By Bob Gaydos

 When I decided to join the blogosphere, I wrote a piece for Zest explaining that, now, after spending 23 years of relative anonymity as an editorial writer, my opinions would be personal. It’s not that what I wrote as editorials weren‘t my personal opinions,  but of necessity they needed to be of universal topics. Things people might want to read about. I also had to consider where the views appeared, their audience and that, ultimately, I was speaking for the publisher of the newspaper. Unencumbered by those legitimate preconditions, I now feel free to also write about things people should want to read about and to vent some of my own strictly personal views on perhaps less-”important’ topics. Topics that I hope may have some universal appeal.

 That’s a too-lengthy way of getting to something that has bugged me for several years and shows no sign of abating: the cultural phenomenon of cable TV talking heads spewing nonsense, anger and even hate under the guise of “news.” Although I am retired, I still write newspaper editorials on occasion. That requires me to keep up to date on what’s going on in the world and, since I try to be thorough, I try to listen in to what the cableheads are blabbing about.

 It’s impossible. Forget water boarding. A week of the Foxes, the NBC’s and even CNN is pure torture. Not only do the gatherings of opinion-mongers start with a biased view of what the story is, they virtually never try to fairly present the other side. Forget simply giving the facts. But what really gets under my skin is that, for all the heat and anger and controversy these shows strive to create, for all the pointed questions they pose, they never try to come up with an answer.

 In the corporate world, the 12-step world, for all I know every world that depends on  some kind of logic, it is said that if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. It’s even a cliché. I hereby submit that cable TV “news” shows (and the financial ones are guilty of this, too) are and have been a major reason for the divisiveness in American society. They not only talk about the divisiveness, they cause it. They are predicated on finding fault with someone or some proposal or some law and ripping it to shreds, usually with specious facts. They do not care about offering reasonable compromises because solutions do not generate heat or ratings. They’re boring. Did Jerry Springer make his millions by putting marriages back together?

 Politicians, being self-absorbed and primarily worried about collecting enough money to run enough attack ads to win elections, have bought into the process. Maybe they even started it. Doesn’t matter. It is pandemic in political life in this country, which is why Barack Obama is  having less success convincing Congress that things have to change than he is with the American public.

 Still, his election suggests that Americans may have started to get fed up with  politicians who are good at attacking each other, but useless at finding solutions to problems. New Yorkers need look no farther than Albany for a perfect example of political egos making a mockery of government. Is there a solution? Not a political one if neither party will bend. We might hope the courts will see what’s going on in the State Senate as an emergency, which it is, and create some temporary solution. Maybe some good government group (NYPIRG? LWV? COMMON CAUSE?) will sue to demand that the vacant position of lieutenant governor be filled by special election or gubernatorial appointment to break the deadlock in the Senate. But it seems obvious that some solution will have to be imposed on these knuckleheads because clearly they do not see themselves as the problem. That remains for voters to demonstrate.

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com

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