• Walter Cronkite, the “most trusted man in America,” who anchored the CBS Evening News for two decades and saw the country through a time of social and political tumult (the Kennedy assassinations, the killing of Martin Luther King Jr., Watergate, Vietnam) and technological achievement (man walking on the moon), died late Friday at the age of 92.
• Frank McCourt, a retired New York City high school teacher who turned a dysfunctional and impoverished childhood in Limerick, Ireland, into the best-selling “Angela’s Ashes,” died yesterday at age 78.
• Frank McCourt, a retired New York City high school teacher who turned a dysfunctional and impoverished childhood in Limerick, Ireland, into the best-selling “Angela’s Ashes,” died yesterday at age 78.
- KC's View:
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I could not help but think over the weekend that there is no way that the deaths of either Cronkite or McCourt will get the kind of media attention that Michael Jackson’s demise did. And yet, it seems clear to me that Cronkite contributed a lot more to the planet than Michael Jackson did; and it may even be possible to make the argument that McCourt made a great contribution – not because of his novel, but because he labored in the New York City public school system, teaching and inspiring young people for more than three decades.
Maybe that’s because they lived long and full and good lives. Maybe it is because they did not die with scandal attached to their names and reputations. But maybe – just maybe – it is because our culture focuses on all the wrong things.
