New Deal liberalism as we have known it since the 30s. Is dead it's not dormant. I think it's dead. But I would say at the same time the conservatives have no room to gloat because I fear that there are some elements of conservatism including some of those elements from which I was recently Associated who are in danger of making some of the same mistakes that the liberal friends we criticize May namely turning to government as a First Resource instead of as a last resort and there's one of our predecessors said those who have learned nothing from history are doomed to repeat it. And I think those on my side as it were if we can say to have sides and the politically conservative and religious conservative ranks had better be careful that we not be guilty of some of the pride and arrogance and the turning to government to solve all of our problems as those we criticized on the left have done or before long. We will find that some of our ideas are bankrupt as well. That's it. You can go to lunch now. Well, I want to thank very much Jane Mara sack for inviting me here. I mentioned that it was Jane's idea to have me in case you don't like my speech that way. You'll know who to blame and won't take it all out on me as I surveyed the backgrounds and for grounds of some of the speakers you have had here at the Minnesota meeting and the list of some of those yet to come. I wish I could be your next week to hear Max. He's an excellent speaker. I ask myself why in the world. Did they invite me? And you may be asking yourself that question too for that matter. I certainly don't have the world credentials of a Henry Kissinger ask him. He'll tell you or a David Broder but I am grateful to be included among these perhaps I can ask my speaking agent to begin charging more for my services. Now as I thought of what to say today and considered what others have said and what those yet to come might say, I began assembling some Washington jokes. But then realized that the legislative calendar of the House and Senate was too long to read. Then I thought why tell the same Washington stories that anyone else who comes here could tell as well or better why not talk about something different. So today I've decided to talk about why Washington still hates Minneapolis for stealing our baseball team 15 years ago. Really Washington is now seeing another of those all-too-familiar dramas being played out dramas that involve allegations of malfeasance and misfeasance at high levels testimony before the Rogers commission investigating the Challenger tragedy as revealed that Morton thiokol the company that makes the booster Rockets and the now-famous O-rings employed officials who covered up the fact that the equipment they were producing was defective and not launch ready. It also has learned that to thiokol officials who vociferously tried to get management to pay attention to their warnings about defective parts were demoted for telling the truth. Then of course, you are no doubt aware. I'm sure of the Troubles of one Michael Kay Deaver former Special Assistant to the president who is alleged by the government accounting office and William safire of the New York Times among others to have shamelessly peddled his To make large sums of money for foreign governments and other clients willing to pay top dollar to a man. They believe will give them access to the president. We have all watched with Fascination and horror at the monument to Greed built by Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. It was said they arrived in Hawaii with so much money that the government had to fly out money counting machines when the hands of Customs officials went to sleep from counting the loot. I still wish that Ted Koppel had asked Ferdinand Marcos what his wife did with 300 black brassieres perhaps she planned to open a Frederick's of Hollywood in Manila in any case there is an underlying theme to these stories and that theme is what I want to address today. The theme is integrity. I want to talk about this in a manner that might seem a little unusual for a gathering such as this and I want to personalize it in such a way that we might all consider whether we have enough of it and if we don't how we might acquire it not only for our own benefit, but for the benefit of our companies our families, and yes, even in our personal lives first, what is integrity the dictionary defines it as an unimpaired condition soundness firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values incorruptibility the quality or state of being complete or undivided. Reading that definition is a message all by itself, but I want to go a little further than that a little deeper. If I may I don't know how many of you ever consult the Bible for wisdom perhaps you have one on a shelf somewhere or gathering dust on a coffee table, but I discovered some years ago while still with NBC news as a matter of fact that there is some tremendous wisdom for daily living in this book and a formula for handling pressures that go with life in our highly technological age. And so I looked up some of the things that the writer of the Psalms King David of Israel had to say about integrity now David if you know anything about his history had to learn about integrity the hard way following an adulterous affair with Bathsheba and the sending of her husband off to the front lines to fight in a war where he knew he would be killed yet. He says this about integrity I will sing of loving-kindness and Justice unto thee O Lord, I will sing praises. I will give heed to the blameless way. When wilt thou come to me. I will walk with in my house in the Integrity of my heart. I will set no worthless thing before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away. It shall not fastened its grip on me a perverse heart shall depart from me. I will know no evil. Whoever secretly Slanders his neighbor him. Will I destroy? No one who has a hottie look in an arrogant heart. Will I Endure my eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land that they may dwell with me He Who Walks In A blameless way as the one who will minister to me. He who practices deceit shall not dwell within my house. He who speaks falsehood shall not maintain his position before me every morning. I will destroy all the wicked of the land. So as to cut off from the city of the Lord all the Those who do iniquity now what I want you to get from this that I think will benefit all of us in our business family and personal lives is the fact that one word in the psalm is directly linked to what the dictionary has to say about integrity that word is blameless. Now notice the antithesis of Integrity in the psalm. They include the worthless those who fall away those with perverse Hearts slanderers, those who are haughty arrogant deceitful speak falsehood are wicked and do iniquity. Now I come from a city where these qualities are an over abundance, but they're not unique to Washington. Perhaps they can even be found here in Minneapolis st. Paul. There was another Jewish King who had even more wisdom than King David and his name was Solomon, but he couldn't have been that smart because he also had scores of wives and hundreds of concubines. Imagine how difficult it must have been to get in the bathroom. Morning. Anyway Solomon wrote the Proverbs as good a code for daily living and his dad advice as you'll ever read anywhere. He said in Proverbs number 19 better is a man who walks in his Integrity than he who is perverse in speech and is a fool yet. Another place Solomon said He Who Walks In Integrity walks securely, but he who perverts his ways will be found out in other words. We may think we are getting away with being perverse or arrogant or deceitful, but we are promised that we will be found out politicians from Richard Nixon on down can give Apple testimony to that fact. What does integrity mean in business among other things it means honesty, even when honesty puts you at a disadvantage with another company, which is dishonest. You may lose a sale or a contract but believe it or not your reputation will soon be found out and whether you eventually make even more money or not. We are told that a reputation is more precious than fine gold integrity and business also means that you treat your employees and subordinates as if they have value and let them know that they are more than parts of a machine which can be replaced. Not only is this the right thing to do. It has the utilitarian effect of producing harder working more loyal employees a relatively Young News producer at a television station in Washington still believes. You get more out of people buying by being tough with them and putting them in fear of their jobs. Then you do with kindness the revolving door at the Asian station is ample testimony to the fact that his philosophy does not work. What does integrity mean for the family we are in the midst of the highest divorce rate a Civilized Nation has ever known the Census Bureau reported last month that 60% of post Baby Boom women in their 30s can expect to be divorced the national average for everyone else is about 50% think of the sociological and psychological fall out to millions of children from these broken marriages. It will reverberate under the third and fourth Generations. What shall it profit a man or a woman if he or she gains the whole world and loses his or her own family two years ago the now former Democratic senator from Massachusetts Paul Tsongas wrote a marvelous book called heading home. It was about his struggle with cancer and his decision to leave the senate for the sake of his family. It is a deeply human And I urge you to read it. He bares his soul his fears his doubts, but then he finds a certain victory in what may seem too many to be the strangest of places. Listen. I felt totally alien. I was one of the select few in the United States Senate the most exclusive club in the world. I did not want membership in a club of The Afflicted. I began the rapid descent into despair what was there to fight for? What was there to hope for what was there to pray for then in one of the books most poignant moments Tsongas who issued the party and dinner Circuit of Washington so he could devote more time to his wife and three daughters allows us to identify with him at a deep level. I was no longer the senator from Massachusetts. He says I was a frightened human being who loved his wife and children and desperately wanted to live. The book is packed with one of the least sought-after and unappreciated character qualities in Washington or anywhere else humility. If Tsongas were to write his own Epitaph. He could not have said it better than when he tells his wife Nikki, you know after ten years in this town all that I will be remembered for is the fact that I love my wife. And what's wrong with that Nikki replies what's wrong indeed that is integrity and family life. One of my son's friends told him recently that his parents were getting a divorce John my son turned over in bed one night just after we had said prayers together and I scratched his back our favorite night time routine and he asked me Daddy. Will you and Mom ever get a divorce never I said and you can count on it good. He replied and he turned over and with the security that comes from a marriage that took a lot of work and we nearly blew it several times went to sleep. After years of trying to climb to the Mountaintop of greatness and fame and Financial Security at NBC in Washington and become a network correspondent to the virtual exclusion or subordination of everything else. I have found that Integrity in one's personal life begins with placing God first family second in my professional life third. The funny thing about this priority is that when those are your priorities everything that is really fulfilling in family and business works out in a way that never works when the priorities are different or God is not in the equation at all. Some people learn this the easy way by accepting it others. Learn it the hard way, but most people do learn it. There was a letter to the editor a few months ago in the Washington Post the man who wrote The Man wrote in response to an article by Bob Garfield in the subject was yup. He's probably a subject all of us have heard enough of anyway. He said I've lived both lives Yuppie and non Yuppie in the first I was married to a professional woman and on our dual incomes, we club meted sports car raced Alpine skied and Kennedy centered our 14-year marriage into Oblivion. I'm now 42 remarried to a woman who gave up her and he puts it in quotes professional career to provide full-time care for our one in five year old daughter's and living in Gaithersburg, Maryland on one salary trips to Australia and Europe Saturday night dining at Nathan's and Wolf Trap concerts are Distant Memories vacations are now taken our nine-year-old used pop-up camper and dining out means her a daddy's bringing home a pizza from pasamos. We've just started into the second round of what will be 100 readings of Pat the bunny for our one-year-old happiness is my wife and two Restless kids picking me up at National Airport after a three-day business trip. We all cry because we are happy to be together again satisfaction level in my first life equal about to on the 10 scale measured now satisfaction is about 9.5 and Bob Garfield is one of the few people who would know or understand why Now ladies and gentlemen, I'm not a preacher never even been to Seminary or World walked on the grounds of Seminary if that's what they do there. I don't know. But I too have lived two lives and although they have not covered the breadth of Richard Lewis's Spectrum. I can identify with what he is talking about. We all have Only One Life to Live and it is important that at the end of that life we and our families are able to look at it in a way that it will have counted for something besides just taking up space and contributing to the garbage. What will they say about your life and mine when it is over that he built a great company that she made a lot of money that he became a powerful government official that she Rose to sit on the corporate board or will something even more powerful than any of those things be said about you and about me something as powerful as what Paul Tsongas said, After 10 years in Washington, all I will be remembered for is the fact that I loved my wife with Niki Tsongas. I say and what's wrong with that. Thank you for your kind attention. And if you want to ask questions about anything that I've said or things that I've not said, I'd be happy to entertain them as long as you last or they allow me to speak whichever comes first. Yes, sir come right ahead. If you would do me the courtesy of identifying yourself and your affiliation if you're not on public assistance, I'd be most grateful. I'm not sure but it might be next week. None of us. Do my name is my name is Pat O'Leary and I work for the state of Minnesota and I don't often read your column what I and I haven't written to the paper yet either Pro or can't but I saw what are you pieces last for almost almost made me do it because you were writing about writing about the Contra business in Nicaragua and you were recording one of my sisters had been down there and you recording her as as a nun which she hasn't been a nun for over to 11 11 11 or 12 years. Yes. I mentioned she was a former. No well in what I saw that was not there. Well, it's there. I don't know what the editors did but when I wrote it, I identified her as having served as a non in Central America for I forget how many years it was. I think it was in the column and the purpose of It was to try to give another perspective to what to some of the current maryknoll nuns are telling Tip O'Neill who he believes because I believe he said his aunt was one and therefore he can rely on them to tell the truth, which is an interesting subject to contemplate but nevertheless. Well, they're going to say that two weeks ago and my main point was that I thought that the way they was presented in her aside from a from a point of view. Was that best not very responsible. Oh, well, that's what pluralism is all about. We are able to consider irresponsibility and responsibility. For more than one side. My definition of pluralism is Ellen Goodman and me on the same page on the same day. Yes, sir. All right, Dave Olson with University of Minnesota. Yes, sir. During your talk. You mentioned that employees and subordinates should be treated by employers as if they have value. So I was wondering about your perspectives on what's happening in many workplaces today as far as psychological testing is concerned as far as drug. Testing of employees is concerned in this kind of thing employers certainly seem to have a good case to make for themselves and on the other hand employees due to I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts on this. Well, as far as the drug testing is concerned. I think we're dealing with a Band-Aid situation with a hemorrhage. You're the problem. Is that a much deeper level it begins in schools. It begins in the way the media treats the subject it begins in some of the music if you listen to the lyrics or have them translated if you can't understand them by your sons or daughters it is the constant drumbeat at was said on the marvelous Bill Moyers special on the crisis the Black American family crisis in this country a couple of months ago. The drum beat that goes into the heads of people that drugs will help you to feel better about yourself to escape your problems and all of this is is everywhere. So I think that while it can be said in some circumstances to be a legitimate approach for employers to test Their employees for drugs if it is a problem in the country a company. I think you first should demonstrate that. It is a problem just before you rush in and say we're going to have it and we've never had this problem before I think the problem goes a lot deeper in that and unless people are willing to really seriously confront this problem. I don't think you're going to solve it. I remember what this black woman counselor. I believe in the welfare office of Newark New Jersey said on the Bill Moyers program. She talked about re-establishing a system of morality a moral code and Bill raspberry of the Washington Post and many others are coming around to this way of thinking again and Moyer said but who's going to listen to me who is going to listen to you? And she said well, maybe nobody will listen to us as individuals. But if all of us say it and if we get it begin a drum beat and we start at the school level and we encourage the media to be more responsible in the way. It handles this sort of thing. It doesn't portray it as glamorous in some of the made-for-television movies or even in the made for movie. Each if we appeal to their sensibility is as parents As Americans as people who are contributing to the undermining of the Bedrock of this country. Maybe then if a drum be cause them to try it would not a drum because them to issue it I think so and I think that's what responsible Americans of all backgrounds and Stripes political or whatever need to be talking about. The drug. Testing alone is just treating the symptom and not really getting at the problem psychological testing. Well, that's another question. We might discover a lot of crazy people in Washington, but then we know that without the testing already know it Hi, my name is Paul Levy. I'm a reporter with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. And I wanted to ask a question about divorce and I'll preface it by saying I've never been married never been divorced my parents been married for over 40 years. I'm disturbed though by the comment you made the story with your son, which is fine. But are you saying you're against divorce? Do you think it's good for two people who obviously don't get along who have children to stay together as a fair to the children. Well again, I think that's a symptom problem. I've known a lot of people who couldn't get along as you point out, but when with proper counseling and with proper redirection of some of the problems that have contributed to the to the difficulties in the home have found reconciliation a good friend of mine who happens to be the chaplain of the United States Senate right now told a story in my hearing once he said, you know, as I used to council as a pastor people who are having serious Problems in their homes, and he would say I don't love her she would say, I don't love him the question. He would always ask first is are you willing to love and love has been has been sold in our nation today? And it's it's almost unique to Western culture. I think in many respects at least as I've experienced it as some kind of superficial thing like candy that unless it can constantly renew a sweet taste in our mouths were no longer interested in it. Love is a byproduct of commitment and I think if you began with a point that look I'm when I when I marry you I'm not pointing at you with the moment when I speaking philosophically, of course when I when I make this commitment, I'm doing it in full view that this is a lifetime commitment. I'm committed to you I care about you. I want to I want to help you. I want to serve you you're not you're not there to serve me. I want to serve you and it's in serving you that I am served. And the other partner does the same and feels the same now that doesn't mean that you know, people cannot be reclaimed from divorce many people. Room no doubt our have been or will be but we're talking about an ideal an ideal standard and many people have come back from divorce. How many people have been healed from the problems and all of the rest? So I'm not standing up here is a as a Puritan saying that you know, all you people who have had these kinds of problems and I've I've had my own chair and as I say my wife and I almost got divorced ourselves years ago before I I determined that I was not going to allow this part of my life to fail and I began to reassess my own shortcomings before dumping on her I said, what's the matter with me? And it was at that point that we began to renew some lost things in our marriage and now not out of arrogance, but out of out of gratitude for getting my priorities reordered I can make that kind of a categorical statement. We are together till death do us part. She says divorce is out murder maybe but I guess what bothers me is your word of these fail because I would think for some people it might save not their marriage but a divorce might save two lives well for those with children, perhaps a Reconciliation might save even more. If it's if it's real, well, that's something that neither you nor I can determine. Okay. Thanks for your question. I can tell you're all just so impressed with the depth of what I said that you're overwhelmed. Oh, I'm in trouble not to be outdone. The other paper in town wants to be heard from I'd like you to wax a little bit about your views on you're obviously a very strongly religious person and how you see religion fitting in with American Life specifically on school prayer and on separation of church and state Charlie. I don't know who's going to get back. No, I'm not strongly religious. I'm simply a follower of Jesus Christ. There is a difference. I used to be religious, but that's that's a whole another talk. I before I understood such great concepts of God and salvation and heaven and Eternity. I had to have a faith that was intellectually credible and people such a CS Lewis and and Francis Schaeffer and others. All of whose books are available to be Dalton bookstore. Do I get 10? Really gave me answered my intellectual questions and and allowed me to come to a point of making a commitment of my life not to a philosophy but to a person and if I had not had the answer to those questions, then I would not have been able to accept a faith based on fantasy. All of life is political in all of life is religious. When one makes a commitment to an authority higher than the state in my case the god of Abraham Isaac and Jacob as he used to be spoken of by the prophets of old one is making a political statement one is saying not with those who stood outside of Pilots House. We have no King but Caesar but one is saying we do have a king that is higher than Caesar. So one is made a political statement in in saying such things now, there is a balance in a pluralistic and free Society is ours and room for everyone with different beliefs and indeed with no beliefs. As a matter of fact, I would argue that a nation like Hours, which has as its Bedrock the principles of the judeo-christian ethic can tolerate those who disagree with that ethic far more than those who have a philosophy based on atheism such as the Soviet Union can tolerate those who believe and if you don't think so interview Anatoly sharansky when it comes to town, right Alexander solzhenitsyn and ask madalyn Murray O'Hair who sleeps comfortably in her bed at night in Austin, Texas and is free to spout her atheism. But you go to prison in the Soviet Union, when you seek even to teach your own children about your own personal faith regardless of what it may be so I would say than a in a country like ours with the with the foundations that we have. We are far more free than in a country like the Soviet Union which does not have that kind of foundation. My great concern has been in the issue of you know, the voluntary School prayer and all of this. I think that's kind of a bogus issue frankly and I said that in columns Another forms. I'm not so much interested in whether kids can say a prayer of their choice silently or out loud at for 30 seconds at the beginning of the school day. As I am by the systematic censorship of anything that has a spiritual base from our Public School textbooks. Let me give you an example of quick examples. I wrote a whole book on the subject. It's called book burning you can read it, but I'll just give you a couple of examples the Diary of Christopher Columbus, for example, a reasonably important figure in the history of our nation. I'm sure most people would agree including those to teach history at major universities since he's credited with discovering this part of the world. He wrote a diary and in it he gave the reasons why he came was it that he woke up in 1491 and the tea leaves in the bottom of his cup said go to Queen Isabella and say give me some money Queenie. I want to discover the new world. No, he said it was the Lord who put it into my mind to make the trip. And for the journey. I did not make use of intellect. He was obviously a Fundamentalist. Bob Time by P of The Marvelous rays of The Illuminating Light of the holy spirit of God. Now the people who came over on the Mayflower the Mayflower Compact they wrote they said in this document that they repaired to the whole of the ship to write down the reasons why they had come to they come so they could get a better price on slaves grow better strain of tobacco with Menthol and filter tips. What was the reason they had come risking life and Fortune and all of the rest leaving a country that they were sure about coming to a Strange Land. They said they said this is the reason they came they came to advance the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Now that's not teaching Doctrine to say that but it is a historical document and you lookin at you look in the history books of this nation it currently in use in the public schools and you'll find the excesses of the Puritan Movement the stockades you'll find something about the Crusades and some of the other excesses of religion run amok but you won't find anything like this. I know I've researched it. I To write five offer $500 rewards to people who could find it and I'm not giving away that kind of money. So I looked it up first. It's not in there a friend of mine has a kid in public school and and he looked in his history his child's history book and he noticed some large gaps the forced famine in the Soviet Union in the 30s is totally out. So as the Red Guard movement in mainland China in the 60s the cultural revolution, so he calls up the editor of the textbook and he says how come these events aren't in there. I mean you have everything up to that point and then you pick up on the other side and he said well, I'm a Quaker and I'm a pacifist and I don't believe these kinds of things are conducive to World Peace. He's already talking about that's history. So we have censorship of all kinds we have the Screwballs on the right who want everybody to pray the prayer that they want in the name of the person they want and we have the other people who want to exclude everything with a religious or moral base. I think both sides are wrong. I think we can have a happy accommodation in the middle in which we Consider all of these things without teaching Doctrine. So I'm far more concerned about that the systematic exclusion of anything with a spiritual base that I am about 30 seconds of some kind of prayer voluntary or otherwise the beginning of school back again. Hi-yah Dave Olson against Dave you work in the in the medium of newspapers, and I guess that it's probably a little surprising to hear someone with your background in the media to use the media as a Whipping Boy you say that you blame drug use in our culture in large part on the media you say that the media glamorizes it you blame divorce in large part again on the media you say that the media treats sex and love as if it was Kandi and I'm sure that we could probably come up with some other problems and you blame those problems on the media to but you have hearkened back to past civilizations and we know that in the past greats of Asians have risen and have fallen and certainly those civilizations did not have the kind of media that we have today. They didn't have the newspapers that we have. They didn't have the broadcasting that we have. If you had been living in past civilizations that had problems what would you have found to blame those problems on well, I wouldn't want to be perceived in the problem of these kinds of things that your answers are supposed to be short and so I wasn't able to develop it as thoroughly as I might I wouldn't want to be perceived as blaming the media for all of our problems. I guess you could say some people have a view of the media as they Listerine complex. They hate it but they watch it twice a day for the read it twice a day or whatever. I think we live in an information age and I don't think there's any doubt about that and we get most of our Impressions and for most of our viewpoints primarily primarily from television and and the other visual media. I think obviously divorce and unwanted pregnancy and venereal disease of various strains and all of the other social problems that we see around today are not unique to this generation. I do believe and I think statistics show that the level of the pollution of our culture is perhaps greater in terms of numbers and the percentages the per capita percentages then any other at any other time certainly in this country and not being a historian as you maybe I can't speak for the rest of all time and the rest of the world but I think certainly it is it is impacting in our culture today as great if not greater than at any other time in the history certainly of the western experience. I don't mean to suggest that that all of the media is bad. People are the media are the cameras microphones film videotape carry only what is put onto them and one of the things that I go around the country speaking of college is about about is If you are if you hold to the certain values in which I believe why not instead of going off and getting your MBA and becoming a corporate president making a lot of money. Why don't you invest something in the future of your country? Why don't you consider being a motion picture director or a television station owner or a newspaper columnist or a newspaper owner? Liberals are at work tunneling under the platform here. You see me disappear. Just you'll know who was responsible. So I'm not you know, I don't I how could you hate what you make a living at? I mean, I I'm just encouraging other people with a different worldview who have been part of the problem because they've withdrawn and retreated and and avoided this most important element of our culture to get into it. So I don't think it's responsible for all of our problems. But I do think I agree with Jesse Jackson. I was that that that we do need this drum beat. Jesse goes around to these schools, you know, and give some fantastic speeches and gives an invitation looks like a Baptist service kids. Come forward have been on drugs and messed up and sex babies having babies. This sort of thing tells him to straighten their lives out. I think we need more of that sort of thing. I told him last time we had him in crossfire. So Jesse, I think you ought to give up politics just do that all the time, you know, so you got one good Goodman out of Syria. Look at all these Kids whose lives are turning around. Isn't that more important? He says hubbub of he talks like he tries to rob me when I tell you all about it, but guys Sharps a great debater. Have you had him here yet? You got it. I'll tell him to come up here. You'll like it. He was a good man. We got time for one more. Debra is going to do another one, okay? You guys are good. So if you were a newspaper editor, what kind of newspaper would you run? I'd run one just as good as the st. Paul Pioneer Press. All right, give me a break. I'm serious. You know, I've got a whole speech on that tonight for the sdx meeting, but I'll give you a little preview kind of that. Yeah, but give this group head like, I don't know if I'll give you the headlines most of the critics of the press are on the outside and not not within I used to get this a lot when I was with NBC. I was there during the Watergate days and I get people come up to me and say, you know, all you people hate Nixon and you sit around over your coffee in the morning planning and plotting how to slant the news to the liberal Viewpoint. I said, no. No that doesn't happen that way and you couldn't convince them that it didn't people people don't get together in The Newsroom and the editorial meetings and decide how they're going to slant the news to the liberal viewpoint, but there is a certain mindset there is a Not a bias. It's not a bias in the sense that we're all biased Brinkley once said, we're all biased we all have viewpoints and opinions. We couldn't be human if we didn't have that but what is important is that we should try to be fair to try to be reasonable to try to be balanced to try to offer responsible viewpoints and even once in a while he responsible ones to an opportunity to be heard. I think in the area that some of the questions of touched on today the area of spirituality of values. There is a certain embarrassment on the part of some editors at some papers and some reporters to deal with this Ken Briggs the wonderful religion editor of the New York Times once observed that most editors are working off a negative Sunday school experience. This is true of a number of an it's true enough of a number of people have known Phil Donahue is a great example of that former altar boy in the Catholic church. Now seems to go a work overtime to put down his former Faith Bill Moyers is another one who does the same thing. Of a southern baptist tradition who seems to work overtime to put down at least an element a wing of that particular Faith which he used to it. Adhere to there is a certain feeling that it is not really news. It's not it's a blindness. I would say not a bias but unlike unlike some forms of blindness, which can be healed by surgery or if you watch TV evangelism other ways. I guess this this kind is a deliberate kind I would suggest to you. It's a deliberate closing of the eyes and a refusing to open them the coverage of the recent Billy Graham crusade was a perfect example in Washington or rather than on coverage to be more specific the opening night. He had 26,000 people the vice president of the United States. Was there the mayor of Washington DC there. It was probably the most integrated crowd that had ever attended a religious service in the history of Washington DC not just blacks and white but Hispanics and orientals and people of all kinds of different cultural and educational ethic of ethnic and racial backgrounds. One television stations in Washington considered these stories more important than Billy Graham and 26,000 people an apartment fire on a shopping center fire. No injuries a car in the river a bubble Festival somewhere out in the midwest a Christmas and April observance weather and sports and then it finally got around to giving Billy Graham 10 seconds during which they had two shots. I think the reason I mention all of this is that there's a marvelous opportunity for what we collectively known as the media which has been sensitive and properly so do just about every other group and Kook to come along in our culture particularly in the last 20 years a marvelous opportunity for them to touch a segment of society that has been alienated you heard two of these letters here. I'm after the people who are turned off because they think that all of the media is liberal commie Pinko. I think we can't afford to exclude people from the marketplace of ideas, which is what the editorial page is and people when I go to various cities like Miami where I'm the Miami Herald another Knight Ridder paper people say you're in that paper, I gave it up years ago because I thought it was too liberal. I said, well first you should never have given up but secondly, it's less liberal because I meant to go buy it and write the paper and say you're buying it again. You see I want to do the opposite of boycotts. I think they're very very rare circumstances when boycotts work. I want to do pro cots if that's the opposite or girl scouts or whatever the opposite of a boycott. I want to make it profitable for newspapers and to and to uplift editors and Publishers and others who want to be sensitive to this kind of thing. I want them to feel my approval in the people of the approval of responsible people that I associate with. I think that's the best way to do things truth can always coexist with error but error can never coexist with truth and depending on your perspective of course of what is truth is one of the great questions of all time, but I think we need to go for a kind of a true pluralism in our culture where every every idea and concept has an opportunity to be heard and that's why I'm delighted to be in this paper here and in now 40. Well, I got another one South Carolina today. We just talked about 45 papers. Now from the tiniest to the biggest circulation paper in the country the New York daily news. So somebody's doing something right. I want to thank you for your kind attention today for the privilege of being here. I hope I didn't disappoint you with a topic, but I thought it was an important one. That should be covered. Thanks so much.