Hold still, this'll only take a minute.

The beauty of the vise is it has two sides which, when squeezed together enable it to put sufficient pressure upon an object to screw it, unscrew it, file it, i.e., smooth its rough edges, or perform other manipulations upon it per the user's whim.

Funny, but I thought of this tool while watching this evening's news. Let me just give you two sample stories from the networks tonight.

The first was the story of Bin Laden's latest threat/offer to America. In it, terrorist numero uno said al Qaeda was prepping for attacks here in the US but the group was open to a conditional truce with Americans. I was watching this (unfortunately) on CBS. (I switched to another network immediately afterwards.)

While CBS devoted all of this story to the new threat of al Qaeda terrorist attacks here in America, it gave only one sentence to the 'conditional truce' offering from Bin Laden. And you know what was funny about his conditions for a truce? They are some of the same things being debated on the floors of the two houses of our U.S. Congress, i.e., withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

But what's even funnier is, the Bush administration discredited the truce portion of Bin Laden's message, while choosing to validate the threat portion, as my wife was so quick to point out. Are you fucking scared enough yet, Americans? If not, maybe Bush will raise the alert level, something til now--despite Bin Laden's ominous overtones--he's deemed unwarranted.

So in order to avoid losing my supper, I jumped on the TV remote to procure a new source for news. Forgive me if I don't remember where I landed, but it was NBC or ABC. Whatever. And the story I heard next was of Jill Carroll, the 28 year old abducted American Christian Science Monitor reporter whose captors deadline for her release/execution is rapidly approaching. A desperate plea for her safe return was being made by her mother.

I couldn't stop thinking about the American general after his adamant bravadoed reaffirmation, "America does not negotiate with terrorists."

"What if it was HIS daughter?" I thought. Or Cheney's? Or one of the Bush twins? Would our resolve be so strong?

And then we were told by the network that we're not even sure who the real kidnappers are. "Contract kidnappers" was the phrase the network used, leading me to ponder exactly who would want Jill Carroll removed. Surely there's the insanity of the terrorists. But what of the insanity of our own American terrorism? After all, how many independent journalists have accidentally died at the hands of the trigger happy American military?

Carroll is known as a "compassionate, scrupulous reporter who cares deeply for the Iraqi people," leaving in question who might want her removed enough to hire contract kidnappers?

It's my concern here we may accept too readily the line fed us by our media, a media that has failed us grossly and continues to do so daily. So before we jump into the mush we're being fed, take time to consider the vise being used to hold our brains in place as they're being screwed, unscrewed, or filed down. It requires pressure from more than one side to reshape your head.