From the monthly archives: March 2010
Paul Rich concludes it is the “march of demographics” that so threaten the white male ruling class that as to turn the Republican party into “the party of angry old white men.”
One of the things that makes life on the edge (that may be an exaggeration) interesting is that you get to meet some people who have made truly remarkable choices in their lives – who have escaped the ordinary and found a different path.
Consider Paul Mockler. First of all let’s look at the humble […]
Despite the naysayers who find deficiencies in the story, clearly Avatar, it seems, is resonating emotionally with audiences who find the immersive “journey to Pandora” an experience worthy of experiencing multiple times. In fact CNN reports on “Avatar Blues”, noting: “James Cameron’s completely immersive spectacle “Avatar” may have been a little too real for […]
Maybe you remember these, maybe your folks told you about it — either way it’s quite an experience to view live breaking news coverage of the “where were you when?” moments of the last half century. This is my list — what have I missed?
I was living and working in the Philipppines when Princess Diana died. I was in my apartment at the Hotel Danarra, watching on BBC, when the news broke:
Ironically, I was in a recording studio in Washington DC working on what would be my only album as a singer/songwriter when John Lennon was assassinated. We were in the middle of working on some overdubbing when one of the technicians came in from a break with the news. We immediately quit our session and turned on the television.
I was in training at “the farm” en route to becoming a CIA officer when the U.S. Embassy in Iran was taken over by angry students, leading to 444 days of captivity for American personnel including a handful of CIA officers, one of whom I knew. It was a sobering moment, given the path I was traveling down.
I had been a sci-fi fan for quite a few years and so I was relatively unimpressed by the Apollo 11 moon landing, so much so that as it happened, I was on a double date at a drive-in. But I did manage to exit the car at the right time and go to the concession stand, where I watched the historic moment with the workers there on a tiny black and white TV.
The shooting of 13 student protesters, 4 of whom later died, at Kent State by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970 was a moment that seemed impossible to believe at the time–that this could happen in America. What were we coming to? This was the event that pushed me from being ambivalent about the Vietnam War to being thoroughly and irrevocably against it, and against the type of arrogance of power that could lead to an incident like this.
For a baby boomer American, the thought that the President of the United States could become so politically damaged that he would have to resign was unthinkable, and so even though by 1974 I was thoroughly against the war and detested Richard Nixon — it still seemed surreal to watch a sitting U.S. President resign in ignominy. There was a sense that the institution, and the fabric of our society, had been damaged irreparably.
The final chaotic days of the Fall of Saigon captivated the world and I was no exception. We had all turned against the war long ago, but still it was sobering and surreal to watch America and our friends caught in a maelstrom of disarray and a thousand stories of personal tragedy.
The Beatles’ arrival in America in 1964 was huge. Before they appeared on Ed Sullivan they were perceived as being somehow dangerous, with hair that was frightening long (but looks short and tidy today)…..and then there was the Ed Sullivan appearance, which I watched with completely rapt attention, sitting next to my sister and mildly disapproving parents.
The 1972 attack on the Israeli Olympic team in 1972 was vivid and painful — and the fact that it was the the sports team headed by Jim McKay covering the tragedy created a juxtaposition that made it seem all the more surreal. Jim McKay was not the actual anchor for the games–Chris Schenkel was — but in a shrew decision it was McKay who took over the anchor chair and held our collective hands through the entire episode.
The assassination of Bobby Kennedy took place just after I finished my junior year of high school. My father, a colonel in the US Army, was in training for his third tour in Vietnam, where he would become a Province Senior Advisor — which meant he had to learn to speak Vietnamese, hence the training. […]
APRIL 4, 1968 — MARTIN LUTHER KING IS ASSASSINATED
Oe the day of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, I was a junior in high school at this point, living in Carlisle, Pennsyvania, the son of an Army colonel.
I did not see the Challenger disaster live – we were living in Moscow and I found out about it when I got on board an Embassy shuttle to go in to work. Everyone was talking about it. Much of the day was spent listening to radios, and eventually the images were embedded into my consciousness.
A collection of video clips of the JFK Assassination and its aftermath. For baby boomers of my era (not the earlies boomers — the second wave, born in the 50’s) , the assassination of JFK was the first nationally traumatic moment that we all shared.
