Is it me, or has CNN gotten really weird? It’s on the basement TV at school right now, and I’m struck by how informal it’s become since the last time I watched a 24-hour TV news network who-knows-when.

First there was a guy talking about the blizzard in the Northeast. He mentioned the rain in Southern California for a few sentences, then summed it up with “so the whole country is experiencing this.” Right. Okay, so that part wasn’t particularly informal, it just annoyed me.

Then the same guy and another CNN anchor (do they still call them that?), apparently in another studio, had a gripe session between themselves about how dumb the word “bipartisanship” is. They both leaned on their desks and made faces, and the lady actually rolled her eyes at one point. They agreed that Congress was being childish, and that everything would be okay if all of Congress went out and got drunk together.

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Have y’all heard about Terry Gross’s interview with Tracy Morgan? It’s … weird.

I’d never seen or heard Tracy Morgan interviewed before this, so I had no idea how much the real Tracy resembled the characters he plays. He’s not clueless like they are, for sure, but he’s just as intense and unpredictable.

The tension in the interview is so uncomfortable that it made me physically squirmy. Or at least Terry seems tense. Tracy’s personality is so far from my own that I don’t know how to begin to project my feelings onto him.

I’m not sure why Terry seems to be criticizing Tracy sometimes, really jabbing at him. I listen to more than my fair share of NPR, but in Houston Fresh Air plays on Sunday mornings, so I don’t know much about Terry. Is this her usual style?

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