Happiness is a Warm Mug

Earlier this fall, the "Rally to Restore Sanity," by satirists Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert was held in Washington, D.C.  While much of the program was comedic and light-hearted, the final speech by Stewart was poignant and provocative.  Here is an excerpt:

We live now in hard times. Not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies. But unfortunately one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country’s 24-hour politico pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems. But its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected, dangerous-flaming ant epidemic… If we amplify everything, we hear nothing… The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker.