GETTING THERE

Well, it's been awhile since I've made a blog post. I think that's because I'd just had enough of being frustrated for awhile. I was excited, however, about the Tea Party Protests around the country yesterday. If I could have found a ride and companion, I would have attended the one in my proximity. Instead, I just looked forward to the coverage - good or bad - there or not.

One of the Today Show's leading stories was the Tea Party protest. It was the fairest portrayal of the group I've ever seen by NBC. They really portrayed them as a regular group of people just trying to make their voices heard. I was encouraged.

I was able to gleefully tell my daughter that our freedom of speech and assembly are making a difference, even if it took a year. Persistence matters, even in the event of persecution.

Last night I was studying Acts 13-14 for the Bible study I'm doing. It speaks of the beginning of Paul and Barnabas's mission to spread the Gospel to the Gentile world.

In light of the persecution of the Tea Partiers, for which I think much of its protest concerns wanting our country to return to the founding principals of our country, including the Rock it was placed on, "One Nation Under God" and "In God We Trust," one set of verses stuck out to me.

"At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed. But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders."
Acts 14: 1 - 3

It has taken considerable time, but the Tea Party protesters are starting to get at least a relatively fair showing in some of the MSM. The convincing of the MSM that the Tea Partiers are "real" and not "astroturf, crazy, fringe, or stupid" is getting there. I sense that some even realize that they have to somewhat abandon the idea that they're all racists. Still, the acknowledgement does not come easily and is not universal.

I saw an article at both NBC.com and the NY Times.com (albeit buried in the bottom of their headline links), but MSNBC didn't have one word on their political page, even though their top story was about a small protest in Florida regarding teacher's pay. It is reminiscent of last year when they neglected the protest in Washington and instead reported on a small protest about gay rights.

As I said, the NY Times even commented on it, in the most straight forward way to date, but you can still sense their reluctance and efforts to downplay it.

It appeared that the authorities had expected a larger crowd. Only about a third of a second confinement area, between West 30th and West 29th Streets, was filled, and a third was empty.

Fox News sent one of its biggest stars, Neil Cavuto, to Atlanta to be the host of programming from some of the rallies.

I find it interesting that they felt the need to comment on the Fox coverage, as though by sending one of their biggest stars shows some type of promotion of the cause, instead of reporting. Neil Cavuto, after all, is Fox New's financial news host. Reading between the lines, I think it shows that the NY Times failed to actually go to a legitimate, important event. All of their reporting seemed to be 2nd hand. I suppose they've had to give up sending reporters b/c they were finding it difficult to find people and signs in the crowd to promote their narrative of racist, fringe people making up the protesters.

President Obama's comments were something else altogether. But, that's for another post.