KEITH RECEIVES PRAISE for his fine work over the weekend . . .

[WhirlyGirl]

Here's another accolade: She got the network wrong, but Joanne Ostrow of the Denver Post sure got Keith RIGHT! --

"Count CNBC's Keith Olbermann among the best at vamping intelligently and interviewing authors, statesmen and theologians." -- http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~122~2796132,00.html

[WhirlyGirl]

1. PS --

I wrote to Joanne Ostrow:

Subj: Thanks for recognizing Keith Olbermann's fine work
Date: 4/3/2005 3:29:14 PM Eastern Standard Time
To: [e-mail]

Dear Ms Ostrow --

Thank you for singling Keith Olbermann out for praise in his coverage of the pope's illness and passing. I believe many were comforted by Mr. Olbermann's ability to accord this profound event both the dignity and the tenderness it called for.

One correction: Olbermann's network is MSNBC, not CNBC.

Yours very truly,
(WhirlyG)

[WhirlyGirl]

2. "Keith Olbermann's thoughtful, original . . ." - TVNewser

- - -
MSNBC's SMART, THOUGHTFUL COVERAGE

MSNBC won't net the biggest ratings during their coverage of the Pope's death, but that doesn't mean their product isn't deserving of praise.

Keith Olbermann's thoughtful, original packages have spurred several e-mailers to suggest he's at his prime on this story. . . .
-- http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/
- - -

(And no wisecracks about "packages," Rev! :evilgrin:)

[RevCheesehead]

3. Nope, no wisecracks about this.

Keith has been a presence of comfort - just what many have needed during this time. He is one of my favorite people, ever.

[crispini]

4. OMG, your sig is awesome!

Very clever! :thumbsup:

[RevCheesehead]

5. Ferrettessa rocks!!

Take a look at her artwork on another thread here. Lotsa options.

To CC: :yourock:

[WhirlyGirl]

6. :-) Just anticipating a possible response to the wd "package," considering

. . . the way "SWIM" affected you only a couple nights ago, Rev!

Seriously, what you said just now is very similar to the sentiments expressed in my letter farther up the thread.

Keith wasn't just eloquent and superb; he struck the right tone and hit the right spot with listeners in a way no one else did or could, I believe. Probably because he spends more time LISTENING than talking, and thus understands what's called for in a given situation.

KAHUNA! :loveya:

[RevCheesehead]

7. IMO, Keith has never gotten in the way of the news.

He has rarely made himself a part of the news story (with the exception of the reaction to SpongeBob... but that was newsworthy, too!)

I hope the Kahuna is getting some rest tonight. He sure has earned it.

[WhirlyGirl]

8. Agreed, Rev; the phrase that often comes to mind is, Keith FACILITATES the

. . . news.

Whatever the story is or whatever the guest wishes to say, Keith tries to create an atmosphere in which listeners can receive it with as little interference as possible, so they can actually THINK ABOUT and ABSORB what has been conveyed. This may explain why listeners leave his broadcasts with a greater feeling of satisfaction than they get from other news programs.

He appears to be quite attuned to the subtleties, which has to be a challenge with someone talking in your earpiece and the possibility of technical glitches always lurking nearby.

Although I understand you were referring to his not being on an ego trip, I also think avoiding interfering with a story or a guest's thoughts requires Keith to be involved mentally, all the time, in order to know when to respond, when to let someone continue uninterrupted, and when to take charge.

Those skills were particularly in evidence this past Friday and Saturday, which may have been the first time many viewers noticed Keith's special gift for news midwifery.

Hey!-- this was supposed to be a thread for posting instances of OTHER PEOPLE praising KO's coverage of the pope's illness and passing . . . but it looks like WE'RE the ones ending up doing the praising again, Rev! <g>

[Clark2008]

9. I know. If it weren't for his coverage, I'd have been COMPLETELY

rudderless.
As it was (because my reaction to the Pope's death was so much stronger than I had planned for), I was pretty upset and void of most rational thought.
Keith made it easier for me to mourn.

[WhirlyGirl]

10. Isn't is great we've got this special place to come and share our . . .

. . . thoughts about how really valuable he has been on so many occasions, Lara?

You've certainly been having your ups and downs recently, esp. with your employment hassles. If I often catch myself thinking, "I don't know how I would've kept my sanity if Keith hadn't been there to make me laugh or lend some rationality to a situation," I can just imagine how much his presence on the tube has meant to you!

:hug:

[Clark2008]

12. My biggest problem is that I'm not a "cryer."

I kind of bundled that emotion up when I picked my first profession. As a journalist, I couldn't be seen boo-hooing it up with every death I covered and, while I don't necessarily bottle it up, either (writing was cathartic), I don't cry.
But, there's something to be said about an old-fashioned sob-session every once and a while.
I didn't cry when I lost my job. I dribbled a bit, but didn't cry.
I haven't cried, yet, over my grandmother's situation (she's in dire condition. I haven't mentioned it, but she really isn't in pain and, I think, wants to go, so, at this point, it's more of a holding-pattern).
I didn't cry but only ONCE when I discovered my ex was cheating on me.
In fact, in six years, I've cried - and I mean sobbed on only four occasions - after my baby's birth (tears of joy), when my marriage fell apart (once), 9/11 (empathy for those lost and abject FEAR over how people would treat my half-Arabic son afterwards), and the Pope's death.
I REALLY was not prepared for the emotion the Pope's death would evoke. I wasn't.

Thank you for the hug. I'm hanging in there and my sanity's in-tact. I got a lot of work done both in the house and out in the yard today and am feeling TONS better (mowing on a pretty spring day, to me, is NOT work - the Lord knows that and would probably have rather me been there than couped up in a church bawling over something I have no control over.)

[WhirlyGirl]

14. I know what you mean about heading outside to the yard (or the woods or...

... fields) when things get crazy or sad. We're designed to be restored by nature.

For 3 days after 9/11 I went around feeling weepy and miserable; then I went outside and planted something, and felt better after that life-affirming, future-facing act.

Also, my reading has convinced me that it's important from a health standpoint to be able to cry when you're under stress -- maybe not right on the spot at work or in a crowd, but when you get to a place where you needn't feel self-conscious doing it.

Chemical analysis performed on tears strongly suggests that toxins built up in our systems when we're under stress are RELEASED, WASHED AWAY in tears -- the implication being that people who don't cry are, in a sense, poisoning themselves. (Perhaps that's why men don't live as long as women, on average -- because it's considered "unmanly" to cry, so this natural purger of toxins is unavailable to them.)

I occasionally find myself unable to cry when I need to and have contrived ways to trigger it -- mostly using music with a poignant sound or lyric. If that doesn't work, there's always the heavy artillery: Animal stories! :cry::cry::cry::cry::cry:

[Clark2008]

16. I completely agree with you about the restorative powers of

shedding tears - which is why its sometimes bothersome to me that I cannot cry.

I have tried the tricks you suggest (there is one thing that would make me cry, but I will not and refuse to entertain the thought because its too awful and would depress me more), but, I spent YEARS - my formative years as an adult, no less - learning to keep that inside and, now, have a mental block.

Seriously, I was doing dishes when the first wave of tears started flowing yesterday. I was humming, "Jesus loves the little children..." (my son and I had been singing it), but it was just a little glob.

When I heard Keith's obit, I was sweeping the kitchen. My den is just off the kitchen, so I could still hear Keith in one ear and my son watching some Nick kids awards show in the other. When he started to quote, but didn't quite, Dylan Thomas, I lost it. I sat in the crumbs, on the floor, like Cinderella, and great huge sobs of dispair racked my very soul. I haven't cried like THAT in years. My son was awe-struck. He thought I was dying, poor thing.

I have an acre of land that I push mow. Generally, I mow the front yard one day and the back another day because it's so physically taxing. I mowed the WHOLE yard today, front and back, and I put the potted plants out and finished painting the dining room and moved some other planters and did six loads of laundry and changed from the winter linen to the summer linen and am still up at 3:33 a.m.

BUT, I'm feeling better.

[WhirlyGirl]

17. Sounds like Keith's elegy did you a lot of good . . .

. . . His voice has power but also much warmth. It must have seemed like an encouragement to cleanse yourself of all that sadness. Poetry, the right words, can do that!

I hope you took it as an opportunity to show your son that it wasn't harming you, but in fact just the opposite. He needs to know it's okay to cry, too.

I'm glad you're feeling better and not surprised that Keith helped you through it (he said if he wasn't a journalist he'd be a teacher or a shrink; perhaps he's already ALL OF THE ABOVE!). It's why I call him "Kahuna."

Sleep well. (Hope you're sleeping -- it's almost 5am! :boring:)

-----------
<< I could still hear Keith in one ear and my son watching some Nick kids awards show in the other. When he started to quote, but didn't quite, Dylan Thomas, I lost it. I sat in the crumbs, on the floor, like Cinderella, and great huge sobs of dispair racked my very soul. I haven't cried like THAT in years. My son was awe-struck. He thought I was dying, poor thing. >> Clark

[RevCheesehead]

11. Group hug.

:grouphug:

[Clark2008]

13. Yes.

:grouphug:

[WhirlyGirl]

15. There's 5 smilies in the pitcha --

. . . who are the other TWO? :-)

:grouphug:

[gkhouston]

18. I suppose it's whoever in the KOEB you'd most like

to be in a group hug with. We're a pretty huggy bunch when someone's feeling down, so it's not like there's a shortage of candidates. By the way, are you still frickin' dead? :7

[WhirlyGirl]

20. Reports of my demise are romantically fictional . . .

. . . which opens the very real possibility of my being resurrected in a future episode (note to Botany: You betta!), as the truth emerges that I had an exact double -- and that SHE was the poor unfortunate who took that last journey in the flaming longship a couple of days ago, as Keith stood sorrowfully onshore . . .

Stay tuned . . .

[gkhouston]

21. but that might also mean that *she* was the one

he tenderly embraced as she breathed her last and who knows what transpired before that? You might want to go for the steamy flashbacks, WG. }(

[WhirlyGirl]

22. He tenderly embraced her . . .

. . . in the DREAM sequence! :-)

[gkhouston]

23. oh, great...

now I'm going to be earwormed by the "Out of my dreams and into your arms" song from the dream ballet sequence out of "Oklahoma!" for the rest of the afternoon just as I was getting something tricky untangled. :grr:

[WhirlyGirl]

24. I love that song!

A lot worse earworms I could suggest (but I won't O8)).

[gkhouston]

25. I wouldn't mind, usually, but I'd only just got rid of a different

earworm that had been dogging me for two solid days. :crazy:

on edit: argh, and just mentioning it has brought it back again. I like "In Paradisum" from the Faure Requiem, I really do. But not over and over and over with the high-pitched organ intro that sounds like a calliope. Excuse me, I'm going to go find a slingshot and shoot down some cherubs. Maybe that will put a stop to it.

[WhirlyGirl]

26. Wait, don't tell me --

-- it was,

THIS IS THE SONG THAT NEVER ENDS......
YES, IT GOES ON AND ON, MY FRIENDS....
SOMEBODY STARTED SINGING IT,
NOT KNOWING WHAT IT WAS --
BUT THEY'LL CONTINUE SINGING IT
FOREVER, JUST BECAUSE --

THIS IS THE SONG THAT NEVER ENDS......
YES, IT GOES ON AND ON, MY FRIENDS....
SOMEBODY STARTED SINGING IT,
NOT KNOWING WHAT IT WAS --
BUT THEY'LL CONTINUE SINGING IT
FOREVER, JUST BECAUSE --

THIS IS THE SONG THAT NEVER ENDS......

:evilgrin:

[gkhouston]

27. not even close

see my edited message above.

[WhirlyGirl]

28. I think you're better off with the one I suggested . . .

Wasn't familiar with the Faure, so went to Amazon & played a clip -- and now I can understand why you'd want to get rid of that worm.

Try the Daisy sour cream jingle.
I always find it pleasant to be earwormed by that one.
Someone said it sounds naughty, but of course I don't know WHAT they mean. . .)

[gkhouston]

29. I don't know that jingle

I'll stick with the requiem. At least I can pretend I'm being reverent. People will just have to wonder why I'm grinning. (I won't tell 'em about the slingshot. O8) )

[WhirlyGirl]

19. Even Repub. PR guy Rich Galen marvels at KO's extraordinary memory!

- - -
4-4-2005

Keith Olbermann, on MSNBC Saturday night, said he remembered the time in Los Angeles when Pope John Paul II was being fawned over by the LA crowd; the singers, the dancers, the actors.

I had forgotten about this incident, but Olbermann had not.

The Pope singled out a young man who had been born without arms, but who had learned to play the guitar with his feet and toes. The young man played for the Pope. Oscars, Grammies, Golden Globes meant nothing.

A boy who had, through no fault of his own, been visited with what should have been a devastating disability. The boy got to play for the Pope. The Pope chose that boy to perform.
-- http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=%5CCommentary%5Carchive%5C200504%5CCOM20050404b.html
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