Tag: defensible times
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Pithy point, pithy counterpoint
Kirn’s latest pithy point: If history is any guide, the books that the ideological arsonists disappear first are likely to be the very books needed to spark a renaissance later. Most of the commenters are thinking of fairly modern dystopias, but that’s clearly not where Kirn is going. 1984 wouldn’t spark a renaissance. Purpose-based thinkers…
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Best of the bunch
Two of the best interviews from the Connors UFO audio are from the mid-60s after most of the hoopla had died down. Despite the lack of hoopla, a lot of ‘undismissable’ incidents were happening in ’65 across large parts of the world. = = = = = (1) Ray Fowler of the Boston-area NICAP was…
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Putting UFOs onto the timeline
Two very different men with the same initials. = = = = = Alphia Hart mentioned the UFO craze often, and not only because it was a kindred unorthodox spirit. Hart’s specific mission was debunking the Hubbard cult, which is based on a wild story about alien contacts. Now that I know some of the…
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Phlogiston wasn’t stupid at all
I hope Google doesn’t start censoring its Books department. All VALID ideas and CORRECT facts were written before the 20th century. Pretty much everything written since 1906 is either trivial or intentionally murderously false. Censoring new ideas is usually a net gain of real knowledge, whether the new ideas are ‘establishment’ or ‘independent’. Before Googlebooks,…
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WPA 1/5, background
Time for another review/renew series. Five parts from top to bottom. = = = = = The New Deal set up dozens of overlapping agencies at first, then gradually simplified the arrangement. In other words, FDR didn’t allow Parkinson; didn’t let agencies create problems to guarantee growth. Unneeded agencies were removed or merged. Bureaucrats were…
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WPA 2/5, Oklahoma
The WPA was engaged in a huge variety of tasks, all focused on the SKILLS of workers. People need to be useful, and men need to make things. Training develops the soul and brain most effectively and permanently when you’re MAKING THINGS that are visible and useful and a source of pride to your parents…
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Return to Truman 2
Still watching all the “independents” falling into line like passive iron filings near a powerful magnet. Still branching from that Feb ’50 Mutual news broadcast. It includes a brief emotional snip of the HUAC committee grilling Henry Wallace. The simple FACT is that all politicians were neutral and non-combatant from 1920 to 1940. We actually…
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Some things don’t change
From an otherwise uninteresting 1948 WBZ station brochure: Caption: Talent arrives with costumes for video rehearsal. Video was brand new in ’48, and talent was still operating in Vaudeville mode. Traveling between theaters, carrying their own costumes and props. The car in front is a base-model Hudson business coupe, probably belonging to one of the…
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Everybody’s gettin into da act.
Since I disconnected from TV and radio, I’m no longer getting constant IV floods of media toxin. But I can still recognize the floods by an occasional oversplash. Most of the “independent” “journalists” have suddenly turned neocon again. Non-intervention is fine when China or Saudi or Israel is invading other countries. Non-intervention goes out the…
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More rambling
Still thinking about Okla…. The Okla Historical Assn made a series of podcasts a few years ago. This one, from 2018, is a long interview with former governor George Nigh. He was governor in the 80s, and started his term in the last year that I lived in Enid. According to Wikipedia he’s still alive…
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The magic lantern lasted longer…
Last year I delved into the intersection of science and entertainment in the 1850s, focusing on the Magic Lantern. = = = = = START PARTIAL REPRINT: I had thought the magic lantern was just a slide projector with light furnished by flame instead of electricity. The machine was partly similar, but the ACTUAL USE…
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A sharp rebuke to drabness
A sharp rebuke from Lulu Meservey, one of the Substack executives. Technology is magical. But the language of technology has become generic and sterile: “User” “Creator” “Device” “Content” We should go back to the days of Greek and Latin: “Television” (far-seeing) “ Automobile” (self-moving) “Facsimile” (made alike) Words that sound magical. = = = =…
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From an extremely different era 17
A 1950 ‘meet the press’ style program had 5 reporters talking with Betty Hutton. Atypically the preserved recording is an uncut version, with frequent ‘offstage’ pauses where the reporters try to figure out who goes next, or check with Hutton to see if a question is acceptable. She had an interesting life. Like most reporters…
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Defensible Spaces review 4/6
How about defensible times? From 2019 again: Roger Scruton’s latest article includes this evocative sentence; At first, I thought that the placeless character of modern housing is a matter of style—the modern materials and proportions, the grammarless disposition of windows and doors, the random orientation along cul-de-sacs that join nothing to nothing. But it soon…
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Only the media is worse.
A pair of CBS news broadcasts from June 1940 show that Repooflicans were just as cowardly then as now. The difference is in the media, which was REQUIRED BY LAW TO BE FAIR in 1940. Both parties were having their conventions, which were more genuine then. Real decisions were made IN the convention BY the…
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