Citizen Brand

The wealth and health of nations

Courtesy of Gapminder and Jack Yan. An enlightening and educational look at 200 years of history. What can we learn from this?

What happened to Lincoln and FDR?

Since we have already had most of this year to vet the candidates running to become the next President of the United States, maybe we should just go ahead and have the election now and be done with it.  Of course, that would require us to actually be ready to put one of the vast herd of senators, governors, former governors, former mayors and at least one actor and a former first lady into the White House.  And that is not something we seem ready to do yet.  Good thing we have another year.  I'm sure another year of canned sound bites and made for TV debates will clear everything up.

Think I'm sounding a bit cynical?  Guess I have to plead a little guilty.  But I wonder if we are all going to experience presidential election burnout because we do have almost a full year left before we cast votes.  Makes me wonder how far off base the story in Thursday's The Onion might be.......

"Americans Announce They're Dropping Out of the Presidential Race"

Home Movies

Ken Burns is at it again.  The man who turned the historical documentary series into the original must see TV is going to do the same thing for our national parks that he did for the Civil War, Baseball and Jazz.  Kurt over at National Parks Traveler tells us all about it.

This series will have a special twist.  This series produced and directed by Burns and written and produced by Dayton Duncan is looking for help from all of us.  I will just borrow Kurt's description of what they want:

To help them tell this story, they would like to collect home movies of visits to National Parks by families and individuals for possible use in the film. They are looking for home movies from the time period of the 1920s through the 1980s and are most interested in footage of families and tourists in the parks.

    If your home movies are used in The National Parks, you will receive a DVD of the series. If you happen to have footage of the Yosemite firefall and it is included in the series, you will receive the DVD, plus your choice of one other Ken Burns film. If you have home movies you would like to submit, please follow the criteria listed below.
    * Home movies from the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s.
    * They are most interested in families and tourists in the national parks, not scenery without people.
    * Do not send original footage: VHS or DVD copies only, please. THE MATERIAL WILL NOT BE RETURNED.
    * Clearly mark the tape or disc with your name, address, phone number and e-mail (if available), so they can contact you if your footage is selected.
    * Include a brief description, e.g., the Smith family, George and Martha, Bill and Sally, in Grand Canyon, 1955.
    * Send to the address below by August 1, 2007:
    Anne Harrington
    WETA
    2775 S. Quincy Street
    Arlington, VA 22206

My family visited Rocky Mountain National Park almost every year when I was growing up.  I still go every year now.  And I have the proof in some home movies from the 1950's and 1960's.  Look for the Swenson clan when this series debuts in 2009.

    If your home movies are used in The National Parks, you will receive a DVD of the series. If you happen to have footage of the Yosemite firefall and it is included in the series, you will receive the DVD, plus your choice of one other Ken Burns film. If you have home movies you would like to submit, please follow the criteria listed below.
    * Home movies from the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s.
    * They are most interested in families and tourists in the national parks, not scenery without people.
    * Do not send original footage: VHS or DVD copies only, please. THE MATERIAL WILL NOT BE RETURNED.
    * Clearly mark the tape or disc with your name, address, phone number and e-mail (if available), so they can contact you if your footage is selected.
    * Include a brief description, e.g., the Smith family, George and Martha, Bill and Sally, in Grand Canyon, 1955.
    * Send to the address below by August 1, 2007:
    Anne Harrington
    WETA
    2775 S. Quincy Street
    Arlington, VA 22206

My family visited Rocky Mountain National Park almost every year when I was growing up.  I still go every year now.  And I have the proof in some home movies from the 1950's and 1960's.  Look for the Swenson clan when this series debuts in 2009.

A quick history of the web

This needs no introduction other than to say I'm proud to say it came from my home state of Kansas.  I do have to admit it came from Kansas State University.  It is an amazing and brief view of the world wide web and what it really means.  Please watch.  It is worth another view even if you have already seen it.

RFK

I have been a lifelong Democrat.  My family, dating back to my grandfather, Ross Swenson, have always been Democrats.  I am also a fourth generation Kansan.  Kansas is considered a Republican state, but has had a unique history of electing Democrats as Governor, to Congress and a few other statewide offices.  So the election of 2006 is very interesting to me right now as the Democratic Party seems to have found its voice again.  We shall see.

Regardless of how you tend to vote, if you are a political junkie as I am, you will likely view the release of the movie, Bobby, as something to anticipate.  It is the story of a night when you can truly say history was changed.

It was June 4, 1968 and Robert F. Kennedy had just won the California presidential primary giving him the momentum he needed to capture the Democratic nomination for President and a date in November against the Republican nominee, Richard Nixon.  RFK's was a candidacy of destiny.  He was in part fulfilling the unfinished Presidency of his brother John.  But he had his own agenda and his own voice that was finally being heard.  And as he spoke from the podium of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles that late spring evening, his voice was sure and his destiny seemed certain.

But it was 1968.  We were just weeks removed from the assassination of Martin Luther King.  It was Bobby Kennedy's voice that terrible night that tried to calm the nation.  We were a nation in turmoil.  We were in a war that had lasted too long.  We had internal strife over that war in Vietnam.  We had internal strife over racial issues that had been going on since the Civil War more than a hundred years before.  It was a time we needed a voice of reason and calm to help guide us through the confusion.

I was 12 years old the night Bobby Kennedy was killed in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.  I went to sleep that night after hearing part of his victory speech claiming the California primary.  I awoke the next morning to the news that he had been shot and was near death.

Just two months before that, Bobby Kennedy shook my hand.  In 1968, at the age of 12, when an iconic figure such as Robert F. Kennedy shakes your hand, you do not ever forget it.  I remember that moment right now as if it were yesterday.

I wonder how a 12 year old thinks about our political leaders in 2006.  I fear that they don't have the same feelings that I had for Bobby Kennedy in 1968.  He was my first, and still, greatest political hero.  I believe to this day that our country and our world would have been different had he been elected President in 1968.

I will watch the movie Bobby when it comes out with a mixture of sadness and wonder.  It's a movie about the night RFK was killed which is sad.  But it will allow me the time to think about what might have been.  And it will reinforce to me how important it is for all of us to stay involved in our electoral process and vote for the people we think can make a difference.

Bobby Kennedy was shot on June 4, 1968 and history was forever altered.  But it also forever made me politically active.  For that, I have him to thank.

Edward R. Murrow

I decided early in life I wanted to be in radio and television.  At first, I thought sports broadcasting was my calling.  But when I entered the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas in 1973, Watergate was in full swing and we all wanted to be the next Woodward and Bernstein.  At least I did.

That was until I began to learn about Edward R. Murrow.  I was just a bit too young to have seen Murrow in his prime on CBS News.  But as I learned about him and began to study his career as part of my journalism studies, it became clear to me that Murrow was the foundation on which great broadcast journalism was built.  He, of course was most remembered for his showdown with Senator Joseph McCarthy documented in last year's great film, Good Night and Good Luck.

I wrote one of my best papers in college on that fascinating period of history.  But what I found more interesting were his days on the radio during World War Two as he reported from London during the darkest days of the ceaseless bombing of that great city.

I'm moved to write about Murrow tonight because of a great PBS program airing this week as part of the American Masters series.  I hope you have a chance to see it.  His was a life that not only changed his profession, but led to changes in society as well.  There were few issues he did not take on over the years on his famous "See It Now" program or later in productions that redefined the television documentary.  His most famous documentary was Harvest of Shame which documented the horrible existence of America's migrant workers in 1960.

I end this post with a line from Murrow's closing comments in his program that brought down Joe McCarthy.  These are words we need to continue to think about even today:

"Let us not confuse dissent with disloyalty."

Edward R. Murrow was a true citizen of the world.  Take some time to read more about him.  It will be worth your time.

It did happen

Thanks to McLir for making sure we saw this story.

History and photography are two of my favorite topics.  This historic treasure trove of photos is a good reminder that we have traveled a long way along the road of civil and human rights.  It should also serve as a reminder that any progress we have made can easily be eroded.  Being a citizen is hard work.