al Jazeera English

Ok, so the al Jazeera English service started up yesterday. This is an unqualified good thing. For those who want to know more about the station, the documentary Control Room is an excellent place to start. As soon as you see the movie, you begin to realize that the journalists for the station are not anti-American automatons but deadly serious journalists with a decidedly pro-democracy bent. The only thing: their vision of democracy doesn't square with the vision pushed and pursued by some in America. Let's be clear too: it *is* America that feels unhappy and threatened with the station's English service: there are five cable companies in Germany for example that are running the station while none in the US are.

Maybe they should run ads on other stations like the old "I want my MTV" commercials from the early 80s? To show my age, I actually remember those commercials.