The sound of laughter....
oh, God... not now!

Laughter is contagious. Hear someone laugh and it is hard not to join in. That is sometimes the problem. There are times when you're not supposed to laugh.

In broadcasting, you become very relaxed at your job. But there is still an underlying tension that sometimes causes trouble. Sometimes that tension causes one to get the giggles.

Every broadcaster knows this, and in local stations around the country, it has often been considered good sport to "break up" your colleague when he/she is on the air. You might slip some bogus copy into their pile of script. So, when he is reading farm market reports, he suddenly finds himself saying "heifers steady, bulls mounting". Or, reading some copy from a local car dealer, his copy may read "bring in your title and your wife and we'll dicker."

The great air personality Peter Tripp once told me of auditioning for an announcing job. The job prospect was reading a script and someone reached out with a cigarette lighter and set the script afire. But this is an aside... it was not to cause a laugh, but to see how the guy could handle an emergency. Still, it sounds like a good way to break a guy up!

I have been in recording sessions involving several announcers when someone suddenly got tickled over something. When it was their turn to talk, they just burst into laughter. Stop the tape. rewind. Take two. More laughter. Take three. This goes on until the laughter runs its course, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

I remember two times when I was on the air and started laughing inapropriately. They are true stories and I hope friends or family of the people involved never read this, because I am embarrassed by it.

In local radio we often read news "cold"... that is, we saw the copy for the first time when we read it, live, on the air. The first story was about an elderly woman who lived alone, and very cold weather. Her neighbors did not see activity for some period of time and went to investigate. They found the woman dead in her home, with a small space heater operating full blast. The room had become very hot. The story went on to reveal that the woman's dog and her cat were also dead. Then the clincher... "even her goldfish, in a bowl, was dead." I lost it. Can't really explain why that was so funny, but I could not control the laughter.

The other story was about a guy who had a flat tire while driving on a busy hiway. He pulled onto the shoulder, got his spare, his jack and his lug wrench out of the trunk and changed the tire. (You can see this one coming.) When the guy finished changing the tire, he stood up, took a step backward, into the path of a speeding truck, was struck and killed. That is a sad and tragic story, but it hit me as hilarious. I could not stop laughing.

On the subject of broadcasting and laughter, there were also times when the broadcaster made his listeners laugh.. but he was unaware.

I once did a Sunday morning broadcast of gospel music, sponsored by a company that called itself "Tractor Parts and Farm Supply." After one broadcast, several listeners informed me that I had unknowingly called them "Tractor Farts and Parm Supply."

In the 1950s, a guy named Sheb Wooley made a record titled "Purple People Eater". The stations' deejays, naturally, referred to it off the air as "Purple Peter Eater." One day I played that record on the air. Soon after the record started, the statiion's receptionist came into the control room and asked what I had done. She said she answered the phone and a woman caller said only "Sam Bradley said...." then burst into uncontrollable laughter herself. I instantly knew what must have happened.

Another example did not involve me at all, thank goodness! In fact, I was driving in my car, listening to a network news broadcast... CBS, I think... and I believe the broadcaster was Lowell Thomas. It was during the Eisenhower era, and the story dealt with an Eisenhower visit to the city of Hershey, PA. I guess the story was brief and uninteresting, because Thomas embellished it with a brief ad lib, stating that "...thousands of Hersheyites turned out, with and without nuts." A live announcer was scheduled to read a commercial for Studebaker. He snorted and gasped through the copy, trying in vain to control his laughter.

Today's local radio has degenerated into little more than syndicated national talk shows, so live local radio is now more rare. Still, any time someone opens a microphone, there is always the danger that something, some insignificant, perhaps serious or even tragic something, will suddenly become very, very funny.

Where Have All The Anchors Gone?

Tuning in to your favorite radio or TV program this week, you may have noticed that the regular host is absent and a substitute is filling in.

The regular host is taking a holiday break. A well deserved rest.

I guess.

Unless you're an old-time broadcast purist, like me.

Recently a family group was watching some old 8mm film at my house, shots of family scenes, taken some 40 odd years ago. In one sequence, there I was, on my knees beside the Christmas tree, passing out gifts to the children.

One younger family member, not yet born at the time the film was shot, wondered aloud why I was wearing a white shirt and tie when that film was made. A shirt and tie, around the tree early Christmas morning? It does seem a little odd today.

What he could not know was that I had worked my regular radio program that morning and the family had suspended Christmas activity until I returned from work.

I spent every Christmas on the air for many years. The rule then was simple. If you are normally on the air on Thursday morning, and Christmas happens to fall on Thursday, you were on the air on Christmas morning.

Our listeners were important to us in those days... no reason why we should change their program preferences just so we could have a day off!

We were not alone, of course. Lots of policemen, firemen, health care professionals and others worked on christmas Day. It just went with the job. And, for many people, it still does.

But not for those celebrity anchors.

But then, they deserve the time off.

I guess.

Broadcasting:
The Fairness Doctrine

The old Fairness doctrine was in place throughout my career in broadcasting. I hated it worse than anything I ever encountered as a broadcaster. It totally robbed us of the ability to speak out on matters we believed to be politically important.

Broadcast news people are often the best informed segment of our population. How often have you heard someone ask, "Did you hear the news report about..... ". I once could reply, "Hear it? I read it this morning at 6:00 and at 6:30 and at 7:00, ..."

Unlike a print reporter who may have spent most of their day honing a single story, the broadcast news man reads all the stories, from many sources, over and over.

So, doesn't it follow that they would be well equipped to comment on the news? Doesn't matter. If they did comment, they were then beholden to invite some dummy to come on their air and comment with an opposing view. I know many will lawyerly argue that that was not the exact requirement of the rule. But lawyerly opinions are a costly option out of reach of many small broadcasters. If time and money prevent you from getting a reliable legal opinion, you are restricted to a single course of action: Just forget the whole thing. You could not risk jeopardizing your license or even exposing your station to the need to hire the lawyers you could not afford in the first place.

The Unfairness Doctrine.

In the first place, who ever came up with the idea that the airwaves belong to the people? I was part of a group that sought to build a new radio station. We spent thousands of dollars over seven years, trying to get a license. Our application appeared to portend a profitable operation, so another group decided to ask the FCC for a licence in the same place, same frequency, same power. Being first didn't matter. The FCC scheduled a "Comparative Hearing", an opportunity for a handfull of dumb bureaucrats to decide which applicant would best serve the interest of the public residing within the coverage area of the proposed facility.

In such cases, an "Examiner" is appointed to conduct the hearing. In our case, the chosen idiot would ask a question like "How many other radio stations serve this area?" To answer that question required that each applicant employ a professional engineer to do a detailed study to plot the coverage area of every radio station which reached this particular swatch of geography. I no longer remember exactly how many thousands of dollars that cost. To my knowledge, the Examiner never looked at the results

In preparing our application, I was required to submit a personal biography. I wrote out a page, briefly outlining my broadcast experience. Our Washington law firm glanced at it and smiled. "They don't read these things", they told me, "they weigh them." Go back and write everything you can think of that may conceivably contribute to your experience as a broadcaster. Hm, I thought. I once stood on the sidewalk and watched General Dwight Eisenhower ride by in a victory parade held for him at the end of World War II. Does that qualify as a close association with the Supreme Allied Commander and president-to- be?

Well, the FCC granted the license to the other applicant. I read their reasons and said, "Wait a minute.... you overlooked... " The FCC agreed, withdrew the license from the other applicant and threw the entire matter back into hearing. Our attorneys, weary of seeing us squander our meager fortunes, told us to merge with the other applicant. We did, which meant everyone's interest was halved.

To finish the story, we put the station on the air and it was an instant success. But, four months after the station began broadcasting, Washington closed the Air Force Base in our city and the local economy tanked. We struggled for seven more years but never made another dime of profit. Broke and exhausted, we sold the station for about the cost of the land where the transmitter was built, and left town. Fourteen years, down the tubes.

But, I digress. While we were on the air, we built a fabulous news reporting machine. Our regular staff, largely eager, young, unmarried men and women, worked countless overtime hours without pay, for the sheer joy of accomplishing something excellent in broadcasting.

We used to say that if you hear sirens in this community, turn on your radio. Within minutes you would know why and to where the emergency vehicles were responding.

This was the Viet Nam era. At one point a group of Southeast Asian journalists were brought through our city while on a U.S. tour. I was privileged to spend several hours in serious discussion with an editor from a Saigon newspaper, learning his perspective of the war, why it was important for the U.S. to help the South Viet Namese. But if I wanted to talk about it, I would have to invite a local war protestor to present an opposing view.

I attended every political rally in our area for three major elections. I had interviewed every candidate for every state or local office, and every Congressional race. I had a wealth of information about the candidates and the issues. But if I wanted to broadcast commentary, I would have to contact each opposing campaign and offer a chance to rebut.

If, indeed, some modern politician speaks of reviving the Fairness Doctrine - in any form - please oppose it. Or you will forever end the ability of broadcasters to share their knowledge in the discussion of any serious issue.

In May of 1945, I was employed by the Day & Night Manufacturing Company in Azusa, CA. I worked in the paint department where we were making rocket parts for the U.S. Navy. Midday on May 7, the factory whistle blew and we were instructed to assemble at the front of the plant.

Once there, we were informed that our enemies in Europe had accepted surrender terms. The war in Europe was over. V-E Day! I was a 16-year-old, living far from family and friends, so I was not involved in any big celebration. It was celebration enough to know that the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler was no more.


By August of that same year, I was back in my home town of Kansas City. We had been informed that the unconditional surrender of the Japanese was imminent. When the announcement came on the afternoon of August 15, most businesses closed and massive numbers of people poured into the streets in joyous celebration. V-J Day! Swaying back and forth with the crowd, singing patriotic songs and kissing girls, the celebration contnued far into the evening. When it was over, I was smeared in lipstick from ear to ear. My white shirt was red from shoulder to shoulder.


Two and one half months later I celebrated my 17th birthday and enlisted in the Army.


After the Army I went back to school and then began my career in broadcasting. On June 25, 1950, I was on the air at WLDY Radio, in Ladysmith, WI, when I heard the AP teletype machine ring five bells - the signal for a news bulletin. I read the bulletin on the air: "North Korean forces have crossed the 38th parallel, invading South Korean territory."


Our forces were quickly pushed southward, almost into the sea, when the brilliance of General Douglas MacArthur saved the day. With his newly dispatched reinforcements, the North Koreans were quickly pushed north to the Chinese border. Then the Chinese joined the war. MacArthur wanted to carry the war back to them, but Truman blinked, fired MacArthur, and let the Chinese/North Korean forces push back south to the 38th parallel.


The presidential election of 1952 hinged on discontent with the Truman administration's inability to end the war. Dwight Eisenhower was elected and his first official act was to travel to Korea and consult the field commanders of the military over which he had been chosen Commander in Chief.


Eisenhower negotiated a cease fire and the establishment of a DMZ - a demilitarized zone along the 38th parallel, which the opposing armies agreed not to cross. They have, however, glared at each other across that zone for 55 years. The Korean War never really ended. But then, how can you end a war which was never declared? The Korean Conflict, as it was more accurately known, was a "police action". Never mind that 36,916 Americans died.


The Viet Nam War really began in 1954 when the French engaged in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. After years of advising, equipping and supporting the South Vietnamese, the United States finally became fully engaged in the war. America's military won that war on the battlefield. The U.S. government lost to the anti-war movement at home. In May of 1975, our military was ordered to cut and run, insuring that the 58,193 American dead had died in vain. There was no victory celebration at the end of the Viet Nam War.


The Gulf War to drive Iraqis out of Kuwait ended so quickly that most Americans never realized we were in a war, and since much of America was still anti-military, that victory was not widely celebrated.


Then came the Iraq War. A new kind of war in which the real enemy was not the Iraq army, which America defeated in a blink. The enemy turned out to be an almost unending string of murderous Islamic thugs who poured into Iraq for the sport of killing a few thousand Americans and tens of thousands - perhaps hundreds of thousands - of innocent Iraqi civilians.


Today, November 22, the Iraqi Parliament votes on a security pact with the United States which will pave the way for American Forces to leave their nation. A democratic Iraq will assume responsibility for its own defense.

The dangerous regime of Saddam Hussein is gone. 28 million Iraqi people now live in freedom. A fledgling democracy exists in the heart of the Middle East. It is time to recognize that the Iraq War is won.


Today, I am proud to join thousands of like minded Americans in declaring that today, November 22, 2008, is VI-Day: Victory In Iraq Day! Our thanks to America's incredible military which made this joyful day possible.

Prop 8 - another thought

In a democratic society there are an abundance of rules, regulations, laws that grant protection and privilege, prohibition and punishment. These rules derive from a majority of the people, either directly by referendum or by the elected representatives of the people, using powers granted by the majority.

Not all these rules are good. The majority is not always right. Ayn Rand once asked, "What if the majority wants you killed? Is that all right?"

In California, there arose a movement to require that the civil union called marriage, with its various rights and privileges, be bestowed only in the case of one man marrying one woman. The question was put to the ballot and the majority approved. Then, the courts examined the question and said it violated a more supreme law, the constitution.

The proponents managed to remake the question into one of amending that supreme law. They achieved a referendum on a constitutional amendment, which passed. The concern is for what happened next.

At this point, let me say that I have had no horse in this race. No one has convinced me that same sex marriage is a bad thing. The latest protest is that children raised without traditional man/woman parents somehow grow up with more and different problems. Again, I am not yet convinced.

When a rule is passed that you perceive to be a detriment to your well being, it is natural that you would like to see the rule changed or discarded. So what do you do?

You can attempt to persuade the proponents of the rule that it should change. Powers of persuasion can be dramatic if your appeal is made to people's sense of fairness and justice, and if you can convince them that they will not be harmed by overturning the rule.

Or you can attempt to bully and intimidate them into changing the rule. History has almost universally proven that the latter tactic does not work. Sadly, that is what many same sex marriage proponents have done in reaction to Prop 8.

No matter how sympathetic you may feel for persons who want to marry a person of the same sex, that sympathy quickly fades when you see people storming private property shouting their views to others engaged in peaceful, private activities (a church service). Or, when you see protestors on the street shoving an old lady with whom they disagree. Or when you see people threaten some who agree with them but who happen to be a member of a group which generally opposed their point of view. All these things have happened in connection with Prop 8.

Unfortunately, these protestors are now giving me second thoughts. Now I am being pushed to look beyond the merits of same sex marriage. Now I want to say, "Wait a minute! Are you really the loving, caring people we have believed you are? Or are you just another bunch of thugs bent on imposing your will on the rest of us?"

Who Is The Better Speaker?

Right now the elitist liberals in the U.S. are having fun... pretending they are so accustomed to George W. Bush's sometimes halting style of speech that they are confused when Barack Obama speaks in complete sentences. What is really funny here is the liberals display of their own ignorance.

During my radio broadcasting career, we learned that you often have the opportunity say it only once, so it is important that you say it correctly. Unlike print, where the reader can stop and re-read what you have written, there is no go-back in broadcasting (until, at least, the advent of Tivo!). We used to say KISS, or, Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Simple is okay. Clearly understood is what we actually wanted. .

Steven Pinker is a professor at M.I.T. who has written books on language. Dr. Pinker is a man after my own heart. While he does not exactly trash the rules that make language a bit more melodious, he does not give those rules paramount importance.

In essence, Dr. Pinker says the object of language is the transfer of thoughts or ideas. If person "A" says something to person "B" and "B" clearly and accurately understands what "A" was thinking, their language is good. Bravo, Steven Pinker!

Unfortunately, in the dumbing down of America, the language czars have prevailed and a large number of people now put style over substance. No wonder print readership is falling. What is said is no longer as important as how it sounds.

George W. Bush is a good and decent man. When he answers a question he takes a moment - often in mid-sentence - to weigh his thoughts, to be sure he is accurately and clearly conveying those thoughts in his speech. This sometimes makes him sound halting, which the intellectuals interpret as stupid. Now along comes Obama, whose flowing rhetoric sounds really intelligent.

Everyone is impressed with his manner of speech. Few are hearing what he is saying.

For example, in a discussion of abortion, Obama said, "If one of my daughters makes a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby." Millions of adoring fans thought he was a caring and considerate father.

A less eloquent, but more forthright, speaker may have said: "If my daughter falls for some smooth talk, gets laid and creates a baby, we'll just kill the damn thing. Can't have my daughter burdened with taking responsibility for her own actions."

How would Americans have reacted to that statement? It was, after all, just a more accurate way of expressing the exact same thought Obama was sharing.

To me, the most beautiful expression of intelligence is when someone says, "Wait a minute... what did he just say?" Let me know if you ever hear that.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck - It's A Duck!

Scoff, if you will, at the duck paradigm of scientific exploration, but when you have spent 80 years looking at ducks, watching them walk, listening to them quack... you get pretty good at determining if that really is a duck!

With that in mind, here is my take on candidate Obama - two days before the big election.

A little history: Obama's Mom was an air-headed white girl from southeast Kansas. Nothing evil about that, America is full of air-heads. Witness the Obama supporters in Harlem, interviewed by Howard Stern's roving reporter... the ones who were okay with Obama's pro-life stance and thought it was pretty cool that he had selected Sarah Palin as his running mate???

I once lived in Southeast Kansas. Different folks there. Across the state line in Springfield, Missouri, my business partner and I once took a client, along with his sales manager and his ad manager to lunch at a decent restaurant. When the servers delivered our meals, the client required that we all hold hands and bow our heads while the sales manager, in a clearly audible voice, said Grace. No big deal. Just different.

So, Obama's Mom went off to school, to begin a lifelong career as a student. She chose a U.S. school in Hawaii, about as far as you can get from Wichita. As a further bit of evidence that she did not have a close family relationship and strong Kansas social grounding, she took up with some black men. Years later, in the 1970s, one of my own white daughters wrote me from college that the cutest guys on campus were black, and seemed to be probing for my opinion about her dating a black kid. But this was the 1950s. A black and white couple would have suffered instense social pressure.

I say Obama's mom took up with black men, because we know she was legally married to one, but when she gave birth to a mixed race child, he looked more like Frank, the black poet in the neighborhood, then the man whose name he was given. Was that marriage one of convenience to help the Kenyan stay in the U.S.? Did they ever actually consumate their marriage in the biblical sense of the word? That is to say, "Is Barack his kid?" We'll likely never know.

Anyway, the Kenyan outlasted the usefulness of the marriage and split. Mom now married Lolo, an Indonesean man (He wasn't a Wichita sort of guy, either!), and off they went to Southeast Asia. He turned out to be another bum and she dropped him. Not, however, until he had indoctrinated her son to some degree (while they were learning boxing and shooting baskets) in the art of eating meat from dogs and snakes and roasted grasshoppers. And, he instructed Barack, "If you can't be strong, be clever and make peace with someone who's strong. But always better to be strong yourself. Always".

After about four years, much to her credit, she concluded that sitting in a classroom with a bunch of ragheads learning scriptures from the Quran was not going to help her son earn a living. So she shipped him back to Hawaii to be raised by her parents. Thankfully, they were not happy about the distance from Hawaii to Wichita and had moved to the islands to be closer to their daughter. (Was that why she escaped to Indonesia??)

Every parent knows that every teenager thinks their parents are archaic. If you were a cool black dude, going home to a white family each day must have been extremely painful. But when that white family is grandparents... it must have been unbearable.

Barack started hanging out with the old black poet. Why? Was this really his father. Had he spent time at Barack's house while his mother was in Hawaii? No matter. We know now that the poet was Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist of the first order, who taught Barack that black people "have a reason to hate."

Barack learned to placate people's fears by being courteous and smiling a lot. "...they found it a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time."

Eventually, with the knowledge that black people have a reason to hate; with the understanding that it is better to be strong - but next best to make peace with someone who is strong; and with a smattering of indoctrination in Communism, Barack made it off to the Ivy Leagues. There, hard left professors added an intellectual tone to those learnings.

Radicalized and educated, Barack found someone strong to make peace with. He fell in with Alinsky and Ayers; served his apprenticeship to them and convinced them he was someone worth considerable investment in time and fortune. His community agitation work took him to black churches where some pastors, still believing in hard work and education as the road to success, rejected him. Then he met Jeremiah Wright. Wright gave legitimacy to his 'Hate All whites" leanings. Ayers honed the Communistic beliefs incubated by the poet Frank.

Somehow they arranged his admission to Harvard Law School. With an Organizer's salary of about $12,000 a year, Obama found the tens of thousands of dollars needed for tuition and living expenses. (Tuition to HLS today is $44,900!!) Nice trick!

They hand carried him into the Illinois State Senate and to the U.S. Senate. With acceptance by the DNC he became a candidate for President. Employing all those "smile while you backstab" tactics he had perfected, he defeated all "regular" Democrats and won the nomination.

So, today we have a white-hating, Muslim accepting, young black Communist itching to move into the Oval Office.

Where do I get all this? Just my opinion. (Did I hear a quack?)

But they haven't lettered his name on the door just yet, so with a deeply imbedded sense of patriotism and great trust in the American people, this Tuesday night I will go to bed early, as I do every night, and wait until Wednesday to celebrate President McCain.

UPDATE: Okay, America surprised me. But, which America? Today I scratch my head, wondering where were the Catholics when they chose a man who "wouldn't want his daughters punished with a baby"? Where were the Jews when they abandoned a friend of Israel? Where were the feminists who railed against fair treatment of women, when they dissed an honest, self-made woman from Alaska? And what happened to Black America, after pleading for an end to racism, themselves became racist and voted 95% for skin pigment?

Writing advertising copy. My basics

Before television, before radio, in the days when advertising pretty much meant newspaper, someone posed a question to leading advertising practitioners of the day: "Define advertising." One of the old masters replied that advertising was "Salesmanship in print."

Years later, another advertising practitioner advised that "In advertising, salesmanship is king and creativity is its servant".

I agree with both of those experts, but many of today's advertising people do not. Too often today's advertising is rated by how entertaining - how funny - it is. Or, how clever. Or, how many new special effects are used. Or, the popularity of the celebrity spokeperson.

My wife (and long time business partner) has a saying about business: "Nothing happens until someone sells something." That is what advertising is all about. Let me explain.

Since the early 1950s I have spent a lot of time and effort in advertising for the Home Improvement industry. Since about 1970, a popular product of that industry has been the replacement window. When a salesman calls at a customer's home and sells them windows, it starts a lot of wheels in motion.

The contractor's finance department seeks and acquires financing for the customer's order. The "measure man" goes to the customer's house and makes precise and accurate measurements of every window to be replaced, and notes any other information necessary for accurate completion of the order. The ordering department computes the exact size and other specifications of each window and places the order with the factory. At the factory, details of the order are fed into a computer which instructs high-tech machinery to cut every part necessary to build the exact windows ordered. The windows are assembled and shipped.

When the shipment arrives at the window distributors warehouse, the installation manager contacts the customer and makes an appointment for the installation date. A crew of installers takes the windows to the customer's house, completes the installation, does the job site cleanup, and hauls off the old windows. They also have the customer sign a completion form.

The finance department takes the completion form to the financing institution, which, after confirming the completion and job satisfaction with the customer, issues the check.

The salesman is paid his commission, the factory is paid for the windows and shipping. the Finance Departments people are paid, the installers are paid, the advertising agency is paid, the advertising medium is paid and, hopefully the home improvement contractor realizes some profit.

None of that could happen until the salesman made the sale. And that could not have happened if effective advertising had not persuaded the customer to call the contractor and inquire about his windows.

If you produce an ad that is entertaining, you will make someone smile. If you produce an ad that sells, you will cause many, more important things to happen. Salesmanship is what really matters. If you can do it in a creative way, that is a plus, but only if the salesmanship is still effective.

Surviving A Depression - A Primer

I have to smile when I read that the middle class is being squeezed. Well, okay, everything is relative and anytime you have to take an economic step backward, I guess you are being squeezed.

I remember a time when our family was really squeezed. My father was born in Texas, raised in that state and in Oklahoma. In 1918 he went with the Army to France. Returning home he was stationed in New York for a time - long enough to meet and marry a girl from Brooklyn.

My grandmother was ill and my Oklahoma grandfather moved to Kansas City, seeking better health care for her. Sadly, my grandmother died, so my Dad and his bride left New York for Kansas City. There they settled and started a family.

By 1930, they had four children and Dad had a good job driving a truck. But Mom hungered for the sidewalks of New York, and persuaded him to pick up the family and move back to Brooklyn. Neither of them - or many other average Americans - were fully aware of the scope of what had happened the year before on Wall Street.

They temporarily moved in with some of her New York city family and he began looking for work. When a family member with four little kids moves in, they are extremely welcome for about an hour. After a week or so they are extremely unwelcome. Dad walked the streets all day every day, to no avail. No one was hiring anyone. Still, they had to have a place to live.

Some acquaintenances had experienced a foreclosure on their mortgage, but were told that they could not be evicted. (Even that long ago!) They moved anyway and Dad moved the family into that house where he was assured he could stay. That proved to be untrue and the family was summarily tossed into the street.

Friends... that is the true definition of being squeezed.

There were no food stamps then... no welfare checks. There was a helping hand at the end of each arm... no others were offered.

Dad sought work at a lumber yard (they were not hiring, either) where the kindly owner took pity on the homeless family and said they could stay in an empty building on his property. There they stayed until Dad earned enough on odd jobs to return the family to Kansas City.

In due time he got his old truck driving job back again. With a steady pay check of $25 week, he wisely rented an old farm house, with acreage. No electricity, no running water, no inside plumbing. Telephone? Are you kidding?

Dad planted a garden. He bought a cow, so we kids had milk. Then came chickens, pigs, and more cattle. We never went hungry again. In fact, Dad was able to sell a little produce and some milk to supplement the family income.

We had a close, happy life during the depression. To be sure, there were no luxuries. None of us kids acquired a taste for "soda pop" because we never could afford the nickle to buy a bottle. Mom made our clothes. In warm weather we went barefoot. When our one pair of shoes wore holes in the soles, we lined them with a piece of cardboard. Mother even made our own soap.

Toys? We spent hours pushing a barrel hoop along with a stick. We played hide & seek. We played tag. I learned how to make a bean shooter. We entertained ourselves in countless ways. Of course, there were no electronics, but we did have a spring-operated, wind-up record player and a few old 78 rpm records. I remember a song lyric that said. "Can I sleep in your barn tonight, mister? It's so cold lying out on the ground." Another popular song was titled "Brother Can You Spare A Dime?".

In 1935, another child was born, and our family numbered six. On a few occasions I recall my mother somehow saving a nickle from her budget. One of my sisters and I would walk to a small store, about a mile from our rural home, and buy a Three Musketeers candy bar. At that time, this candy was three small bars in one package. Mother would cut each of the little bars in half, producing six pieces... one for each member of the family.
The Mars company will never know how much joy they brought to our family.

Later I knew a man named J.R. Hudgens. When J.R. was first married, he and his bride were homelss and broke - almost. He had a dime. They were offered a summer job on a farm, a position which came with a little shack for a home. Then, he found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: someone gave them a big sack of beans! J.R. walked to the nearest town and spent his dime on a chunk of salt pork. They ate beans until paid the first commission on their harvest.

During the depression, if you had a roof over your head, you first protected that at all cost. Your next effort was directed toward keeping the family fed. It didn't matter that it was simple fare. Just so it was food. No one got fat. You worked too hard to ever gain weight. If you managed to acquire a little extra, you saved it... just in case! There was no greater feeling of security then knowing you had next month's rent covered.

If you live in a nice house with electricity, plumbing, running water, natural gas heat, cable TV, telephone, etc., you are not yet squeezed. Enjoy it. Protect it. Be thankful that you are not living in the dirty 30s.

You probably think I am a great detective...

Paul Mirengoff posted a brief comment about Paul Newman on www.powerlineblog.com. Mirengoff noted, and I agree, that Newman was one of very few actors whose mere appearance in a film was enough to make him want to see it.

He went on to say that in the film Cool Hand Luke, "the Newman character, a prisoner, bets his fellow convicts that he can eat 50 eggs, and proceeds to eat them. This led to egg-eating contests in frat houses all over America. The winner of Dartmouth's contest issued a challenge to Newman. The actor was gracious enough to respond. He said: "You probably think I can shoot pool too."

The mark of a great motion picture actor/actress has always been to make the audience feel that the role they play is real. The mark of a truly great actor is to understand yourself that it is only an acting role. Newman, of course, did. Too many do not.

Sarah The Riveter!

Maybe you had to have been a 13-year-old-boy in 1942 to appreciate this picture:

Every newspaper headline in 1942 told of more American soldiers dying in far off places. Every newspaper carried stories and pictures of adult American men rushing to the recruiting stations to join the military. Every newspaper carried stories and pictures of adult American women rushing to the fields and factories to take up the jobs of the departing men.

You, the 13-year-old-boy, were just graduating from the eighth grade and there wasn't a damn thing you could do. You couldn't join the men. You ached to be issued a uniform. You were too young.

You couldn't join the women. You ached to become a riveter alongside them. You could not - child labor laws, etc.

The years pass. The war is won. The men come home and the women become lawyers and doctors and whatever else they wish. You grow up and have your own career and life is good.

During those passing decades, other wars come and your heart breaks as you see young American men flee to Canada rather than to the recruiting stations. You wonder if Americans will ever again be truly united.

But, when you see pictures of the World War II posters of "Rosie The Riveter", the old surge of undiluted, unashamed patriotism again surges through you. Somehow you instinctively know that among today's young women there are many out there who again would roll up their sleeves, pick up the tools, and do the jobs, if the need arose. You cannot imagine even Paris Hilton fleeing to Canada.

Then out of Alaska comes a gal who gives moral responsibility high priority. You know damn well she could turn a wrench, swing a hammer, or do whatever other job her country needed her to do!

And, Wow, here's a picture of other folks who share your feelings!

Sarah The riveter! Boy, do I feel proud of her!

Women! Women! Women!

Nominated candidates aside, the two most prominent names in this year's presidential politics are Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. Suddenly we are learning about Linda Lilley, Kathleen Sebelius and other women governors across the country. Increasingly, women judges are presiding over courts major and minor. Women are being identified as the C.E.O. of ever larger corporations. Our Secretary of State is a woman. Holy crap! Women are taking over the world.

OK.

There was a time when powerful women were not just admired, they were almost worshipped. Consider the legendary Jeanne d'Arc and you visualize a steel-willed woman mounting her steed, drawing her sword, and leading an army of men after a fleeing enemy.

But something happened. Women were relegated to the kitchen. They were told what careers they could pursue... nursing, teaching, etc. And heaven forbid that they be permitted to vote! Was it because religion taught us that Eve induced the woes of Adam and all subsequent men? Islam, even today, not only teaches subservience of women, it demands it.

But, some insist, women are different. True, they are different physically. And if you are thinking more delicate limbs, softer skin, and gentle curves, many of us men say Viva la difference!

But the difference only counts if brawn is a job requirement. Looking for an NFL lineman? Think male. If the job requires brains, the scale tilts female. I think it is an evolution thing. Because women lack the brawn, they have been forced to develop the brain. Seriously, when you have to think your way out of a situation, as opposed to punching your way out, you learn to exercise and strengthen your brain. Boys become stonger. Girls become smarter.

When women were freed to pursue the career of their interest, not one deemed appropriate to their gender, girls flooded the classrooms of universities everywhere. Men once joked, "But this is science and she is a girl." Now you might say.... "This is science, she is a girl and of course she is the head of her class"

So, at long, long last, we have come to realize that we have a great, often untapped reservoir of brain power in the women of the world.

I have four sisters, three daughters and seven granddaughters, so I know a little something about women. And, I truly believe that beginning in 2012, the elected president of the United States will be a woman. I also believe the day is coming when we will all be astonished to hear that a man has been added to the ticket!

Does Small Town Experience Matter?

My career in broadcasting began at a radio station in a very small town. It was so soon after the end of World War II that the broadcast equipment manufacturers had not yet developed the slick gear that eventually became the norm in the broadcasting industry.

That is my way of explaining that our station had no recording equipment for recording commercials. No tape recorder. No disk recorder. All commercials were read live. In fact, many of them were not "read" at all. In my first week or so on the job, our continuity writer came into the control room, handed me a proof sheet of a grocery store ad that would appear in that week's edition of the local weekly newspaper and said, "Ad-lib a commercial for this store."

There were only two grocery stores in our town, and it evolved that every week I had to ad-lib a commercial for the grocery store where I shopped. Talk about instant feedback! When I finished my shift at the station and headed home, I stopped at the store for whatever food items I needed. The grocer pulled me aside and quickly explained the correct terminology for something I had mischaracterized in his ad-libbed commercial. Most housewives can read newspaper grocery ad shorthand. As a 20-year-old bachelor, I was treading foreign soil.

Once I ad-libbed a commercial for Dairy Queen and literally drooled over ice cream goodies. I hardly cleared the station premises when I was accosted by a dairy man telling me in no uncertain terms that Dairy Queen treats are NOT ice cream!

The thing about small town life is that you are never insulated from your critics. How about being stopped on the street by an indignant matron who demanded that I learn the difference between a fryer and a broiler. Once I spoke of seeing "your doctor or your dentist" and caught a burning critique from my dentist who explained that a dentist is also a doctor. I shall never forget to say "your physician or dentist."

Another time I played a record by Arthur Godfrey who, in his usual comedy mode, had butchered the English language. I made fun of Godfrey. The next day I received a card from a local high school English teacher listing every instance of my own bad grammar that day.

Small town experience is the best possible training ground. It means little on your resumé. What counts today is the name of the school you attended. There, in all probability your class was taught by an instructor teaching a textbook written by some "expert" who learned their craft from textbooks written by earlier "experts".

In the small town, whether it is broadcasting, police work, politics or most any other endeavor, you experience immediate results of your actions. You may well forget an admonition from a boring professor, but you will not soon forget that confrontation with an angry neighbor.

So, when a news reporter today makes light of the experience of Sarah Palin as mayor of a small town, I have to smile as I imagine all the hard lessons that job surely hammered into her brain!

Too old? Says who?

I keep hearing complaints that John McCain is too old. Interesting, isn't it, that people think others are too old only if they, themselves, are not as old as the one they are discussing.

When they talk about someone being too old, they seem to be saying the older person is not smart. In my opiniion, it is usually the younger ones who are not as smart.

How about you. Is your age:
25? Are you smarter than you were at 15?
35? Are you smarter than you were at 20?
50? Are you smarter than you were at 35?

It is a fact that people get a little smarter each year, because they endure more learning experiences each year. Let's talk about political awareness.

I was just a kid when FDR was elected in 1932. And 1936. And 1940. And 1944. But I well remember the WPA, the NIRA, the NYA, the CCC and his whole alphabet soup of failed New Deal attempts to end the depression, while my father was raising five kids on a salary of $25 a week.

Roosevelt did not survive his fourth term and when he died, Harry Truman inherited the presidency. In 1948, Truman ran for election on his own. I lived in Missouri at that time, not far from Truman's Independence home, but I was not a supporter of Harry. He had been too close to Tom Pendergast, the political boss in Kansas City.

Anyway, I could not vote in 1948. I was a veteran of service with the U.S. Army Forces Western Pacific, but I was not yet 21 years old. Independent candidate Henry Wallace scared me in that election. I wasn't crazy about Thomas Dewey, described that year as like "the little man on top of the wedding cake". So, I probably would have voted for Truman if I could have. Then, Truman chickened out and would not let General MacArthur win the Korean War - a mistake still haunting us today.

In 1952 I liked Ike and my first vote was for him. Eisenhower ended the fighting in Korea but did not really end the war. Another lingering problem. He did initiate the Interstate Highway System, and did give us fiscal responsibility during those wonderfully gentle 1950s.

In 1960 it was Camelot. I didn't vote for Kennedy and he did not finish his first term. But in the nearly three years he was president, he accomplished very little, so I never regretted not voting for him.

Lyndon Johnson inherited the presidency in November, 1963 and ran on his own in 1964. At that time I was fulfilling a personal dream, building my own radio station in a small Kansas town whose economy was tied to a U.S. Air Force base. I felt sorry for Johnson, having become president through tragedy, and voted for him. Promptly upon being elected, Johnson closed our Air Force base, shattering my dream and wiping out what little fortune I had amassed. So much for sympathy voting.

In 1968 and again in 1972 it was Nixon. Nixon was a foreign policy expert and courageous to boot. While Vice President, he once stopped his motorcade in Argentina and jumped out of his car to personally confront a group protesting his visit. But Nixon let himself become embroiled in a stupid mistake by his reelection campaign and had to resign.

Gerald Ford became president, and pardoned Nixon. For that the press hated him and helped sweep Jimmy Carter into office in 1976. Campaigning, Carter decried what he called the "Misery Index" - the combination of high inflation and high unemploymennt. Both skyrocketed after he was elected. He facilitated the ouster of the Shah of Iran and helped bring the Ayatollah Khomeini to power. When Khomeini's radicals invaded the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, a clear act of aggression, Carter trembled in the White House. The only thing good about the Carter presidency was that it ended at the end of one term.

Then there was Reagan. Ronnie restored pride in America, and ended the Cold War, but when terrorists attacked a U.S. Marine base in Lebanon, killing over 200 Marines and injuring scores more, Reagan cut and run.

In 1988, Reagan's Vice President. George H.W. Bush was elected president. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Bush 41 launched the "First Gulf War", won it in six days and became very popular. But in 1992, a clever campaign staff for Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton convinced America that "It's The Economy, Stupid!", and Bush lost his reelection bid.

You can take it from there, but what of those earlier elections. What did you learn from them?

What? You didn't learn anything because you were not yet born? Uh... neither was Barack Obama!

Maybe that old guy is the better choice!

Negative Political Ads. Again.

How does anyone determine that negative political ads work? (Other than using them and measuring the results?) Researchers do things like showing test subjects a mixed bag of photos. Pictures of all sorts of things, happy, sad, neutral, horrible, beautiful, ugly, etc. Then they show them a second set of pictures and ask them to press a button every time the second set includes a picture from the first set. The worse the picture, the more likely it is to be remembered. We remember bad stuff.

Okay. If you once saw a snake in the weeds, you would likely be more careful about walking through those weeds in the future. You may also have seen some very pretty wildflowers in those weeds. Next time, you will note the flowers, but you will really be thinking about the snakes. Reasonable.

But there is another reason why negative political ads work. If you have no clue as to the meaning of real issues... if things like socialized medical care, redistribution of wealth, etc., are over your head, too inconvenient to understand, you just ignore those issues. You dismiss them. Who wants to talk about a subject when your ignorance of the subject is likely to be quickly exposed?

How, then, do you make your decisions in the voting booth? You remember the things that are easy to grasp, things you can readily argue for or against. The ways in which you perceive a candidate to be different from you. The ways in which you seem to admire a candidate. He goes to a different - or the same - church. You like the way he talks - or looks. The candidate's age or gender. The ring of the candidate's name. Their place of birth... is he a southerner? A cowboy? An urban elite?

When a candidate talks about their opponent, they repeatedly stress things that are likely to be remembered unfavorably. They stamp those pictures into voter's minds. Campaigns note how these tactics have worked in their campaign, and in campaigns past.

Negative political ads work because of the dumbing down of America. The more frequent and more negative the ads, the dumber America has become.

Here's a challenge. Next time you think a candidate looks or sounds good, or bad. Next time you think about a candidate's religion - or region, stop and ask yourself one question about how the candidate stands on any important issue. Or, even on an unimportant issue.

Oh, Lord, it's hard!

Oh Lord it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way.
I can't wait to look in the mirror 'cause I get better looking each day.

Thus began a fun song by Mac Davis a few years ago. Everyone loved that song - first, because of Mac Davis. Second, because the tongue-in-cheek lyric was so useful.

If, say, you won a sports trivia argument with a buddy and wanted to gloat a bit, just burst into song: "Oh, Lord it's hard to be humble."

I even had a salesman friend who strove to bolster his own self-confidence by wearing a T-shirt that paraphrased Mac Davis by declaring "I Can't Wait Until Tomorrow 'cause I get Better Looking Every Day."

Sadly, it wasn't always tongue-in-cheek. Too many took the Hard To Be Humble attitude seriously. We've all seen the Hard To Be Humble athlete who, having received unspendable millions for his sports prowess, suddenly became an authority on any subject at hand.

But, the entertainment industry is where you most often find it hard to be humble. Hollywood is awash with Hard To Be Humble devotees. Kids are born with a beautiful face. Through luck or training grow into a beautiful adult body, and acquire an acting, or perhaps a musical skill. Then they traipse about the world, spreading their often idiotic views on politics, the economy, or whatever alse you want to discuss.

The most glaring example in this summer of 2008 is Barack Obama. His handlers parade him into a crowd of screaming fans, more interested in having fun than a serious policy discussion. He shouts his teleprompted speech into the microphone, girls faint, and everyone says he is an eloquent speaker.

In an entirely different song, Billy Ray Cyrus worried that the wrong kind of information might cause his Achy Breaky Heart to blow up! Like the sparrow that arrived at the Wedding Chapel just after the big ceremony and gorged itself on rice thrown at the bride. Inside the sparrow's craw, the rice expanded and the poor bird exploded like an Achy Breaky Heart.

With Barack, I worry more about his head. Signs are already showing. He no longer just walks on stage... he swaggers to the podium. He speaks of his promised accomplishments and makes pronouncements that are almost spiritual. Another three and a half months of non-stop adulation by adoring fans; another coronation by the media and poor Obama's head may just become too overloaded and, boom!

Energy, Texas Style.

The people of Texas are remarkable. They look life squarely in the eye and never seem afraid to face a challenge. I have long admired the Texans who put up with smelly oil fields so others can tool around in their sports cars, in cities where the population flatly refuses to allow oil drilling or refinement anywhere near their environs.

Now it is wind turbines. I keep hearing people complain about wind turbines - for any number of reasons - most of which seem frivolous to me. but, in their usual can-do spirit, Texans accept the turbines by the thousands! No exaggeration... there are thousands of these things in Texas.

Distance fools the eye, and even when you stand under one of these things and look up at it, it is hard to appreciate its size!

The height of the individual turbines is determined by the prevailing wind patterns, but they appear to vary in height from 200 to 400 feet.

It is not until you look at the base of one of these beauties and see the access port which allows workmen to reach the ladder that takes you to the very top.

Yes, there could be people inside that distant turbine you see. They provide necessary maintenance to keep it churning out the megawatts.

I wondered what a technician might do once they reached the top... until I walked up close to one of the nacels sitting on the ground before it was mounted on its tower.

These things are the size of a motor home, and may contain all the comforts of home, for all I know.

Finally, there are the propellor blades which actually catch the wind and do the work.

Like every other part of this enterprise, they are huge.

When I was a small boy on a Missouri farm, we heated and cooked with wood burning stoves. What drudgery it was for my mother to start, control and clean up after a wood fire in her kitchen stove.

These beautiful, white turbines make it possible for a modern American to just flip a switch and produce heat to cook dinner. How beautiful can that be?

Yes, there are wind turbines in other places. There are none, however, off-shore in Massachusetts. Why spoil that scenery when the Texans are happy to provide them their electricity?

Sports...where good news is still good.

I spent 25 years in radio broadcasting, much of it reporting news. We had a couple of simple guidelines for deciding if we should cover a story. Does our audience already know this news? Is it important to them? If our audience doesn’t know about it, it is news to them. If it clearly is not important to them... who cares about the story.

Today, good news doesn’t sell... or so the modern journalists tell us. It doesn’t matter if your audience is aware of that good news, or how important it may be to them. If it is good news... forget it, especially if it credits any government at any level.

I have wondered what would happen if there were a big football game scheduled but there were no sports people to do the broadcast? What if they had to pull some people from the regular "hard" news department to do the broadcast! And, what if, (horror of horrors) they had to enlist certain politicians to provide color?

As the home team takes the field. Imagine the newsman/sportscaster decrying the fact that they are not fielding enough players. That they are ill-trained and ill-equipped. Now the color man insists that this game is lost... irretrievably lost. It is foolish to spend the money to keep this team on the field... pull them out and let’s all go home.

The newsman/sportscaster endlessly covers some congestion in the parking lot, and decries the long lines of fans still waiting to get into the stadium. He provides a blow by blow description of a small fight that has broken out somewhere in the stands. He informs us all that there are not enough restrooms and the prices are too high at the concession stands.

The color man accuses the players of bad behavior but fails to substantiate his claims.

The newsman/sportscaster complains about the behavior of the coaches standing on the sidelines. When a sideline reporter interviews a coach, the booth insists that the coach is lying and misleading the public as to why his team is here, what it hopes to accomplish and what it is costing to keep the team on the field. We are never told about the actual playing on the field.

The color man insists that they support the players, but want this team off the field immediately.

No, that will never happen. In sports, alone, it is still okay to cheer for your side. It is still considered prudent to withhold criticism of the team and the coaches until after the game and we have learned the results of their efforts.

Wow. Can we put the sports department in charge of all news?

Felons in the U.S. Army?

On Monday, June 17, a television station in Kansas City (my old home town) carried a story about volunteers placing sandbags in a flood endangered area. In interviewing the volunteers, they encountered one young man who, in the course of the interview, revealed that he wanted to join the U.S. Army, but was barred because he was a convicted felon.

The station picked up on this and explored the story in more detail, reporting that the Army considers enlistment by convicted felons on a case-by-case basis. The station then went on to post the story on their web site (http://www.kmbc.com/) and even included a survey asking for opinions on the question: Should a convicted felon be permitted to enlist in the U.S. Army?

As of Wednesday, June 18, the results are 35% Yes; 17% No; 48% It depends on the nature of the crime. I say Yes. My wife opted for the third choice, asking if someone who raped and murdered a person should be permitted to enlist in the Armed Forces.

Well, here's my opinion. First, a convicted rapist/murderer is probably a part of the very smallest segment of the population. If ever actually released from prison after being convicted of that crime, they would probably be too old for the Armed Services. So, let's consider lesser crimes.

In the case cited above, the "felon" was involved with marijuana - actually convicted of involvement is some sort of minor drug sale. He was convicted, sentenced to prison and served two years. Thus, in popular jargon, he has "paid his debt to society". Now let's consider his "debt". He is just one of many millions of Americans who have made a bad choice by experimenting with drugs... that list includes such luminaries as former president Bill Clinton and president wannabe Barack Obama. Do they also owe a debt to society? Will they make payment? (Excuse me: Ha! Ha! Ha!)

First, consider there is no big money to be made in the military. There is no easy money! It is hard, dangerous work and the pay is low. There are hard, dangerous jobs which pay very well. The military is not one of them.

So, why would a young man who had served a prison term want to join the military? It appears to me that perhaps he wants to prove his worth as a citizen, maybe he wants to give something to society... something in the way of a meaningful gift... not just the fact that he received and survived the punishment. Isn't that the exact kind of character trait we would like to see in our soldiers? Someone who, for their own very personal reason, wants to serve his fellow Americans?

Finally, remember, the Army is not usually looking for someone to be a school teacher or librarian... they are looking for warriors!

I think they've found one in this young man. I hope he is accepted before despair overrides his patriotic fervor!

Tipping Cows

One early evening about 15 years ago, I stood in front of an Arizona classroom enjoying a break in a two-hour archaeology class. I forget the thread of the conversation that preceded it, but at one point a student started talking about tipping cows in rural areas not far from his Chicago home.

Another student, obviously another city boy, listened in wide-eyed wonder. "Really?", he asked. "I've always heard those stories and wondered if they were true." I started to intervene, but remembered Dale Carnegie's warning of the price in lost friendship one may pay for winning an argument with a colleague.

I wanted to say, "Cows? We're going to talk about cows? I grew up with cows. I was raised on a dairy farm. I know something about cows! I milked cows every morning before school and every afternoon before supper. I have shoveled their manure and pitched their hay. I have sprayed their flies, washed their udders before milking, tended their wounds when they cut themselves on a barbed wire fence, reaching for the always-greener grass on the other side.

"I have led cows to the bull's pen when it was time for breeding. I have assisted young cows experiencing problems with the birth of their first calf. I have picked corn for them and stood for hours in attendance of a hammer mill, grinding the corn to make the feed that was their reward for standing patiently in their stalls during milking time.

"I have cared for cows and their calves in every imaginable way. As a small boy, I watched a young calf wander onto the frozen surface of a little pond. Before my mother or I could intervene, the ice broke and suddenly all that was seen of the calf was its nostrils and its panic filled eyes held above the icy water. We were unable to rescue the calf and by the time adult male help arrived, the animal was nearly frozen. It shivered so violently its whole body shook.

"My father carried the calf back to the barn where it was sheltered from the bitterly cold wind. He built a fire and heated bricks which we wrapped in burlap bags and stacked against the calf's body. He continued this far into the night, until he, too, was cold and exhausted.

"The next morning I ran to the barn to check on the calf. When I opened the door I was nearly bowled over by the escaping calf, as lively and frisky as ever.

Cows? Yes, I know somethng about cows, but apparently not everything. For example. I have never seen a cow sleeping while standing. Horses sleep standing up. Cows lie down to sleep. And, I have never seen a cow so sound asleep that you could sneak up on it. You can walk into a pasture full of cows in the middle of the night and every one of them will be alert and watching you... not with hostility, but rather with curiosity, trying to determine if you are hostile.

You cannot just walk over and scratch the back of a cow's head, either. If you walk up to a cow that is lying on the ground, it will immediately stand.

I wanted to say that "tipping cows" is the product of some cartoonist's imagination, and a subject for a bragging 19-year-old city boy. But, I was there to learn a little about archaeology, not to embarrass a fellow student. I said nothing.

Obama's Tricks.

Recent political news has enlightened the world as to the attitudes of Rev. Jeremiah Wright toward White America (as though that were a place!)

I'll be the first to acknowledge that a lot of Africans were treated badly on American soil. And, that a lot of non-African Americans still hold some sort of grudge against anyone who seems to have African heritage. (I, personally, believe we all have African heritage, but that is for another discussion.)

Not all Americans hold that hatred in their hearts, and for those of us who do not, it is easy to assume the haters, black or white, are largely uneducated bigots. So, it is curious to see someone with a Doctorate who does hate. Wondering exactly where Obama, himself, stands on the subject, I read his book, "Dreams From My Father".

In the book, Obama reveals a deep-seated, life long resentment of all white people. Recounting that his own white mother once asked about the arrest of one of his friends (what mother wouldn't ask if her son's friend was arrested?), Obama said (page 94) "I had given her a reassuring smile and patted her hand - - - another one of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved--such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time."

Smiling and not appearing angry is just a trick?

Out on the campaign trail, Senator Obama is patting a lot of hands and smiling a lot. Seems the trick still works.

"A Walk To Beautiful"

This past week, the PBS Science Program "Nova" aired a program titled "A Walk To Beautiful". It was about young women in Ethiopia receiving care at a Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa.
Essentially the story was about very young girls, starting at around age nine, who are required to perform very strenuous labor.
Okay, that is a bad thing - against the law, in fact, in the United States. But that is only the first step. A worse fate awaits these girls. Forced to marry at this age, they become pregnant before their bodies are developed. The result of the pregnancy and birth is severe tissue damage. In the case of the girl whose story was the feature of the program, the fistula was a rip in the tissues dividing her colon, bladder and vaginal canal. (Forgive me if my medical terms are not exact.) While it may turn your stomach, it is easy to imagine the results of this injury.
When her body attempted to deliver, it was impossible. After five days in labor the infant died, but was still not delivered. Unbelievably, this child received no sympathy from her family. Instead she was reviled and forced to live in a lean-to she had constructed on the back of her family's house.
Finally, through some miraculous turn of events, she was directed to the Fistula Hospital, a 23-hour journey by bus and by foot.
There, caring medical professionals performed several surgeries and managed to restore her health.
"Normal" again, this little girl refused to return to her home where she had been treated so badly. Instead she went to another African city where she was given a home and employed as a sort of nanny caring for orphaned children, mostly by parents who died from AIDS.
I must tell you that I have four sisters, three daughters and seven grand daughters. I happen to believe that little girls are the most fragile and most precious segment of human existence. I shed a good many tears watching "A Walk To Beautiful".
At the end of the program, I was very angry, as I imagine many of this particular program's viewers were. I was angry at a culture that permits such treatment of its children. Angry at the adults who commit these crimes. Angry at a government that cannot protect its most vulnerable citizens.
And, I have to tell you that I was also angry at one political candidate's wife who said she had never been proud of her country.
Don't get me wrong, I know abuses occur in our country. But they are not the norm. They are against the law. Perpetrators who are identified are sent to jail.
Anyone who is not proud of a country that makes a noble effort on behalf of its children is sadly out of touch with reality.