Serious indictment of media fetishes . . .

August 8, 2007

 . . . that will drive the “mainstream media (MSM)” critics to distraction.  Are we sure it’s a good idea to let Rupert Murdoch own the Wall Street Journal?

Orcinus tells conservative commentators to grow up:

Remember the fuss over Jet Pilot Action Figure Bush’s “package”? Damn fool didn’t loosen his straps before getting out of the jet. Nobody else on the deck had his crotch trussed up like a Christmas goose; and to them, he looked like a rookie idiot. But Chris Matthews practically had an orgasm on-air while watching him prance and strut.) The fact that so many mainstream and conservative media guys are suckered by this posturing shows that they don’t really have a clue about what a Real Man looks like — though, somewhere deep down inside, they’re pretty sure they don’t qualify. That’s why they’re so easily wowed by men who can put on the costume and make it look good.

But they’re even more easily cowed by men who can actually fill the boots. John Kerry. John McCain. Colin Powell. Bill Clinton. (You don’t have to agree with their politics; but nobody can say these men haven’t comfortably worn the full measure of male power and responsibility for some critical stretch of their lives.) Like little boys, the media guys are so awed by the outward forms of masculinity that they eagerly make a fetish out of them; but they also actively fear and resent men who display the authentic internal goods that make an honest-to-God man. These guys’ very presence incites such a strong sense of personal inadequacy that the Boys On The Bus can only resort to attacking them in ways that are openly calculated to feminize them — that is, to bring them down to their own level. He look French. He’s whipped by his powerful wife. He’s preoccupied with his hair. Translation: This guy has more balls and more maturity than we do — and we need to take him down before everybody figures out how inadequate that makes us feel.

And this:

 . . . the first rule of real macho was that those who possess it never need to prove it to anyone. If you have to prove it or put it out on display, you don’t have it in the first place. And if you are intimidated by seeing it in others, you aren’t even in the ballpark. The truth of that should come home to all of us every time we hear an MSM or conservative talking head going on in breathless awe about some public figure’s “manhood,” or asking leering, creepy questions about other people’s sex lives.

In a time when we need thought leaders who can help us sort out the issues and navigate the national crisis, we’ve got a media staffed by sniggering, leering first-graders who exhibit every regressive intellectual, moral, emotional, and sexual characteristic of right-wing authoritarian followers. It’s time to clean house — and to demand new media voices who aren’t in business to make fun of the grownups, or shamed by people who show the attributes of true maturity and power. It’s time to send the scared little boys home, and put some authentic adults in charge.

1 Comment | Current History, Heroes, History, Leadership, Newspapers, Politics, Radio, Reason, Television, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

June 5, 1968: The day Bobby died

June 6, 2007

Jim Booth at Scholars and Rogues wrote about what the death of Bobby Kennedy meant to a 16-year old kid out to save the world from darkest North Carolina.

This is just the 39th anniversary of RFK’s death. Next year, 2008, will be the 40th, and will again feature an election in which the war-crippled lame duck president must be succeeded, and the early fields in both parties do not excite the incumbent party’s masses much.

But 1968 was a uniquely terrible year — we hope it was unique. One serious question is just how depressing will it be to hear the “40-years out” stories on the Pueblo crisis, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death, the riots, RFK’s death, the convention riots, the money-and-morale-and-morality sapping war (Vietnam, not Iraq — we hope), etc., etc.

And so Mr. Booth’s close is a potent challenge: To rededicate ourselves to the hopes we felt in the first half of 1968, to see the implementation of those hopes now, two generations later — despite the cynicism that wells up whenever we see anyone touted as a great hope of needed change in the country’s direction, or whenever great hopes are dashed to pieces, as they have been in Iraq.

And every June 5th I stop for a few moments and remember how I believed in what America could be once – try to get some of that belief back – and, to use an old Boomer chestnut, “keep on keeping on.”

And I ask Bobby to forgive me – and my generation – for failing to pick up his torch….

1 Comment | 1968, Campaigns, History, Lessons of Vietnam, Politics, Presidents, Radio, Vietnam, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Radio history, historic radio

May 7, 2007

Internet connections can really boost history with sound and film presentations. History is really still in infancy stages, but some sites flash through with brilliant views of what can be done.

Old Time Radio posts a wealth of sound clips from throughout radio history, coupled with essays detailing much of the history that isn’t in the soundclips. The site seems to have almost all the episodes from Captain Midnight, for example. You can also hear Terry and the Pirates, or Fred Allen or Jack Benny.

The real gems, to me, are the newscasts and the stories of the newscasters. The 1937 broadcast of the Hindenberg Disaster is available, but so are some of the later and more important, and more rare, broadcasts of World War II: the Austrian Crisis, Neville Chamberlain with Britain’s declaration of war, news bulletins of the Pearl Harbor attack, on-the-scene accounts of the D-Day invasion of Normandy (with more accounts here), the battle for Iwo Jima now famous from two Clint Eastwood films, and V-J Day (“Victory-Japan”).

Later clips make this a standout site, and tantalize us with possibilities.  Ernest Hemingway’s suicide report, the 6-Day War between Israel and Egypt and Syria in 1967, and a report on the funeral of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 flesh out events that the high school history texts tend to stroll quickly over, and offer possibilities of classroom enrichment beyond the texts.

Surely more radio broadcasts exist that could be used in history classrooms.  Radio and broadcast history sites like The Broadcast Archive have the history of broadcast, but few actual broadcasts.   Other sites carry a few important broadcasts, but like this one, come weighted with polemics (the politics and religion on this site make it questionable for school use, though students may not think to look at the home site from the broadcast links — where did this guy get these broadcasts, and does he have the rights correctly listed?).

Some research suggests that students learn history partially through repetition, as with any other topic.  The old “repeat it four times” rule gets boring in class, but can be kept alive by repetition in other media.  Teachers who use the actual broadcasts of news of what are now historic events can make history speak to students.  Can.

More radio broadcast history:

— BBC News historic broadcast archives  (This site has broadcasts through current times, including, for example, broadcasts of Nelson Mandela’s rise to the presidency of South Africa, a much-ignored era in too many classrooms.)

— Earthstation 1 CDs and DVDs for purchase

— Timeline of radio, from the California Historical Radio Society

— Radio broadcasts 1939-1943 from the University of San Diego’s history server

— Ken Burns’ “Empire of the Air” companion site

— First commercial broadcast in the U.S., KDKA-AM, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with results of the Cox-Harding presidential election, November 2, 1920

1 Comment | 1968, Disasters, History, History audio sources, Radio, Technology, Technology in the classroom, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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