CURRENT EVENTS JULY 20TH 2009

The last month has brought a lot of news-most of it sad but some that just marks time for anyone over the age of 45-the deaths of Michael jackson,Walter Cronkite and karl Malden-have all connected us to our past in some way-but it is always intriguing to look at how and in what ways they are connected- some connections can be rather close and surprising-almost serendipitous- otheres may seem a little forced-one event i might add would be the first walk on the moon by astronaut neil armstrong-also in july of 1969-Walter Cronkite loved the NASA program- his most emotional moment on the air was not arguably the JFK assassination but when he saw Armstrong step on to the Moon the first time-Michael Jackson- whose death preceded cronkite's by about a month was famous for his MOONWALK-first seen by a large tv audience at the MOTOWN 25TH ANNIVERSARY TELEVISION SPECIAL-wonder if Uncle Walter was watching then-it was about 1982- a year after he retired from the anchor chair-the tv and cable coverage of MJ's unfortuante death brought out a key issue in how the news is reported these days-the coverage is almost always over done in an event of this kind but in maichael jackson's case it was overwhelming-every single station it seems gave it wall to wall coverage for weeks and it is still going on- there is no detail too trivial or mundane to discuss endlessly and get everyone's opinion on- this lasted through to the memorial service the next week but it is still going strong 2 weeks later-this is not how they covered the news in uncle walter's time- Elvis presley got a short discrete mention when he passed away and arguably he was as big a star as amichael jackson-as Dan Rather said when he was asked how Cronkite would have viewed the saturation coverage-he would have been appalled-he was alive at the time so he must have seen something about it but as he was suffering from Dementia he may not have taken it all in-Karl Malden is famous for a lot of reasons- he was in some great old films-i.e.-ON THE WATERFRONT AND PATTON for instance but he was well known to tv viewers in the 70's when he starred in a tv series called THE STREESTS OF SAN FRANCISCO-his co-star and partner in the series was Michael Douglass-who just received a lifetime achievement award from THE AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE-which is commonly known as AFI-the presenatation ceremony was televised on the night of july 19th 2009-just two days after Malden passed away- he was referred to on several occasions during the telecast and he was seen and heard during a taped segment at the end of the show- Michael Douglass referred to him as a second father-and malden said he would have been proud to have a son like Douglass-now how to connect all three-that is a little more difficult-but what the three deaths represent is an important pasaage for those of us who remember them so well- and all three were outstanding- the younger generation might wonder what all the fuss is about- you could not say you really knew who michael jackson was if you did not see him with THE JACKSON FIVE in the early 70's-this was an amazing start to an amazing career-and anyone who watched the news regularly from 1962 to 1981 knew who Cronkite was-he was in some ways the most famous man in America at that time-karl Malden less so of course-but he had a way of turning up and often through the 50 years of his acting career- that is in film tv and cable-so that's the way it is-Monday july 20th 2009