Despite the title, no.. this is not my swan song. Far from it. Instead it refers to a wonderful film of the same name that chronicles the conflict between Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s. It’s both absorbing and amazing, and is startling relevant in the times we now live. I quote now from a speech Murrow made in 1958 which is also in the film:

“Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger. There are, it is true, occasional informative programs presented in that intellectual ghetto on Sunday afternoons. But during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER.

For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive. I mean the word survive literally.”

I strongly urge you take time out and see it, and hope to read your reactions to the film here.