Bena Mae’s Kitchen: Has the news gone tabloid?

With 24 hour a day wrap-around cable news, TV stations find themselves having to fill a lot of dead air with what they call news. I find it irritating because I grew up with hard news, 15 minutes a day with anchors like Edward R. Murrow, Gabriel Heatter, The Huntley-Brinkley Report, John Cameron Swayze, and the dean of them all, Walter Cronkite. In those days you didn’t get nonsensical gossip. If you wanted to read about Hollywood stars’ private lives, you bought a movie magazine or a torrid tabloid. All that has changed now.
Case in point:
I haven’t had a fresh ear of corn this summer and here it is the middle of August. This is a big deal for me because I love fresh corn. I see and hear farmers holding up scraggly ears of corn with few kernels on them because of one of the worst droughts since the Oklahoma dust bowl in the 1930’s. The drought has covered half of the U.S. and farmers and food crops are in a desperate situation.
Not to worry though. Latoya Jackson is getting a new reality show. Important stuff we need to know.
Every day we see reports of people getting slaughtered in Syria and other places in the Middle East. It’s hard to watch and we see no lessening of the day to day slaughter. We grieve for those caught in the middle of of the turmoil and hope and pray for a solution to the carnage. But every day it’s the same. More killing.
But life for Jennifer Lopez has its own problems. She’s having to sue her driver for blackmail. And Brad and Angelina may or may not adopt another child. Then there’s Tom and Katie.
This is just a small example of what the news has become. Important news has taken a back seat to Hollywood trivia, bikini-clad bodies, the latest couple holding hands on the beach, the craziest hairstyle, the lowest cleavage. Is this what we’re supposed to wrap our minds around? No wonder they call it the dumbing down of America.

Oreo Ice Cream Cake

1/2 cup hot fudge ice cream topping, warmed
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed, divided
1 pkg. (3.9 oz.) JELL-O Chocolate Instant Pudding
8 OREO Cookies, chopped (about 1 cup)
12 vanilla ice cream sandwiches

Pour fudge topping into medium bowl. Whisk in 1 cup Cool Whip.
Add dry pudding mix; stir 2 min. Stir in chopped cookies.
Arrange 4 ice cream sandwiches, side-by-side, on 24-inch-long sheet of foil; top with half the Cool Whip mixture.
Repeat layers. Top with remaining sandwiches.
Frost top and sides with remaining Cool Whip. Bring up foil sides; double fold top and ends to loosely seal packet.
Freeze 4 hours or until firm.