Kids Say The “Darndest” Things

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Screen Shot 2015-05-14 at 9.51.27 AMOn Mother’s Day our entire family went to see the latest Avengers movie.  On the way home I asked my fifteen year old son if Iron Man – the character played by Robert Downey Jr. – reminded him of anyone he’d recently read about; further probing, I followed up with “what about Ultron?”  My point in asking was to demonstrate the applicability of what he was learning in his critical writing class to every day events.  In other words to get him thinking that the stuff he learns in school is useful and not a pointless activity for passing the time away.  After he responded that Iron Man reminds him of Mr. Easter – one of his buddy’s dad – I got the typical teenage glare that transcends words.  Of course I didn’t stop there.  I commented that he reminded me of Victor Frankenstein, the protagonist in the 1818 classic novel written by Mary Shelley (which Jack is currently reading) and that his evil creation – the monster or “daemon” – was the equivalent of Ultron.  Further demonstrating my analytical prowess (ha ha) I reminded him about a point in the recently-read novel “O Pioneers” that in human history there are five stories that recur.  The implication was that both the Avenger movie and Frankenstein novel address the question of man’s place in nature and what can go wrong when flawed humans assume Divine work (creation).  The remaining car ride was silent.

The following evening Jack asked for my help with a poetry writing assignment.  I laughed and commented “funny how life works out – less than twenty-four hours ago you were shunning my input and now your asking for it!” – to which he retorted:  “Fine, don’t help me . . . I’ll just grow up and become liberal!”

“Scoping” the Media?

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Screen Shot 2015-05-07 at 8.27.46 AMPeriscoping, that is . . . I watched with mild amusement recently as the trio on “CBS This Morning” interviewed the CEO of “Periscope”, a months old live-stream app.  It has recently come under fire when some 60-odd of its users streamed the copyrighted Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.  It was said to add fuel to the fire when Twitter co-founder Dick Costolo tweeted:  “And the winner is . . . @periscopeco” apparently in reference to “all the amazing content leading up to the fight.  Watching Manny Pacquiao in his locker room”, proudly beamed CEO Kayvon Beykpour.  (Twitter reportedly bought the app for around $100 million before its launch on March 26. Within 10 days following the launch, it acquired 1 million users.)    In other words, not something you could or would see on television.  Unscripted or unedited – raw data/facts – the real story as it unfolds in real time.  Brian Williams beware.  The interviewers’ unease was palpable as Beykpour continued:

“there’s a huge potential for it to change journalism.”

“We were watching Paul Lewis on the ground in Baltimore sharing the important things that were happening there in the most raw and unfettered way that I’ve experienced from a journalism standpoint. That’s the sort of thing that’s exciting to me,” he said.

And terrifying to the media who choose and chronicle the daily narrative today.  But Beykpour wasn’t finished.  In relaying how he came up the idea for the Periscope app Beykpour told a personal story about planning a trip to Istanbul and trying to decided whether it was safe to continue with his travel plans.  “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Is it safe for me to go? I want to see what’s happening on the ground.’ And you watch the news or you even look at Twitter and you get a very sensationalized account of what’s happening, and I wanted to see a live feed of the street that my hotel was on — that would be the perfect articulation to me of whether it was safe or not,” Beykpour said. “‘There are thousands of people who walk around every day with smartphones and high-speed network connections. Why can’t I see through their eyes?'”

Good question!  This was once the hallmark of the purported “fourth branch of government”.  Journalism done well or at its best.  Just the facts so viewers could form their own opinions on content.  Nature abhors a vacuum and will fill the void . . . with a periscope?

Doctors use various scopes for diagnostic and surgical procedures because they are often safer and more cost effective than more invasive procedures.  Maybe we SHOULD begin (peri)scoping the media?!

Shared Resolve

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IMG_1016Today I attended the monthly lunch meeting of the McLennan County Republican Women (MCRW).  Although a member my attendance has been sporadic at best.  I have reached a point in my life – a crisis of faith of sorts – that has given me pause.  Beginning in late fall events in both my professional and personal life (some under my control and some not) have caused me to take stock, re-access priorities, and what I call “get back to the basics.”  Part of this process has been to be more discerning with my free time, including limiting meetings, etc.  MCRW’s meeting today was an exception because of the special guest speaker, Representative Louie Gohmert from House District 1 of Texas, of whom I am a huge fan.  While I certainly share Mr. Gohmert’s political ideology, I also have a deep appreciation for his loyal service to his constituency; plainly stated, he votes his conscience and his constituency – a rarity among politicians today.  While speaking, he shared a story that steeled my resolve on my own personal journey.

Like most conservatives Mr. Gohmert is a fan of Abraham Lincoln, the original conservative and first Republican president.  In 1862, Willie, the president’s 3rd son, died of typhoid fever during his father’s first term in office.  Despite the attending physician’s belief he would recover, the 11 year old boy succumbed to his illness – a tragedy that left the family devastated and Mrs. Lincoln inconsolable.  A year later when President Lincoln was preparing to leave for Gettysburg his youngest son and “apple of his eye”, Tad fell ill.  Attended by the same family physician, the doctor made an eerily similar pronouncement that the boy should recover.  Against his wife’s desperate pleas and his own trepidation President Lincoln boarded the train that day and went on to deliver arguably the most noted and eloquent political speeches ever given – The Gettysburg Address.  “May we all share Lincoln’s resolve”, Mr. Gohmert concluded, ‘ . . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.'”  Amen.

 

A Lesser of Two Injustices?

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Screen Shot 2015-02-12 at 9.53.46 AMI caught a segment on CBS This Morning that paid tribute to the late, 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon.  His prolific career at CBS spanned almost fifty years before his life ended at the age of seventy-three in a car crash on the West Side highway.  As a personal associate and self-described “understudy” of Mr. Simon, Scott Pelley was invited to profile the man.  Of Mr. Simon Pelley noted, he had “a sharp intolerance for injustice.  And he had equal opportunity rage for every injustice committed in every corner of this earth.”  This was the source of the man’s immense courage.  Pelley then recalled Simon’s interview with an Israeli general in which he baited the general by proclaiming “you’re one of greatest generals Israel has ever produced . . .” before delivering “a Bob Simon (’roundhouse’) punch” in the form of a question:  “so why are you killing children?”  This was followed by all three anchors simultaneously sighing and nodding knowingly.

It is curious but telling that of all the world’s injustices Pelley chose this example.  Admittedly, it’s challenging to imagine a scenario that justifies killing children but no context was given.  I hardly think of Jews – the moral exemplars of society according to the Bible – as the poster kids for bad behavior or “tripping the intolerance meter.”  While Jews have certainly suffered horrible injustice as part of their heritage (#RememberTheHolocaust?), they do not embrace violence in their culture. In fact, their story is one of the great epic stories of the human spirit overcoming injustice that was allegedly Bob Simon’s trademark.  No disrespect to Mr. Simon but the segment substantiates the premise that narrative advancement passes for news or journalism today.  That the supposed fourth branch of government (the news media) has dissolved into this is an injustice – in and of itself – to the viewers who tune in for objective news.

A Heartfelt and Worthy Vow

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DSC_0092Two weeks in a row, the topic of the American Sniper has landed on the pages of People Magazine – this week gracing its cover.  To date, the film, starring Bradley Cooper and based on Chris Kyle’s bestselling 2012 autobiography, is a $200 million “box office smash” that has scored six Oscar nominations, including Best Actor for Cooper – who confides “It’s been life-changing”.  Cooper admits that he “thinks I had an appreciation for veterans before this, but what I definitely did not know is the toll that it takes on the family.” (Light bulb moment, Hollywood?!)  In an interview with Chris’s widow, Taya Kyle reveals she and Chris exchanged self-written vows at their wedding that included the line “I will remind you who you are when you forget.”

At The Liberty Brand Co. we share this heartfelt and worthy vow.  In fact this is precisely what The Liberty Brand is designed to do:  “Remind. Inform. Inspire.”   We want to remind Americans who we are, especially when it seems we no longer have any idea who we are nor any sense of our exceptional history as a nation.  Let us be your memory.  Visit us @ http://www.TheLibertyBrand.com.