Not during the prayer. I SAID, not during...

Photojournalists get such a bad rap.

They're not paparazzi. They're not vampires. They do have souls.

No, not all of them behave scrupulously at all times.

But do they deserve to be kicked?

Javier Manzano of the Rocky Mountain News was doing his job in the Colorado capitol building last week, shooting routine images of a swearing-in ceremony. He was unceremoniously stopped in the process.

News media across the nation — including the New York Times — have put the spotlight on Manzano and his decision to ignore warnings to cease shooting and be reverent.

My experience in journalism, and with journalists, convinces me that most really do care about the civic life they cover and the reality (even the sanctity) of the moment. Their job is to tell the story — official and unofficial — whenever it comes in front of their lens. If they're good, they're ready when the real story emerges from layers of spin and hype that glosses so much of what poses as news today.

It shouldn't surprise working journalists that Manzano got down on the floor in front of Rep. Douglas Bruce and House Speaker Andrew Romanoff and shot a frame or two of Bruce in prayer (maybe especially after Bruce said to go away.)

Bruce's decision to kick Manzano in the knee when he heard the camera shutter was one that might symbolize all the pent-up frustration that politicians feel toward journalists who won't color within the lines. Journalists are so darn ubiquitous.

Manzano declined comment after the photo session.

News coverage of this event has centered on both Manzano and Bruce — presumably because there's a sympathetic audience for both. My sympathies are with both, but for different reasons.

One reason Manzano wouldn't back off, I think, is that Manzano got the fact that prayer — for all its shallowness in socio-political life — is still part of the civic process. Actually, a lot of us believe it ought to be even more part of the process (albeit in private, in an earnest seeking of God for wisdom.)

Bruce was part of a political process that deserves public scrutiny. But he'd made it all the more compelling by jerking the state legislature around to do this swearing-in thing just when he wanted it — even if it was inconvenient for the whole.

What Manzano did, though, by shooting images of a praying man when that man said not to (maybe he asked nicely, the reports don't make that clear) is to promote a stereotype of photojournalists as blood-sucking creatures who disdain the life of the Spirit (at least that's what those who took a glance without really reading about it would conclude. And we live in a nation of cynical media glancers.)

I don't think Manzano should have backed off. But there are ways to do one's job so everybody wins. Maybe impossible here, but I suggest it's worth pursuing.

My sympathies are with Bruce because he's now made a name for himself as a guy who not only doesn't understand journalism within the democratic experience and socio-political life, he's also shown how much he doesn't grasp the place of prayer in that mix.

All of us lose it — occasionally in front of a bunch of people.

What's sad is that this guy exploded not only during prayer, but in front of cameras.

Jesus got angry at people who made His Father's house (the temple in Jerusalem), a place He called a house of prayer, into a circus of greed and commodification. But He didn't attack during prayer. When Jesus prayed, he prayed. When He took people to task, He waited until he could look them in the eye and make the lesson clear — sometimes so profoundly that they'd think about it for years afterward.

Douglas Bruce has labeled himself in a way that will make him a caricature of public servants for quite a while. And he's hurt the reputation of those who really do make prayer part of their calling to serve a constituency.

Of the two, I think Manzano will weather all this with less damage — even if he might have a sore knee for a while.

Maybe Douglas Bruce will think about knees more carefully now, even to the point of getting down on his own, experiencing what real prayer is all about.

If he does, politics in Colorado will be the better for it — as will the life of the media marketplace around him, that won't be going away anytime soon.

What it is and what it isn't

Journalism is as necessary as the pavement over which we drive, the rails over which we run, and the satellite transmissions that connect us to each other around this planet.

It's not the connection it was in centuries (or even decades) past.

Perhaps it never will be.

But like the democracy over which it guards, it is a collective entity that we ignore at our peril.

May journalism educators never lose sight of that bigger picture as we grind out our teaching, mentoring, correcting and inspiring.

History is a moment away. We can change it.

But pity the educator who believes that the process can be made more than institutional routine without the guidance of the Creator of all Truth.

She cried — sort of.

The ABC News video clip of Hillary Clinton, seated at a table, brandishing the microphone with the flick of a wrist — like the rock star some have made her out to be — is making waves across the country. Probably around the world.

Why?

Is it the pause, with that half-grin, half-sob, and a wisp of moisture in her eye?

Is it centuries of sexism rising from the depths of the American female psyche to burst onto the presidential campaign in quiet fury?

Is it because we're surprised that someone's talking candidly in a horse race that's been, well, exhausting?

I think it's because we suddenly caught a glimpse of reality — from a woman who, right there in front of us, has been figuring out who she is. It ain't about Bill anymore (if it ever really was), and it can't be about New York because, well, she's not really from there.

In that moment, at that table in New Hampshire, we saw something. And it was real — not pre-packaged, not scripted, not calculated (though if you look this clip up on YouTube a few times, you'll see how smoothly she moves from almost-lost-it to gotta-get-back-on-message. She's no dummy.

Don't expect to see the campaign pivot on that moment. It takes more than momentary candor in front of adoring crowds to make one fit for leadership on the national and international stage. We've got some hard watching and listening to do as this campaign season surges forward.

But we were seeing in the massive reaction (albeit brief, it's a long way to November) the symptoms of a nation yearning to put its heart and soul back into democracy. Young voters are showing up in droves at caucuses that used to be collections of oldsters. And like visionary young people tend to do, they're making their elders sit up and pay attention.

If predictions are correct, it's young voters that are going to swing this election. And it's about time. We live in a nation that has youthful vigor and brilliant outside-the-box brains driving its economy and best steps toward sanity and recovery at many levels. (And please get this: the young people I'm talking about aren't all white suburban kids. Some of the smartest have bilingual and bi-cultural abilities, in some cases learned overseas.)

Journalists, for all the flak they get, are pretty good at being watchdogs. And they were smart enough to have their cameras on and audio running when truth peeked out at them from Hillary Clinton.

Let's hope it happens again — in more places, with more people.

Commuting

The act of travel by train in California is a physical agility drill. It requires navigation skills, money to cover parking and fares, and a healthy sense of the inevitability of delay.



To reach one's destination, one must be willing to fight car and truck traffic to and from the station, there will likely be six flights of stairs to do (three and three down) before reaching the direction you need to go.

But the result is a hardy Californian. Or realtor signs in yards as people give up on commuting and just move closer to where they need to be.

Or they just move away -- to where the trains actually work or the driving is cake.