In This, The Post-Pharaoh Hosni The Last Era . . .

I did a few minutes of the Simonizer this morn, and he's really been discombobulated with post-Mubarak Egypt. Usually swaggeringly confident, the SS, like the rest of NPR, acts like they've just lost their patriarch.

What to do? Before Israel kicks in with their persecution trip, best to be a little condescending to all the euphoric Egyptians, but then get down to work on the negative. Like, stay tuned for the Brotherhood and all that.

Then it was with much relief that the SS could turn to mocking streetcars in American cities with an Eleanor Beardsley-style snottiness (she's a great influence, doncha know).

These are obvious times to trash most American media as not only worthless, but more harmful than ever.

One question though: it took 30 years for the long-suffering Egyptians to dump their patriarch. How long will Americans put up with their crappy media?

A dear friend of mine, a passionately progressive-thinking person through and through, thinks that the media are all-powerful and that they have the American public permanently under their thumbs. I disagree. I certainly agree about their power, but I just don't think it's what it was. Like the US itself, their power has peaked. Egypt has proven that things will go in different directions now. That's what's so exciting about the here and now.

I was also elated when Al Jazeera had that awful, awful Nicholas Burns on to comment on the Egyptian situation. The interviewer just didn't buy Burns' lullaby-voiced 'gentle' words, and made him look like the worthless 'kindler, gentler' imperialist that he is.

On the other hand, on the recent Al Jaz 'Empire' show with Sy Hersh, Thomas Pickering, old-school American imperialist that he is, was nevertheless hip to fact that change is in the wind, so get on board. At least he was posing as more progressive.

As for NPR, despite Viv's futile attempts to make them the hippest cats on the block, NPR's dinosaur fate is really showing. She's gonna have to sack all the old farts and go commercial if she wants to save that mess.

I mean, if you're mocking streetcars, which work astoundingly well in cities from Calcutta to Riga to Zurich to Portland (all of which I have personally used with great satisfaction), you're not only a bozo, you're not long for your position of 'influence'. Sorta like Pharaoh Hosni The Last.