Catch up on President’s Day …

from Thursday’s AC360°:

In some ways, it now seems so long ago that Steven Kazmierczak conducted a shooting spree on the campus of Northern Illinois University – in other ways, it seems like just moments ago.

His victims were:

Daniel Parmenter, 20, Westchester, Ill.
Catalina Garcia, 20, Cicero, Ill.
Ryanne Mace, 19, Carpentersville, Ill.
Julianna Gehant, 32, Mendota, Ill.
Gayle Dubowski, 20, Carol Stream, Ill.

Obviuously, many thoughts and prayers are sent to the family anf friends of these victims. There has been much discussion in the aftermath of this tragedy about on-campus security, and about the ease of access that Kazmierczak had to the weapons that he purchased. From what has been reported, it didn’t seem that additional on- campus security would have prevented what happened. As for the ongoing gun control debate, again – in this case, there was no reason to deny Kazmierczak the purchase of the weapons that he ended up with – even with a waiting period.

Sometimes there are clearly evident ‘signs’ that are missed when a massacre like this takes place, as in the case of Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech. Other times, there aren’t. And as it seems in the relatively few days since this latest shooting, this case leans towards the latter situation as opposed to the former.

As for the program itself, Anderson was already scheduled to be live in New Orleans, and did broadcast from Habitat for Humanity’s Camp Hope location, but the breaking news of the NIU shootings overshadowed much of the hour. Both Candy Crowley and Susan Roesgen were on location on the NIU campus for live reports, and Tom Foreman had a live report from Washington, DC.





Anderson also interviewed one student (Zach Seward) who was inside the lecture hall when the shooting began, and another student (Rosie Moroni) who was just outside the lecture hall.




There was time for a “little” politics (I'm being facetious, of course) – Larry Elder and Tony Perkins were interviewed by Anderson about Mitt Romney’s endorsement of John McCain, and about McCain’s continuing struggle to unite the conservative wing of the Republican Party under the umbrella of his impending nomination and subsequent campaign.



And of course, since we ARE in New Orleans for this program, there was fortunately some time for a couple of NOLA-based stories: one about the ongoing homeless problem for the city, in spite of progress made in housing construction, and a second about the formaldahyde-ridden FEMA trailers that many NOLA residents are still living in and will have to soon give up because of the danger of continued exposure.






A couple of “fun” notes about the program – NBA superstar LeBron James had a “tryout” for the 360 announcer position, and “The Shot” is of US Marine Captain Mark Robinson embracing his children after surprising them at their school with an early ‘coming home’ visit from his Iraq deployment. Awww ... one of the best “Shots” of all ...




from Friday’s AC360°:



Friday’s AC360° was a special in the “Uncovering America” series – entitled “Race and Gender in Politics”. The special combined panel discussions with on-location reports from correspondents Randi Kaye, Soledad O’Brien, Jason Carroll, John Zarella and Gary Tuchman.

Randi covered gender-based issues in Ohio, Soledad looked at remaining tensions between the African-American and Latino communities and how it may affect voting choices, Jason Carroll interviewed Loretta and Linda Sanchez (sisters representing different CA Congressional districts) about their differing choices, John Zarella covered Latino voter preferences in Florida and Gary Tuchman took another look at what issues are impacting the Asian-American vote, this time from Fort Lee, New Jersey.







Panelists Soledad O’Brien, Leslie Sanchez, John King, Faye Wattleton and Rutgers University Professor Jane Junn discussed all of the above topics after the reports were aired, lending their expertise to the subjects. One probably unintended “comedic” moment happened when Leslie Sanchez attempted to claim that Republicans don’t participate in “identity” politics, only “idea” politics. What a joke!! And yes, she was very quickly called on it and had to back away to some extent. But John King especially got a good laugh out of it ...




Perhaps I just follow politics a little too closely, or perhaps this special was meant to appeal to those who don’t follow politics all that closely, which is certainly fine and probably a service to those who might otherwise be lost in a more intense discussion, but personally, I really didn’t learn much from this hour. Again, not a criticism per se, as it was a good special; sometimes I just wish there was kind of ‘system’ that would help viewers decide ahead of time whether or not a particular special would be a worthwhile investment of time. But that would circumvent RATINGS, right???? Silly me ...

Other News and Notes:

Seems that Anderson had ‘extended duty’ while in New Orleans this weekend in conjunction with the NBA All-Star celebration. On Friday, he interviewed FCC Chairman Kevin Martin as part of the NBA Tech Summit. And on Saturday, he attended the NBA All-Star “Saturday Night” festivities.



Thanks for visiting - hope everyone had a terrific holiday weekend (if you celebrate President’s Day, of course)!!