Showing posts with label decency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label decency. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

Bill Moyers, a Face of Public TV and Once a White House Voice, Dies at 91; The New York Times, June 26, 2025

 , The New York Times; Bill Moyers, a Face of Public TV and Once a White House Voice, Dies at 91

"In an age of broadcast blowhards, the soft-spoken Mr. Moyers applied his earnest, deferential style to interviews with poets, philosophers and educators, often on the subject of values and ideas. His 1988 PBS series, “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,” drew 30 million viewers, posthumously turned Mr. Campbell — at the time a little-known mythologist — into a public broadcasting star, and popularized the Campbell dictum “Follow your bliss.” 

A Sense of Moral Urgency’

To admirers, many of them liberals, Mr. Moyers was the nation’s conscience, bringing to his work what one television critic called “a sense of moral urgency and decency.” Others, mostly conservatives, found him sanctimonious and accused him of bias. In a 2004 retrospective, the conservative website FrontPageMag.com called him a “sweater-wearing pundit who delivered socialist and neo-Marxist propaganda with a soft Texas accent.”...

PBS to CBS and Back

Mr. Moyers turned down offers to edit newspapers, run colleges and co-host the “Today” show on NBC. (“I just didn’t like the idea of selling dog food in a world where so many people were eating it,” he told People magazine.) Instead, he began producing a weekly public affairs program on PBS, devoting entire shows to topics like the Watergate scandal and public education. John J. O’Connor of The Times called his show, “Bill Moyers Journal,” “one of the most outstanding series on television.”

Friday, June 2, 2017

A Player Falls Injured At The French Open, And Compassion Takes Over; NPR, June 1, 2017

Bill Chappell, NPR; A Player Falls Injured At The French Open, And Compassion Takes Over

"It's still early in the French Open, but the tournament has already seen a remarkable show of sportsmanship. On Thursday, Juan Martín del Potro climbed over the net to console his opponent, Nicolás Almagro, who was visibly upset by an injury that forced him to withdraw from their match...

As del Potro stepped over the net and walked toward him, Almagro collapsed on the clay court, his sobs clearly audible over the crowd's cheers of encouragement and appreciation. Del Potro, an Argentine who has faced his own injuries, talked quietly with Spain's Almagro before the two walked slowly back to the bench.

As he passed center court, Almagro, who at 31 is ranked No. 69 in the ATP's world tennis rankings, turned back to shake hands and hug del Potro, and to shake the chair umpire's hand.

"People first, tennis players second," the Roland Garros Facebook page stated."

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Further Into the Muck With Mr. Trump; New York Times, 8/9/16

Editorial Board, New York Times; Further Into the Muck With Mr. Trump:
"Just eight years ago, Senator John McCain of Arizona, then the Republican presidential nominee, told a man at a town hall session who said he was “scared” of an Obama presidency that Mr. Obama “is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared as president of the United States.”
Twenty minutes later, a woman told Mr. McCain that she couldn’t trust Mr. Obama because “he’s an Arab.” “No ma’am,” Mr. McCain replied. “He’s a decent family man, a citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. And that’s what this campaign is all about.”
Republicans would do well to summon the integrity that Mr. McCain showed in 2008, and not just to give some sense of decency to this ugly campaign. The time has come for Republicans — including Mr. McCain — to repudiate Mr. Trump once and for all."