We knew it

TThis weekend as I write being the start of El Superclásico, the first leg of the huge football derby between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid CF, it came to my attention news that major subscription television carriers had announced they were adding Al Jazeera America to their systems.

Was it coincidence considering Al Jazeera holds United States rights to Liga BBVA?

Think about it. This derby is easily one of the biggest ratings weekends for Al Jazeera in the United States, with it airing on their most popular channel in the States, BeIn Sport, which we've noted both on this blog and It's About TV, a channel on the rise with the demise of Fox's football and motorsport channels. They held the rights this past season for World Superbike and World Motocross, and with Fox effectively winding down their Supercross coverage after the 2014 season because of FS1's Big East basketball coverage clashing with the first half of the Supercross season, and changes to the Fox MLB coverage taking out the second half, Al Jazeera will take a shot at bidding for Supercross when Feld Motor Sports offers rights bidding for the 2014 Monster Energy Cup and 2015 Supercross seasons [1].

Sen. McCain has been attempting to prohibit the practice of channel bundling, where subscription channels tell providers to carry one channel, you must carry the other channel. This is the strategy I predicted would be Al Jazeera's strategy once they established BeIn. Once BeIn became a larger channel with more clout, as we're seeing now with the second season of football's top stars, and taking advantage of the shutdown of Fox's Charlotte (motorsport) and football operations (though it will restart in 2015 with the Bundesliga and the first of the major tournaments under the 2015-18 and 2019-22 cycles), including carriage of the United States national team's road qualifiers, Al Jazeera is now in the next phase of their expansion strategy. Forcing the carriage of Al Jazeera America as part of bundling BeIn was the next step for Al Jazeera to expand in the United States. Now with the first contract expiring on many outlets, they are now able to build clout to add the channel in the second contract between subscription companies and Al Jazeera.

[1] Because of legal ramifications regarding the breakup of what is now the American Athletic Conference, I had previously referenced the conference as the Catholic Seven (non-FBS schools) until the legal name change was implemented July 1. Feld Motor Sports splits the deal between Fox (rights fee) and CBS (time buy). ◙

A Curse at Le Mans?

The 1981 24 Heures du Mans, which here is noted as the only run of the French classic by a motorsport legend from the Florence area, was marred by two fatalities, one a marshal and one (Jean-Louis Lafosse) in a crash caused by mechanical failure on RN138 (now RD338), the four-mile long Ligne Droite des Hunaudières straight that has since been shortened by the two chicanes installed in 1990, that injured two marshals in that crash.

Maria de Villota (left), Sean Edwards (right)

The sad irony came this week following the deaths of former Marussia F1 driver Maria de Villota and Porsche Supercup (F1 undercard series) points leader Sean Edwards days of each other. (Miss de Vilotta's death has been confirmed to have come from the injuries from the straight-line testing crash in a British airfield last year.) Mr. Edwards was leading the Porsche Supercup with the final race, the Etihad Airways Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi, upcoming.

Mr. Lafosse's crash came as he was following a Lola T600 of Juan Fernández (ESP) and the parents of both deceased drivers, Emil de Villota and Guy Edwards, listed as the three drivers.

Oh the sad irony of the stunt double who played his father in Ron Howard's Rush during the scene where the father was one of the drivers that rescued Niki Lauda in that horrific fire in the Nuerburgring in a crucial scene of the movie, based on the 1976 F1 battle between Mr. Lauda and James Hunt, die in the 180-degree corner at Queensland Raceway leading to Dick Johnson Straight in a horrific fiery crash where the Porsche ran over the tyre barriers and into concrete.

How cruel can sport be? For the two co-drivers of the Lola T600 that lead the tragic Rondeau, how cruel that the two drivers would lose their children in racing crashes? ◙

Are megachurches the problem?

In Steve Skojec's article which Mitchell linked to last Friday, Skojec writes that if people wanted fellowship, they could head over to the “megachurches” that are rampant in today's world. Have people seen the type of services they have in such “megachurches” or even “gigachurches,” as some have been called because of their gargantual size.

The modern megachurch has virtually become a chain-store type of gospel, if any gospel is taught – most often not taught, as instead it has become a self-help centre, engaged often in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), a noted heretical movement of the 21st century. Many of these “branches” do not even have a minister in control, and instead have viewers watching the minister's “quickie” sermon (designed to ensure a service does not last more than one hour) on a video, and in some cases popular culture dominates the sermons. One well-known Southern Baptist church here (which in 1956 began a mission on the other side of town that became the church that welcomed a young immigrant family from Taiwan to the area – that church collapsed in 2001 and was sold to a Oneness Pentecostal – apostay alert in denying the Trinity – church run by our city's newly elected mayor) hung billboards outside the main highway with signs promoting a popular culture-based sermon series, which we've mentioned in Our Word many times is the problem with churches today.

Many of these places are located in areas where you would not imagine would be a house of God. The local megachurch is branched in a former grocery store building, and walking into the church's sanctuary, complete with pillars, it resembles a rock concert hall, with a huge stage for the rock band and an intimate theatre-type surrounding for those who attend. Over in the big city just 80km away from the home is a branch of a notorious heretic with his “church beamed via satellite where each branch has its own rock band that plays the same song list in each congregation, and just beams from the flagship the sermon – in essence, a take on the nickname for a brand-new newspaper 31 years ago started by Al Neuharth that has become a well-known publication. These Life Enhancement Centres are often located in former department stores, convention halls, or other large building but not in houses of worship. They play the same service 15 times a week across the state with each building featuring its own local band and small staff, but what is being taught? And what about ministers helping those in need when there are thousands in that place every weekend? They aren't there to help those in need, such as the times I've had to talk with clergy one-on-one during family crises.

Instead of the didactic sacred song of centuries ago that taught God's Word, such as the sacred song that the Pope Emeritus has praised, and too many writers that I've read, especially with my experience over the years with church musicians and singers, the listener is drowned with loud 100dB rock music featuring material from the major church music publishers of today – Sony ATV Songs, Universal Music, Warner Music Group, Oregon Catholic Press, or GIA Publications (yes, Oregon Catholic Press and GIA Publications are both in many Protestant order sheets today), that drill attendees into a trance. Sometimes, those in attendance do not even learn the blasphemous nature of the songs being played in the megachurch services (see Sunday's service at one such venue with a song that I denounced and led to a flame war by those in church who supported the song without understand its questionable lyrics).

These entertainment-driven life enhancement centres are destroying Protestantism on one side, as are heretics pushing false teachings on the other side, which the local Anglican minister wrote a few months ago how the great Anglican split took place in the 20th into the 21st centuries (our part of South Carolina is in the Diocese of South Carolina, an independent Anglican congregation that split from The Episcopal Church). What had me wondering how ignorant mainliners were came during an interview I had with some practicing members of an Eastern New Age religion -- many had been Episcopalians, lost because of the heretical teachings there.

What Pope Francis has seemingly done to Catholics is possibly lean the Catholic Church towards the megachuch philosophy we're seeing in the Protestant world from false teachers such as Osteen, Hybels, and Noble. If he is, he's dangerously close to being heretic. ◙

Separated at birth?

Left: Pope wearing firefighter helmet; Right: Calvin Coolidge in Indian Headdress

Another example of why Jack Kennedy said he'd never be photographed wearing a hat - they won't take you seriously...   ◙

Retro TV Monday - This Week in TV Guide, October 3, 1959

Lee Marvin is, according to this week's cover, "TV's Angry Man," but he sounds more like a character from a Paul Auster or Don DeLillo novel, or maybe Ernest Hemingway.

I can't really call Bob Johnson's article an interview or a profile, because aside from the first and last paragraphs, there's no evidence that Marvin actually answered any questions.  Instead, he conducted a very entertaining two-page stream-of-consciousness monologue.

The article begins with Marvin (and, presumably, Johnson) leaving the set for the lunch break.  "'It's moving,' he said, stomping and muttering through smaller billows of the claylike material he was brushing out of his crew cut with both hands.  'If it's moving, baby, I say grab it. Look at this filthy mess.  Let's go.'"

The topic is, naturally, M Squad, which Marvin starred in for three seasons. I promise you, these are actual quotes from the article, not taken out of context.

Read the complete article here. ◙

The problem with Francis

Steve Skojec hits it on the head: (h/t Rod Dreher)

So back to Pope Francis. What is my problem with him? Well, let me start by saying that I had hope for the papacy that followed Benedict XVI. I had an inclination that maybe he really knew what he was doing with his abdication and that something was coming that the Church needed. And yet, when I saw Francis that first moment as he stepped out to face the massive crowds in St. Peter’s square, I found myself filled with inexplicable dread. I had no idea who the man was or what he was about – I had never even heard his name before that moment. But there was something in his face, in the deadness of his eyes, that inspired in me a feeling of revulsion. I have always had a strong ability to judge character, but I tried to suppress it. I attempted to find ways to give the benefit of the doubt. I could not discount a successor of St. Peter because of nothing more than a feeling. But that feeling was strong, and I have never been ill-served by listening to my feelings about people.

Then he started speaking. And the statements he has been making are intensely problematic. Are they explicitly heretical? No. Are they dangerously close? Absolutely. What kind of a Christian tells an atheist he has no intention to convert him? That alone should disturb Catholics everywhere. Many of his other statements, by and large, are less egregious, though they are still quite problematic. They are open to wildly varying interpretation because they are made without context, thus leaving it open to the will of the interpreter to apply it.

[...]

There are a lot of Catholics out there – good ones, probably far better ones than I am – trying to put a positive spin on every foolish thing the pope says. They don’t like it, not one bit, when other Catholics say things like, “Hey, what this guy is saying doesn’t sound at all like the Catholicism I’ve lived and studied MY ENTIRE LIFE. It sounds like something far different. It sounds like something intended to change the way Catholics believe.”

Skojec says he can’t fathom why anyone faced with the Church of 2013 would choose to convert to Catholicism:

For fellowship? I can get fellowship from the local MegaChurch, with far fewer impositions on my personal liberty. For the sacraments? But most Catholics don’t even believe in the Real Presence, most parishes have no adoration or Eucharistic devotions, most priests offer an hour or less per week of confession time on the parish schedule.

As a convert myself, I can totally understand and identify with this.  Now, mind you, I completely accept the teachings of the Catholic Church without hesitation or qualification.  But the point is, I didn't discover what those were until I'd already been drawn toward the Church.  There was something about it that was a powerful attraction for me, and the question I have is this very one - would I have been attracted to the Church, would I have bothered to take the time to find out what she stood for, if this was the Church being offered to me.

And ultimately that's what disturbs me - the number of people who will never discover the Church because they've been turned off by her, the number who will turn away from her because they feel as if they've been deserted, the number who will come to her because of a misguided belief in what she teaches, and then spend the rest of their lives trying to force her to conform to their desires.

Check that - it's not the number of people I'm worried about; it's the number of souls.

(And by the way - if you don't like what I have to say here, then it's just as well I don't write much about religion anymore.)  ◙

Classic Sports Thursday - Allan Simonsen

A few years ago, Fox Sports in the States broadcast live Australia's signature touring car race, the Supercheap Auto 1000 from Bathurst, NSW, complete with Southeast-based broadcasters making the grand flight across the Pacific. Saturday night Australia will have the 53rd running of the classic (two races run in 1997 and 1998 because of a dispute -- one for the 2 litre European Super Touring formula in the usual October date and a mid-spring date for the 5-litre V8 Supercar formula that is traditionally Bathurst, mainly because of a dispute between Seven and Ten), the 43rd as a 1,000 km event (the first ten races were 500 miles but Australian metrification laws added 121 miles in 1973, abolishing the single-driver possibility that the great Peter Brock used in one of his nine Bathurst wins).

Tragic news from Bathurst history occurred in June when Allan Simonsen (DEN), the codriver of the pole-winning and eventual third-place finishing #11 Pepsi Max Kelly Racing Holden Commodore with Greg Murphy (who will be in Saturday night's classic in the #22 Walkinshaw Racing Toll Holden with James Courtney), was killed at the 24 Heures du Mans on Lap 3 going through Tertre Rouge when his Young Driver AMR Aston Martin went wide through the tricky double apex, hit the trees on the other side of the Armco, killing the popular Dane who had been set to participate in the Brad Jones Racing #21 car this season (a replacement has since been hired -- the #14 won one of the four Austin races in V8's this year (and also won with their #8 earlier in the season) - Triple Eight (#1, #10, #888) won the other three Austin races -- too bad ESPN dumped the V8's for their X Games next year at COTA).

Simonsen's lap of 2:04.956 in a Ferrari was taken during a hotlap meet at the legendary Mount Panorama circuit a hotlap event a month after the 2011 Bathurst classic, and was later surpassed by a 2:04.6187 lap in a Formula 3 car in Australia. Jenson Button also has a faster time from 2011 (1:48.88) in a McLaren MP4-26, but that was not in an official session, so it does not count.

In memory of the 2011 pole-winning team's co-driver, here's Simonsen's lap in a Ferrari that went under the 2:05 range:

2011 "Great Race" Finish (with US broadcast audio):


◙

What's wrong with sports today

It's become fashionable over the last few decades to see a larger meaning to sports - to see baseball as representing a microcosm of life, for example.

There is, however, another - less romantic - way in which sports mirrors life today.  ESPN's Tim Keown, writing about the prospect of the city of Oakland losing all three of its professional sports teams, on what sports has become:

Take a look at those future ruins. They rose from the ground before crowds inside stadiums mimicked the stratification of the society outside, with the moneyed elite walling themselves off from the commoners in gloriously appointed privacy -- a logical extension of the gated, country-club community.

Are we destined to forever live in a sports world where amenities go from desirous to compulsory? Are fans and taxpayers just resigned to either building new shrines or losing their teams?

In the relentlessly monarchical world of professional sports, someone has to be able to forsake a digit or two in the bank account to create a legacy more meaningful than a trust fund that'll cover a lifetime of BMWs and Botox treatments for the grandchildren of his grandchildren. Someone has to consider the void left behind. And someone has to make a clear-eyed assessment of whether 4–12 will look any better through the window of a luxury suite with a view of LA Live than it does through the bottom of a smuggled-in fifth of Albertsons scotch in the depths of the Black Hole.

Do read the whole article.  Now, I've never been one to jump on the "trash the suburbs" bandwagon, though I myself prefer living in an urban area.  And there's nothing inherently wrong with living in a gated community, when the purpose is to provide a minimum amount of security to, say, an apartment complex without a security entrance.  But when the attempt is to create a permanent chasm between classes - in fact, to create a cultural subset where those of a certain lifestyle never even have to come into contact with "everyone else," then there's a problem. Sports has often been a means of building community, of something that crosses political, racial, or religious lines.  It was never meant to become a ghetto for the rich.  ◙

Opera Wednesday

We haven't done one of these for awhile, and since the blog's been kind of quiet lately (I'll have to talk to the contributing editors about that), there's no time like the present.

The way an opera ends can be as important as how it begins.  I'm not talking about the performance itself, although an opera that ends on a sour note (literally) can leave a bad taste in the mouth.  No, I'm talking about the actual ending as written by the composer.  I've written before about how for all his genius, Mozart got it wrong with the anticlimactic finale to Don Giovanni.  On the other hand, a powerful conclusion can favorably color an entire piece - as much as I liked Nixon in China, for example, I thought the final aria ("How much of what we did was good?") was absolutely stunning.

Here's a look at one of the great finales in opera, the tragic conclusion to Puccini's magnificent Madama Butterfly, with Patricia Racette.  Patrick Summers is conducting the Metropolitan Opera in this performance from a few seasons back.  There's a joke in music circles about Puccini being one's favorite composer of Oriental music.  He was Italian, of course, but uses Asian themes to wonderful effect in Butterfly (and Turandot as well), and there's no better example than what's seen (and heard) here.  ◙

Retro TV Monday - This Week in TV Guide, October 1, 1966

Over at the TV blog, I've been running a feature for the past couple of years called "This Week in TV Guide," in which I take a look at some of the more interesting cultural notes from back in the day.*

*A phrase just one step removed from "Get off my lawn, you kids."  Of course, the fact that I don't have a lawn right now is beside the point.

At any rate, here's a preview of this week's piece - be sure to follow the link to read the whole thing.

***

For the first time, the stain of the 1960s - Vietnam - graces the cover of this week's TV Guide.

Neil Hickey, TV Guide's New York Bureau Chief and author of some of the best news features published by the magazine, presents the first of a four-part series on how - and how well - television is covering its first war. It is a war "exorbitantly more demanding, both mentally and physically, than anything those earlier newsmen faced in Europe or the Pacific." It's a guerrilla war, replete with everything from jungle disease to ambush land mines and booby traps, field telephones that barely work, and as one correspondent puts it, "pushing the cause of journalistic profanity to new horizons." As NBC's David Burrington puts it, "There are so many imponderables and ironies here that it's sometimes difficult, if not downright impossible, to explain what's happening in terms that an American audience will understand." 

Read the complete article.  ◙

Wish I'd written that

Speed has never killed anyone; suddenly becoming stationary...that's what gets you."

Jeremy Clarkson, co-host of BBC's Top Gear. ◙

Today

The sad state of television today: The critics forcing acceptance of R and NC-17 rated programming by giving them Emmy nominations

Movie theatres have a problem when the rating of a film is “R” or “NC-17” (an X rating before 1990) because they will appeal to adults only. Restrictions against children are strictly imposed in the theatre. However, it's clear now with the proliferation of cord-cutting and Web-only viewers they can escape the restrictions of theatres. Yet, with television's “TV-MA” rating, which is the equivalent of an NC-17 (or X) rating in television, we are seeing the rewards of the R/X-class programming on television.

Consider that HBO, Showtime, and Netflix can air TV-MA grade programming, and the Emmy nominations went mostly to that triumvirate, while the broadcast networks, which have a restriction of Y7, G, PG, and some 14 after 10 PM ET, were shut out of the prestigious drama category, you have to wonder what it says when pay television, with no restrictions on content, is defeating network television, which must cater to as many people as possible.

Does it seem that television's equivalent of the R and NC-17 ratings, unlike movies, is worth artistic gold, with Emmy nominations, while network television with their PG and PG-13 ratings, are being shut down by these R and NC-17 type shows? If the Emmys believe raunchy content that's not capable of being on network television is the golden goose to earn accolades, we are in trouble.

Speaking of which, the report on Al Jazeera America's launch this week is only fitting considering Al Jazeera effectively shut down three Fox sport-related channels (Speed, Fuel, Fox Soccer) as much of their content has gone to the pan-Arabic Qatar channel (and their partners at Time Warner Cable, for legal reasons), Comcast (see the rise of NBC Sports Network), and Fox is starting a basic cable channel with the R and NC-17 type HBO/Showtime/Netflix unrestricted raunch (FXX) to replace the football channel, while replacing the motorsport and action-sports and MMA channel with general sports channels (Fox Sports 1 and 2). Already, according to a report posted on ESPN, television providers are balking at FS1 and FS2 because of the carriage fees.

It is a sad sign of what we have become when acceptance of deviancy in violation of the Bible is glorified and mandated by federal law. Now it's even worse that Hollywood and the critics are forcing on us their attitudes of grotesque material that would not have been put on television years ago. ◙

This weekend's Darlington Stripes

The news about disgraced soldier Bradley Manning, whose campaign to change the military to a sexual deviancy activist organisation was successful via Public Law 111-321, and his Wikileaks scandal that sent him to prison is very disturbing. But if he wants the identity of Chelsea, he must wear this shirt.

MTV has been the target of Our Word over the years here, especially since we regularly attend the orchestra and have an appreciation of classical music (just witness what happened when, during my daily Bible reading, I sensed the words from masterpiece I had sung months earlier came to life). The story over two grotesque performances by two major artists popular with this generation at the MTV Video Music Awards Sunday, held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, showed the most banal standards that Fox Business anchorman Stuart Varney blamed it on the previous generation for accepting it in their time. Sometimes, I have a sense that someone's sitting in the Oval Office (fka Big Red Truck) and calling all three offending artists into the office for consultation. And at this pace, maybe the Barclays Center needs to be renamed the Sky Bet Centre. The calibre of "singer" there was a far cry from the Barclays-calibre type singers such as Анна Нетребко and the Minnesota Opera's Rebecca Krynski (in the upcoming performance of Manon Lescault; the author has seen her perform in college and the infamous St. Peter's Catholic performance of The True Story of Cinderella), Walter Cuttino, or the LaRoches (Michael and Serena).

And speaking of such outrageous performances, I think we've gone too far in sport and art with costuming, and even in schools. Who would want their kid to dress like those bad pop stars? We see that at sporting events and we rarely hear any complaints about it. But do it on television at the MTV awards, we hear complaints. Why is there a double standard? ◙

Teenage criminal rampage: UN treaty not ratified by the Senate, but by the Supreme Court, protects the criminals

At church recently, we were informed of a robbery at a bakery where three teenagers ransacked the business and killed an employee there. She had ties to the local community. In Oklahoma, a college student, originally from Australia and a baseball player at a college there, was killed by teenagers "for fun". In Spokane (WA), an elderly war hero from the Greatest Generation died after teenagers attacked him with a weighted flashlight.

In each case, the criminals involved were teenagers. In each case, there will be no justice for the victims' families. The teenage criminals will be protected to the full extent of the law, and may not even serve as much as thirty years in prison, and that is a problem in our justice system. A popular trend in the United States Supreme Court is a virtual relocation of the nation's legislative capital to Geneve (Suisse), as a rash of Supreme Court decisions has stated foreign law trumps local, state, and federal laws.

In Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court declared a “constitutional” right to sodomy based on foreign laws. Justice Scalia warned this decision would push liberals' to attack churches in redefining marriage based on "bedroom laws," and would be the lightning rod to elimination of a fundamental freedom (of religion) and replacement with a forced acceptance of sin as normal. Two years later, again on foreign laws, Roper v. Simmons cited more foreign laws, and in an attack on the nation's sovereignty, violated Article II, Section 2, Paragraph 4 of the United States Constitution, which requires a treaty to be approved by a two-thirds supermajority of the Senate, by de facto ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child that had been signed by Ambassador Albright in the 1990's, but rejected by the Senate. This decision barred death sentences on teenage murderers. Five years later, Graham v. Florida, citing the treaty-infused decision, codified the UN treaty by banning even life sentences on teenage criminals, in effect giving them a "get out of jail free" card. Not even 30 years is now legal for a sentence for teenage criminals.

Considering in the past decade the courts have ruled foreign law is superior to local, state, and federal law, and the criminals cannot be sentenced properly for their crimes, have we reaped what the courts sowed by giving criminals special rights? Is there an incentive for teen criminals to perform heinous crimes, knowing the penalty cannot be enforced because of their age?

With nullification being a major issue in many states, have we seen the price of Lawrence, Roper, and Graham, where the adoption of foreign laws and unratified treaties has taken our country back to a savage time, where there is no punishment for those guilty, as they are under special protections caused by foreign laws that coddle criminals at the expense of justice for the victims?

Think about it. As foreign law and unratified treaties creep into our country by court fiat, their mandates to appease moral relativism does not match with strict law and order that form the backbone of the American criminal justice system. These criminals have taken advantage of the laws that protect them, and punish victims. My fourth grade history book discussed the failure of the United Nations since its 1945 founding, and protecting of dictatorial despots while oppressing freedom-loving nations (such as the betrayal of Taiwan). Now we are seeing how they are now protecting teenage criminals at the expense of families they victimised. ◙

The power to move the world

Lately, I've been spending a good amount of time in the year 1968. Several of the TV Guides I've written about in the last few weeks have been from the 1967-68 period, and I've been studying some media coverage of the news events of that year, in particular the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

I've never been a fan of the Kennedys politically, but I have often admired their style if not their substance. John was in a class by himself, and Ted had a long life, which means that Robert has been caught somewhere in the middle. To be honest, I'd never given a great deal of thought to his impact on history, despite the fact I have clearer (if still limited) memories of his death than I do of John's.

Quite by accident, I happened to stumble onto a website that proved a treasure trove of radio coverage about RFK's assassination and funeral, which I wrote about over at the TV blog. In listening to the broadcasts, and investing some money in the accompanying television broadcasts, I came to a bit more of an appreciation of Bobby Kennedy's style, and some of the convulsive reaction to his death. There is much that is hyperbole about his life and death; for example, I don't think he would have won the Democratic nomination, much less been elected president; Hubert Humphrey was already quite close to the number of delegates needed to win, and RFK's victory over Gene McCarthy in the California primary (which Kennedy had been celebrating when he was shot) was in fact much narrower than it should have been. Many of Kennedy's most astute advisors (Lawrence O'Brien, for example) felt that he never really had a chance of winning. At most, he might have assumed the position that wound up residing with George McGovern, and in that light one can contemplate whether or not Kennedy would have given Richard Nixon a run for his money in 1972.

Kennedy speaking at the University of Cape Town, 1966

But I digress. One of the benefits of being plunged into the Kennedy phenomenon is that it's given me exposure to some quite remarkable things. Whereas Jack's gift was his charming demeanor, and Ted's was his debauchery, Bobby's appears to have been his eloquence in the written word. In 1964, introducing the JFK memorial film at the Democratic convention, he quoted Shakespeare, which was perhaps the last time anyone spoke that literately at any political convention. I excerpted one of his most famous speeches last week, one that he'd given in South Africa in 1966, and I'm going to present another, longer excerpt here in a moment. I've recordings of Kennedy giving this speech, and I'll admit it comes across with a bit more power on paper than in his delivery, which at the time was more halting, more self-conscious than it would be later on. This portion of his speech was read by Ted at Bobby's funeral, and for all the grief I've given Ted Kennedy over the years for his bloviating style, in this particular case he nailed it. The words themselves, and the phrases, carry such power that Ted's flat, emotionless delivery stays out of the way and allows one to ponder their true force. If you want to hear either Bobby or Ted delivering it, you can easily find clips on YouTube; I prefer to look at them on the page. Some comments will follow.

"There is," said an Italian philosopher, "nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." Yet this is the measure of the task of your generation and the road is strewn with many dangers.

[M]any of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and 32-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. "Give me a place to stand," said Archimedes, "and I will move the world." These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and in the total of all these acts will be written the history of this generation.

[…] It is from numberless diverse acts of courage such as these that the belief that human history is thus shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. […]

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change the world which yields most painfully to change. […] I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the world.

[There is] the temptation to follow the easy and familiar path of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who have the privilege of an education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. There is a Chinese curse which says "May he live in interesting times." Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind. And everyone here will ultimately be judged -- will ultimately judge himself -- on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort.

These are timeless words, more stunning because of how applicable they are to our times. For as we've experienced the collapse of confidence in government, the contempt (most of it justified) in which politics is seen, the decay of institutions formerly held in esteem, we realize that much that is important in life has been reduced to a bare essential.

There are many ways to, as Kennedy put it, "enter the conflict." It is not necessary for us to do everything, but imperative that we do something. For one man to stand up and fight the machine, whatever that machine happens to be, may seem a futile act; it is when others see and follow that man that change becomes a possibility. But, as Kennedy says, it takes the courage to stand up - despite threats, despite ridicule, despite the loneliness and isolation that often comes from being the first one to stand up.

And the change that will happen, the change that must happen, cannot come from institutions, but must come from people acting together. When I retired from competitive politics I remarked on the single most important lesson I'd learned: you can't change the world by passing a law; you can only change it by converting hearts and minds. And it isn't done in Washington, or in some state capital; it comes in your interactions with your family, your friends and loved ones, your neighbors, your co-workers, those in your wider community. It comes in the church you attend, the organizations to which you belong, the places you spend your spare time. And all the money, all the power, all the prestige in the world doesn't mean a damn otherwise.  You can't let the standards of the world determine your definition of success, of happiness, of making a difference.

There is much lamenting within the conservative movement that the culture war is lost, that Hollywood and the media have combined to freeze out the conservative voice. There are those on all sides who decry the corruption of Big Business, of the multimillionaires that often worship at no higher altar than the bottom line; and of Big Government, and those politicians who seek only to preserve their own power and line their own pockets. And here we must exhibit the courage of which Kennedy speaks, to turn away from the wealth and power which the modern world offers, in order to take the road less traveled, one which may contain hardship and heartache but ultimately emerges triumphant.

As I said, this is a remarkable speech, and whether or not RFK was responsible in toto for writing the words, he undoubtedly believed in what they meant. One of Kennedy's contemporaries, Ronald Reagan, was even more gifted at it - unparalleled, in my opinion.  Is there anyone today who uses such words to appeal to man's higher nature with an essentially optimistic message? And if not, why not? And what does that say about us? ◙

The sad state of television today

Movie theatres have a problem when the rating of a film is “R” or “NC-17” (an X rating before 1990) because they will appeal to adults only. Restrictions against children are strictly imposed in the theatre. However, it's clear now with the proliferation of cord-cutting and Web-only viewers they can escape the restrictions of theatres. Yet, with television's “TV-MA” rating, which is the equivalent of an NC-17 (or X) rating in television, we are seeing the rewards of the R/X-class programming on television.

Consider that HBO, Showtime, and Netflix can air TV-MA grade programming, and the Emmy nominations went mostly to that triumvirate, while the broadcast networks, which have a restriction of Y7, G, PG, and some 14 after 10 PM ET, were shut out of the prestigious drama category, you have to wonder what it says when pay television, with no restrictions on content, is defeating network television, which must cater to as many people as possible.

Does it seem that television's equivalent of the R and NC-17 ratings, unlike movies, is worth artistic gold, with Emmy nominations, while network television with their PG and PG-13 ratings, are being shut down by these R and NC-17 type shows? If the Emmys believe raunchy content that's not capable of being on network television is the golden goose to earn accolades, we are in trouble.

Speaking of which, the report on Al Jazeera America's launch this week is only fitting considering Al Jazeera effectively shut down three Fox sport-related channels (Speed, Fuel, Fox Soccer) as much of their content has gone to the pan-Arabic Qatar channel (and their partners at Time Warner Cable, for legal reasons), Comcast (see the rise of NBC Sports Network), and Fox is starting a basic cable channel with the R and NC-17 type HBO/Showtime/Netflix unrestricted raunch (FXX) to replace the football channel, while replacing the motorsport and action-sports and MMA channel with general sports channels (Fox Sports 1 and 2). Already, according to a report posted on ESPN, television providers are balking at FS1 and FS2 because of the carriage fees.  [Ed: Time Warner, DirecTV and Dish have yet to sign up with FS1, and here in Dallas we're seeing the Time Warner-CBS standoff.]

It is a sad sign of what we have become when acceptance of deviancy in violation of the Bible is glorified and mandated by federal law. Now it's even worse that Hollywood and the critics are forcing on us their attitudes of grotesque material that would not have been put on television years ago. ◙

Wish I'd Written That

And even government by the consent of the governed, as in our own Constitution, must be limited in its power to act against its people: so that there may be no interference with the right to worship, but also no interference with the security of the home; no arbitrary imposition of pains or penalties on an ordinary citizen by officials high or low; no restriction on the freedom of men to seek education or to seek work or opportunity of any kind, so that each man may become all that he is capable of becoming.

These are the sacred rights of western society. These were the essential differences between us and Nazi Germany as they were between Athens and Persia.

They are the essences of our differences with communism today. I am unalterably opposed to communism because it exalts the state over the individual and over the family, and because its system contains a lack of freedom of speech, of protest, of religion, and of the press, which is characteristic of a totalitarian regime. The way of opposition to communism, however, is not to imitate its dictatorship, but to enlarge individual human freedom. There are those in every land who would label as "communist" every threat to their privilege. But may I say to you, as I have seen on my travels in all sections of the world, reform is not communism. And the denial of freedom, in whatever name, only strengthens the very communism it claims to oppose.

- Robert F. Kennedy, speech in Capetown, South Africa, June 6th 1966

It would seem to me that if we substitute the word "terrorism" for "communism," we might have a very accurate description of the state in which we find ourselves today.

More thoughts on this and other things to come. ◙

If the lockout's settled, will he win the Nobel Peace Prize?

I had a long chuckle the other night at the news that George Mitchell had been enlisted as the mediator in the dispute between the Minnesota Orchestra and its musicians.  It was partly a reflection of how far Mitchell has fallen over the years - from attempting to broker a peace settlement in the Middle East to investigating PEDs in baseball to mediating a mid-level orchestra lockout.  After he's done with this, I'd like to see if he's available to talk to our upstairs neighbors about not walking so heavily late at night.

Seriously - and I guess we're supposed to take this seriously - I'm most amused by how Mitchell is held in such awe by everyone commenting on the situation.  We'll grant at the outset that he deserves credit for his efforts to broker a peace agreement in Northern Ireland.  His efforts on the "Good Friday Agreement" were noble, and successful.  But it would be a mistake to view his entire career through that one event.

As a U.S. Senator, Mitchell was - in my opinion - a partisan hack.  He was in fact my U.S. Senator for the four years I lived in Maine, and I'm not sure I agreed with him once.  And he was partisan - the opposite of the statesman that his supports like to portray. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with being partisan; Mitchell was, after all, Senate Majority Leader. But let's not try to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.

Mitchell's "even-handed" approach in the Middle East was a disaster, quite possibly because the Palestinians didn't want an agreement that would work for everyone - they wanted something that would work for them.  One of the chief problems with negotiating a Middle East agreement is that the two sides aren't in search of the same thing: Israel looks for an agreement that acknowledges its right to exist, while the Palestinians - to the extent that their factions are even on the same page - seem more interested in wiping Israel off the map, not reaching an agreement for co-existance.  As one commentator put it, it was Mitchell's success in Northern Ireland that ultimately led to his downfall in the Middle East - by assuming he could broker a deal because he'd already done it before, he not only naively assumed that both sides wanted the same thing, that even-handed approach actually resulted in a further Palestinian intransegence that made the agreement all but impossible.

As for his involvement with Major League Baseball, reviews on the Mitchell Report were mixed at best - nobody named in the report was convicted of much of anything (save a minor charge against Barry Bonds), and Roger Clemens was actually acquitted (although his charges were a result of his testimony before Congress, he was prominently named in the Report).  Oh, and then there was that conflict of interest thing - Mitchell was on the board of directors of the Boston Red Sox, and as it happens no active members of the Red Sox were named in the report.

So, what should we anticipate from his turn as mediator? I don't know. What I do know is that this whole farce has increased my admiration for The Onion by leaps and bounds. After all, it shows how hard it is to write satire nowadays when the whole world's stealing your punchlines. ◙

25 years...

I never thought about it until after finishing my morning workout the importance of this day.

It's the 25 year anniversary of the birth of the modern talk radio movement, when WABC and Ed McLaughlin agreed to syndicate Rush Limbaugh's radio show, originally a KFBK (Sacramento) show, nationally. Never did we know that today marks a quarter century since the revolution in radio. ◙