I don't want the news to be patriotic. I don't want to see flags on the lapels of the anchors. I don't want any of that.
I may have a very visible job that allows more than a million viewers to invite me and my fellow anchors into their homes every morning, but that doesn't make me famous, nor does my job entitle me to any kind of special privileges.
Not a day goes by that I don't look at myself in the mirror and ask God, 'Why me? Why did you choose me, Ainsley Earhardt from Columbia, South Carolina, to be one of a handful of female national news anchors?'
I tend to relate more to people on television who are just themselves, for good or for bad, than I do to someone who I believe is putting on some sort of persona. The anchorman on 'The Simpsons' is a reasonable facsimile of some anchors who have that problem.
Language also encodes our past. We want to know who we are. To know who we are, we have to know who we used to be. Consequently, our literature, written in the past, anchors us in that past.
The older generation grew up on blow-dried anchors, plastic politicians, and an ocean of pretense. Realness seems unvarnished and unpolished to them.
When Nirvana became popular, you could very easily slip and get lost during that storm. I fortunately had really heavy anchors - old friends, family.
The anchors of the Arab consensus have long been Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and both are now weakened forces in Arab politics and diplomacy.