European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 26, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Coming soon to our shaky world the end Andy Rooney every few years some nut predicts the world will end soon. No one has predicted that lately so i thought i would. You have to admit things done to look too Good. My guess is if things keep going downhill it la All be Over March 25 or March 27 at the latest. In a not going to take anything More to the cleaners after March 19. I think i la take a Long weekend beginning the 21st, and 1 May even Call in sick that tuesday. There Are some things in be been meaning to do around the House before doomsday. I m certainly going to cancel my dental appointment for March 9. No sense putting myself through that when ill be needing my Teeth Only a few More weeks. What s a Little plaque with the world coming to an end the reason in a so sure about the end of the world is i read the papers. The economists say the recession could get worse before it gets better. The crime rate is up and there a no reason to think we won t set another murder record by the end of the year a if the year lasts to the end. Which As in be said i doubt. If you re getting married statistics show the chances Are one in two you la get divorced. Gov. Pete Wilson of California says that by 1995 there will be fewer people paying taxes there than there Are people on welfare living off taxes. The soviet Union has fallen apart and we Don t know what s going to replace it. The soviet Union was a Nice dependable enemy. Now we have this fractured country and we re not sure where the big bombs Are or who a in charge of them. General motors Ford and Chrysler Are in the worst shape of their corporate lives. Their cars simply Arentt Selling and it could be the virtual end of the Auto Industry Here. The airlines Are in the worst trouble they be Ever been in. People done to have the Money to take trips so the airlines raise fares to break even. More people done to Fly. People done to Fly because there Are so Manv delays. Airlines Cut Down on their maintenance Crews producing More delays. People find flying inconvenient and uncomfortable because there arc Long Waits on ticket lines and once passengers get on Board they re jammed into seats that Are too close together. Airlines Cut costs by firing ticket clerks. That makes the lines longer. They reconfigure their planes so the seats Are closer together making them More uncomfortable. In Ireland Israel and Lebanon vigilante groups arc taking the Law into their own hands. Millions arc starving in Ethiopia. We re destroying the Ozone layer that protects us from the Sun s rays so More of us Are going to get skin cancer. Civilization looks As if it s coming apart at the scams. Otherwise have a Happy time a until March 27, that is. Tribur mod in soil icon Andy Rooney is a Lormer Sara and stripes  on target from the left on can series by Howard Rosenberg los Angeles times he is. Somebody1. And As a former a and possibly future a presidential candidate somebody who is no stranger to hyperbole. In his four Page biography put out by the National Rainbow coalition that he Heads the Rev. Jesse Jackson is identified As having a led or been part of every major drive for empowerment peace racial Justice gender Equality economic and social Justice that this nation has  even deity needs a forum however. And there Are those who believe Jackson will cynically use his latest one a weekly discussion program on can to launch his bid for a return appearance on saturday night live. His last guest shot was in 1986. He reaches an older and earlier to bed crowd As Host and Moderator of both sides with Jesse Jackson saturday evenings stateside. And arguably a More politically influential one. Thus if the Oft verbose Jackson were interviewed about his new series the dialogue perhaps would go something like this reporter Why do this show Jackson every political act has. Moral consequences and every moral act has political consequences. Every act has a consequence. And every consequence has been caused ,. By an act. Our moral  not preclude political consequences although the act itself May be moral. In a political sense. Reporter in other words Jackson i wanted the gig. And All kidding aside some gig it is. With the Jan. 4 premiere of both sides on can Jackson became not merely the first leftist to join Ted Turner since Jane Fonda but tvs Only True openly partisan Liberal Host of a Public affairs talk or interview series. Whether one shares his views Isnit important. What is important is that those views have a regular advocate in a medium where the Range of political opinion in Public affairs shows usually Jesse Jackson in 88 presidential Campaign. Ranges from moderate to conservative almost totally excluding the left. So Jackson a rebounding from his recent failed syndicated series that was As ragged and ill fitting to him As it was politically fresh a again adds his voice to tvs booming right Wing chorus of hosts with mandates to shape their programs in their own reactionary images. The list William f. Buckley jr., John Mclaughlin Roland Evans and Robert Novak and until leaving can recently to seek the Republican nomination for president Pat Buchanan. Mirroring its hosts unpolished to presence however both sides is anything but a sleek Rolls Royce. Jackson a new show is tightly formatted deploying him Between guests representing opposite sides of an Issue. He defines that Issue then narrates a taped package that illustrates it. Then comes the debate then after a commercial break that moment in the half hour when Jackson and his bickering guests no matter the philosophical chasms separating them Are supposed to drop their Nail he add clubs and. Seek common ground. The program ends with everyone making a final statement Jackson naturally getting the last words which he appears to read from a Tele prompter. Then Click As if he were a lamp being turned on Jackson abruptly switches per. Sonal tics and delivers the gracious Host s smile. And both sides is history for another week. Although he occasionally weighed in with his own Strong opinions Jackson a first two shows were Flat undistinguished outings whose gentlemanly Quot inside the Beltway Quot tone a the series is taped in Washington a clashed with his stated goal of speaking for the voiceless. Instead of shaping the discussion Jackson was mostly a Man in a Cross fire watching the rhetoric of his guests Graze his nose. On its third try however both sides began to emerge As a True alternative discussion program with Jackson aggressively joining Kavan Aslanian a California welfare rights activist in debating David Jaye a Michigan state legislator and Kate o Beime of the heritage foundation on the status of welfare in the United states. Rebutting such statements from Jaye As a nobody is starving in America Quot and that non working welfare recipients Are automatically scum Jackson became a vigorous advocate for the under classes his passions surging. So vociferous was he at times that his philosophical ally Aslanian looked like a wrestler in a tag team match waiting in vain outside the ropes to he tagged. Quot done to you see the relationship Between plants closing jobs leaving and welfare going up Quot Jackson demanded from Jaye and of Beirne at one Point. They did no to and so genuinely spirited was the show that there was no time even to. Seek common ground. What Jackson should seek if he s serious about to is More elocution training. He remains impossible to understand at limes running his words together so horrifically that it would take the jaws of life to pry open some of his sentences. He does such Odd things As addressing some guests by their last names and others by their full names. A one name memory perhaps More important Jackson does no to forget the crucial issues that define America in 1992. Sounding like a campaigner himself he said on a recent show that in this election year he hears a no champions of the  except perhaps on a certain new can Public affairs show. January 26, v v sunday a Page