Peter Jennings 1938-2005

Monday, Aug. 08, 2005 - 9:46 a.m.

So we were watching a special about New Zealand last night, when there came the announcement that Peter Jennings died.

He was 67 and he died of lung cancer.

I am proud of the fact that I've strenuously avoided nightly network news for nearly the same amount of time that I have been on the world wide web; it was just easier to directly get the news from the wire services than to rely on the various talking heads.

But I have a memory of him.

In the fall of 1989, I was in a car during a long and unwanted road trip with three other surly people that had too much luggage. I was getting cranky because we hadn't found a place to stop and eat, and I had brought one of those little portable televisions with the four batteries and the dial. I was trying to find some news to watch, and we were driving through a part of the state that was mostly cows -- and ALL of a sudden, there on that little four-inch black and white screen, there's Peter Jennings standing on the Berlin Wall. This was a moment I had not expected to see during my life, thanks in part to the stories my father told me about how he had been a marine, and was still on reserve callup when the wall first went up. He avoided going to Berlin, but for many months, my parents remained prepared to leave on a week's notice.

And until the late summer of 2001, catching sight of Peter Jennings at Checkpoint Charlie was the most galvanizing news image I had ever seen. I will never forget him.

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I'm periously close to giving up my faith in humankind.

Why? Because "The Dukes Of Hazard" was the top moneymaker in theatres this weekend.

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That's it. Have a good Monday.

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12 of my readers commented on this entry

Nikki
Thanks to Boobs Simpson. *eyeroll*
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Requiel
No doubt! That movie looks so lame.
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bluesleepy
I have completely lost faith in Hollywood. And then folks wonder why it's been a really long time since I set foot into a movie theatre?! I've half a mind to sign up for Netflix and submerse myself in movies with an actual PLOT.
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Tricia
That movie doesn't interest me one bit.
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art again~!
go see march of the penguins!! very nice, and really super!!
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Jamie
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say, "Yay!" for 'Dukes'. I loved the show when I was a kid, for it was the show that featured my first childhood crushes. John Schneider and Tom Wopat. Yum! :-) Ahhh, the memories.
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Brin
Yeah, but you're talking about the television show. In the TV show, Daisy Duke wore a bikini in exactly ONE episode, as opposed to what Jessica Simpson does, flopping and bopping around. LOLOL. According to reviews, the movie is lowbrow and crass and has a complete absence of innocence that the tv show had. I don't know why Hollywood insists on living by the motto "If it's not broken, break it."
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elvisload
Jennings was a canadian rat bastard pinko commi scumfuck.
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Brin
Peter Jennings became an American citizen in the fall of 2003. Now, Bill Shatner? Maybe.
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Old Buddy Dave
I knew "Dukes Of Hazzard" was going to be a bad movie. I saw it coming. It had the four words that absolutely condemn a movie, the four words that absolutely GUARANTEE that a movie will be a pile of crap. Those four words are "Rip Taylor as Himself".
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Sara
Sadly, I was one of the losers who saw that movie. But I didn't pay for it, so does that consider it bad?? The movie was very "country" like. The sad part was that half the time the actors couldn't keep their country accents together...sad. So I give that movie an "eh"...
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cloudy
Lung cancer sucks.
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