Demographics, War, And That Wacky Mel Gibson (Thursday's Second Hour)

I know I'm later than usual with this. Sorry about that. Pesky life getting in the way again. We kick off the hour with rerun pieces from Dana Bash, Ed Henry, Allan Chernoff, and Miles O'Brien. Whew! That's a lot of rerunning. Next we're tackling our growing population. Apparently on Tuesday the US will be welcoming the arrival of its 300 millionth person. How they can pinpoint it to Tuesday, I don't know. Anyway, 360 isn't quite sure if they like this development and thus have given the issue the title, "Melting Pot or Meltdown?" I guess at 299,999,999 people we're good, but once we hit 300 million...oh noes! I do think this is an interesting topic though and am looking forward to the special on Monday.

Tonight we get a bit of a preview with a piece from Randi Kaye on the rising tensions between latinos and blacks. Latinos are now the largest minority group in the country and there is some aminosity from blacks over jobs. Basically blacks feel latinos are taking jobs from them, thus the tension. In the piece Randi profiles two pastors, one hispanic and one black, that are good friends. The black pastor states that he doesn't see color. Stephen Colbert doesn't see color either. This guys should totally be Stephen's new black friend. Send in your picture black pastor guy! This whole situation makes me sad because throughout the piece all I can think is that we should be past all this by now. But we're not. Not even close.

Next up we have an interview with demographer William Frey, who points out that in recent past generations there haven't been many immigrants, but the younger generation will make us a melting pot once again. Anderson points out that there are some people that are frightened by that notion. *Cough*Lou Dobbs*Cough* Yeah, and they're working on a fence right now. Because that'll really work.

Back now to Randi Kaye who this time gives us a piece on the perils of being a working woman who also wants to have kids. Man, guys don't know how easy they have it. Of note is that there is starting to be a corporate brain drain as professional women leave the workforce to have kids. Obviously to combat this corporate america is going to have to find ways to adapt. Flex time, daycare at work...stuff like that. This shouldn't be so hard on women. The end of this piece hilariously warps into a video for a dating service with Randi asking her interview subject, "What's your perfect kind of guy?" CNN: The most trusted name in news...and we'll get you a date too!

Transitioning now to Iraq. In a piece from Jamie McIntyre we learn that the top Pentagon general has said that the current US strategy is under review. However, they're still not admitting any errors. Then we have an updated piece from Dan Simon on Alaska's 177th striker brigade. You might remember that these soldiers had been deployed for a year and were set to come home, but then got extended for another four months. This was of course devastating to their families, some of whom had already packed up their households and booked vacations. Angered, the community voted on a resolution to urge Rumsfeld to resign, but it failed by one vote. Four soldiers who should be home are now dead and Rumsfeld is giving no promises that the rest will be home by Christmas. Is this how we support the troops?

On now to a piece from Sanjay Gupta on injured veterans. We learn that while in Iraq Sanjay performed surgery on Jesus Vidana, who had a head injury. Jesus survived and he is just one of the many returning with devastating injuries. A full one third of soldiers will come home with physical or mental injuries requiring care and when all is said and done the VA system could be looking at a total of 700,000 claims for disability. This will of course cost lots of money. As technology gets better, more lives can be saved, but then the costs add up. It seems to me that sooner or later this is all going to bankrupt the system. And then what? I guess they're on their own. After all, that is the current republican way. One thing I wish Sanjay would have mentioned is depleted uranium (DU), which may be the cause of some troop illness. Take a look at this investigation from 2004. After the piece we have Sanjay live to explain the VA system.

The Shot tonight is snow in western New York. Anderson states he is not ready for snow. I'm not ready for snow either. Nor am I ready for it to be this cold. Erica says they don't generally get snow in Atlanta. I never say this, but shut up Erica. What can I say? Being cold makes me crabby. Finally tonight we have a Brooke Anderson piece (yes, Brooke Anderson) on Mel Gibson's Diane Sawyer interview. He apologizes, but really does himself no favors because he's all weirdly fidgety and then he goes and blames alcohol again. Okay, one more time, alcohol can make you act stupid, but it cannot make you an anti-semite. Clear? You're that all by yourself. I'm a little disappointed because this piece was just begging for some snark from Anderson, but we got nothing. Oh well. That's all folks.

Screencaps by stormi0611.