Sound Bites of the 1908 Presidential Candidates 410
roncosmos writes "Science News has up a feature on the first use of sound recording in a presidential campaign. In 1908, for the first time, presidential candidates recorded their voices on wax cylinders. Their voices could be brought into the home for 35 cents, equivalent to about $8 now. In that pre-radio era, this was the only way, short of hearing a speech at a whistle stop, that you could hear the candidates. The story includes audio recordings from the 1908 candidates, William Jennings Bryan and William Howard Taft. Bryan's speech, on bank failures, seems sadly prescient now. Taft's, on the progress of the Negro, sounds condescending to modern ears but was progressive at the time. There are great images from the campaign; lots of fun."
Sounds condescending to modern ears (Score:4, Insightful)
sounds condescending to modern ears but was progressive at the time
As opposed to the non-condescending progressives of today.
banking (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't the whole reason you got the greenback dollar because Lincoln didn't want to get the US govt into hock with the banks?
I was under the impression that there was always a significant distrust of banks in the US, until recently that is. I am astonished that a country which refuses to pay for a national 'free at point of provision' health service, supported by taxes, yet they happily hand over the entire country's income tax to the banking system, and now 700 billion because they stayed greedy for a bit too long.
That also puzzles me. Why not, just to throw a wild idea out, take a portion of the bad dept on for the people who are getting kicked out. I mean like buy 1/2 or 2/3 of the dept from the citizens affected, so they aren't evicted.
Surely that would work just as well.
Surprised, Am I (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm surprised that the inflation rate is so low for what had to be cutting edge technology of the era. Considering that a modern music CD that costs literal pennies to press sells (or attempts to sell, considering recent sales figures) for up to twice that price I wonder what figure was used for the amount of inflation over the last century.
Re:banking (Score:2, Insightful)
I was under the impression that there was always a significant distrust of banks in the US, until recently that is. I am astonished that a country which refuses to pay for a national 'free at point of provision' health service, supported by taxes, yet they happily hand over the entire country's income tax to the banking system, and now 700 billion because they stayed greedy for a bit too long.
This is highly related to Cold War politics, namely a deep fear of anything that isn't straight-up laissez faire capitalism (even though we don't even have that). Conservative politicians routinely deem anything that isn't private industry-based to be "socialism", which to many Americans (who are, let's be honest, stupid, stupid people) is the same as Soviet-style communism and a harbinger of not only the fall of American democracy but most likely the End Times(tm)
It doesn't help that many devotees of the two major political parties will stick to their party no matter what. This is most apparent in the Republican party, where "smaller government, lower taxes, stronger America" has been the refrain for 3 decades, while the politicians elected in said party have routinely governed towards larger government, same or higher taxes, and a dubiously stronger US (by virtue of overextended military capacity and very high national debt). Alas.
Re:Can't listen, Flash only (Score:4, Insightful)
That's nice, but why the hell couldn't they just link to them directly? Why do they go out of their way to make their site completely unusable to those of us who don't use flash? It's so easy to do it right, why do so many places get it wrong?
Re:banking (Score:5, Insightful)
which to many Americans (who are, let's be honest, people and therefore stupid)
Fixed that minor point for you. It's not like the good people of the rest of the world are magically resistant to propaghanda or sufficiently knowledgeable about economic systems.
Re:Tag failures (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a purpose to having tags?
Re:Can't listen, Flash only (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and some day my "why can't all sites work the same without javascript" campaign will catch on, too.
Why can't all sites work the same without javascript! I shouldn't have to use that trash!
Re:Surprised, Am I (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd be willing to bet that 35 cents was pretty close to cost for these things. After all, it's an ad, they want you to listen.
Re:banking (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not, just to throw a wild idea out, take a portion of the bad dept on for the people who are getting kicked out. I mean like buy 1/2 or 2/3 of the dept from the citizens affected, so they aren't evicted.
So, my taxes, that came out of my pocket, should pay off the loan of another person? Why stop there? Use my money to pay people's rent, utilities, etc.
People seem to think that a person losing their home is the end of the world. Rent an apartment (people do it all the time), and make sure you save wisely enough to be able to pay for your house next time.
Re:Prescient? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your argument seems to be that the government forced companies to take on loans from 'minorities and the poor'. You didn't quite work yourself into a froth about liberalism, affirmative action or whatever else you think is wrong with left but it seems like you were heading in that direction.
If you look at the people who are defaulting on mortgages it's not really minorities and the poor (I guess in your mind minority = poor?) but mostly middle class Americans who took out loans that they couldn't afford to pay back. Just look at where these defaulters live and you'll see that suburban middle class (white, black, hispanic, etc.) enclaves are most effected.
I won't disagree with you that some of this crisis has it's roots during the Clinton era or that the government is partially to blame. I'd blame the government for not regulating the lending industry enough rather then accusing them of forcing risky loans on companies. These companies, as well as the housing industry, wanted to take on these loans because they saw green and more importantly, other institutions wanted the securities these loans were wrapped up in because they thought it would make them money.
Please don't use this crisis as some sort of attack against the poor and/or minorities. It just makes you sound ignorant.
Re:Can't listen, Flash only (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? Flash is pretty easy to use, too. You just install the plugin, and bam, it works. Amazingly enough, this is relevant to Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. Wow. Technology.
It's amazing. A few years ago, people would whine about using RealAudio to distribute. Then they'd whine about WMA, because it wasn't cross platform. Then they'd whine about MP3 because of licensing. Now, sites are using a cross platform, semi open distribution method that is nearly ubiquitous, and now people want to make things up to whine about. Just install Flash.
You must be able to see to hear this Flash audio (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Flash is pretty easy to use, too.
How easy? Can you use it with your eyes closed? For sake of argument, I'll allow you to have a braille display.
Re:banking (Score:3, Insightful)
That also puzzles me. Why not, just to throw a wild idea out, take a portion of the bad dept on for the people who are getting kicked out. I mean like buy 1/2 or 2/3 of the dept from the citizens affected, so they aren't evicted.
Surely that would work just as well.
The best reason not to do that is because it would REALLY piss off those of us who are responsible and pay their mortgage. I'm not exactly getting rich here, but I didn't get an interest only loan with an adjustable rate, and I'm paying my mortgage every month. Why should we bail out a bunch of people who bought houses they shouldn't have, gambling on the idea that real estate would increase in value at a linear rate forever, and now can't pay for them.
I have great compassion for people who have had circumstances (lost jobs, personal loss, etc...) who are losing their homes. If there was a reliable way to identify these people (and if would trust our government) I think that would be a great thing to do. I have no compassion for someone who didn't do their due diligence prior to signing the papers.
FWIW I don't think we should be bailing out banks that took on too much risk with sub-prime mortgage funds either, but not bailing them out will impact the economy and all of us regardless of our personal decisions. From that standpoint it makes sense to prop up the economy.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sounds condescending to modern ears (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sounds condescending to modern ears (Score:2, Insightful)
People think that conservatives are anti-intellectual, which isn't necessarily the case. It's that they're anti-elitism. The school district where I grew up put in a math program that was utterly and completely worthless. Math scores tanked, parents complained, and it was hard to believe that even 30% of the parents supported the new math program. However, the district stuck to their guns because some college professors thought it was the best thing in the world. Everyone who had children in the math program knew it was absolute shit, but some people with doctorates who'd never used it in the real world thought they knew better. That's not anti-intellectual, that's justified anger.
When it comes down to it, there are people in this country and in the world who think that if you hold a certain belief, you are instantly a moron and someone who isn't to be given respect. That's the very definition of condescension, and you can see it every day in Richard Dawkins, Slashdot, or almost any tech site.
Re:banking (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a huge loss of freedom if government controls healthcare.
The freedom to chose alternate, or non mainstream healthcare.
The freedom to not buy healthcare so that your children can afford get the best care possible.
The freedom to chose your treatments.
The freedom to *not* have healthcare.*
The freedom to keep the fruits of your labor.
The freedom to not be part of a insurance-lottery.*
The freedom to care for yourself.
* some religions proscribe these freedoms - Christian Scientists and the Amish respectively.
What CRA Whiners Aren't Telling You (Score:5, Insightful)
The CRA only applies to banks.
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/financialsvcs_dem/barr021308.pdf
The CRA is only at worst 50% responsible (an additional 30% of the subprime loans were made by "affiliates" of banks, and therefore partially covered by CRA, the remaining 20% of all loans were made directly by banks... and the worst case scenario is that the regulators were there twisting the banks' arms for every single loan). The other 50% of the mortgages were irrefutably made of the originators' free will.
Secondly, the CRA doesn't call for Option ARMs or interest-only loans or giving people money with zero down or piggybacking another mortgage for the down payment or liar loans... those are entirely the invention of the banks and mortgage companies that offered them.
Re:Sounds condescending to modern ears (Score:3, Insightful)
DiFi is NOT a progressive, she's an (R) in (D) clothing, like Lieberman.
Re:banking (Score:3, Insightful)
> There isn't anyone worth $35 million (or whatever it was) for 19 days of work.
Weeeellllll... that's often (if not usually) true, but not *quite* 100%. People tend to forget that the most important job of a large corporation's CEO *ISN'T* running the company... it's finding people willing to lend large sums of money to the company, or buy lots of its stock (not just 100 shares). When a small business needs to buy a new computer, the owner probably puts it on a credit card he personally had to guarantee, or finances it through someone like Dell (also assuming a role as personal guarantor of the debt). Raising the funds to buy two hundred THOUSAND laptops or computers (or company cars, or square feet of floor tile, or just about *anything* for that matter) is several orders of magnitude more challenging. The CEO of McDonald's doesn't just walk into the bank's nearest branch to fill out a credit application for a $50 million loan... he has to personally go out and FIND people willing to invest the cash. Sometimes the role might be delegated to a Wall Street securities firm, but for really HUGE loans, the CEO better be pretty damn good at playing golf, and knowing how to tactfully let the prospective investor he's trying to woo win by a few strokes.
Likewise, everyone likes to criticize "golden parachutes", but they have an important purpose, too. Think about it for a moment. If a company gets bought by another company, it's CEO is almost certainly going to be unemployed (or at least no longer CEO). It's not inconceivable that the best interests of the stockholders (who, through the President, hire the CEO to act in their best interests when managing the company) might collide with the personal best interests of the CEO (who, like anyone else, would probably prefer to remain employed as CEO rather than sign his own employment "death warrant"). During a prospective merger, NOBODY is in a better position to torpedo and sabotage it than the CEO. So... we have golden parachutes, made part of the CEO's employment contract to ensure that he'll walk away from a merger happy and satisfied, and will do everything he can to help facilitate such a merger. It's really not much different from "retention bonuses" offered to IT professionals when their positions are planned for elimination at some point in the future to encourage them to stick around until the end, instead of bolting for a new company at the first opportunity. Do some go overboard? Of course. But it's important to keep in mind that they DO have a purpose, and don't just exist to let wealthy CEOs live lives of luxury.
As for CEO salaries... well... part of THAT is pure public relations. If you have $100 million to invest in a company, you're going to look for evidence that the company is doing well financially. Wal Mart can get away with the "po' country folk" act, because everyone on planet earth knows they're one of the world's most powerful retailers. JustAnother Co, Inc. doesn't quite have that option. Rhetoric aside, few big-time investors are genuinely impressed by threadbare & penny-pinching companies, because those type of companies might chug along for decades, but aren't likely to ever really strike it wildly rich. Big investors aren't interested in them. If they want safe, conservative investments, they'll buy more stock in Verizon, AT&T, Florida Power & Light, or some other utility that's practically a government-guaranteed investment with legislatively-mandated rate of return. The big investors are more interested in companies with a small risk of going broke, and a high chance of becoming wildly successful.
So... getting back to the quote from the parent post... a CEO who does nothing but go to board meetings and leads the company to destruction is clearly not worth $35 million for ANY length of time. On the other hand, a CEO who uses those 19 days to raise $250 million in needed capital for the company by taking advantage of his personal connections is worth every penny of it, and more. Most of the REALLY egregious
Re:Sounds condescending to modern ears (Score:5, Insightful)
It's come to a point where simply being elite is considered elitism. John Kerry was considered out of touch with the common man because he liked wind surfing and went to Yale.
How many times during the last few years have you heard people say something along the lines of "Just because you're a respected (climatologist | biologist | economist | theologian | lawyer | diplomat) doesn't mean you know more than me (global warming | evolution | economics | religion | law | foreign affairs) than I do"?
I don't approve of intellectuals being condescending, but it's just as bad when people dismiss an idea as "elitism" simply because they disagree with it and it came from someone with a PhD.
Re:Can't listen, Flash only (Score:4, Insightful)
why can't all sites work the same without javascript
Because people don't know how to code. Some javascript is needed and useful, but 99% of it isn't. My old Quake site used javascript, but if you didn't have javascript it degraded gracefully. The Stroggs still danced, but mousing over the one on the right didn't have Sonic the Hedgehog running past and getting squished. With javascript the nav buttons were animated when you moused over them, without they just sat there with the arrow cursor turning into a hand pointer.
"Dopey Smurf" was a medical student who had a rat he was dissecting wake up and bite him once. When he decided to close his site, I "sent him a box of invisible rats". Actually we set it up with a news item on his site that I'd sent a box of invisible rats, so whatever you do FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T CLICK THIS LINK!!! or the invisible rats would escape and eat his site. If you clicked the link, invisible rats actually did come out and eat his site; there was a GIF animation of teeth marks, yellow rat shapes covering the page, which left it just like Joost Shuur's Slipgate Central after it closed. We didn't use a single line of javascript, just an HTML link and an animated GIF.
You young folks missed it, the internet was lots of fun back then. Now it's all javascript, flash, and advertising.
conservatives are anti-elitism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Like Phil Gramm, McCain's economic advisor, who calls people "whiners" if they think the economy is doing badly?
Heck, conservatives are most of the elite---Bush beat Kerry by huge margins among people making $200k+, even in states that Kerry otherwise won handily (he won 64-35% among that demographic in California). Rich liberals are a fairly small subset of overall rich people---even in California, conservative aerospace/defense industry, real-estate, and import/export businessmen far outnumber Hollywood actors and tech bosses.
Re:Sounds condescending to modern ears (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:banking (Score:3, Insightful)
Right now we allow private companies to make those same life-and-death choices, and they have upside-down incentives.
Once you start collecting health problems you no longer have any choices for private insurance. If your insurance decides not to cover some necessary care there is no recourse. There is no way to shop for insurance since you don't know if various insurers will cover it if and when you need it.
It seems crazy to me that I have paid into the private healthcare system for 30 years without getting much of anything back and it can all be taken away from me if there is a lapse in coverage, a mistake on an application, or the insurer just decides that my particular problem is not covered.
Re:banking (Score:4, Insightful)
It is unclear to me if helping pay housing debt will fix the problem, and it would be incredibly expensive to give everyone in the country who is (currently) upside down in their mortgage enough money to make the notes they hold worth something - more expensive than helping the banks out.
We have two suggestions on how to solve this:
1. Government buys securities from banks, giving the banks a shot in the arm, and getting the "bad" securities out of the way so that investors will be more willing to purchase new ones.
2. Government helps pay housing debt from individuals, preventing their foreclosure. Knowing that the foreclosure rate isn't going to spike up (because gov't is preventing exactly that), the securities start being purchased again (as they are no longer perceived to be a bad investment, since a massive foreclosure spike isn't on the horizon anymore). The difference is that a bunch of people get thrown out of their homes on option 1, and they likely have very different costs (not sure how different, offhand). It seems like either gets you to the same place in the end, however.
No, the difference here, is that in solution 1 banks and other financial institutions that have made bad decisions get a pass. This is only acceptable because a failing bank, insurance company, brokerage firm, etc... impacts EVERYONE. This staves off another great depression.
Solution 2 results in a bunch of individuals who made bad decisions getting a pass, plus a lot of profiteers jumping on the bandwagon (heck, if they passed something like this I might get real delinquent on my mortgage really fast). IMHO if you made a bad decision you should get thrown out of your home. One of my pet peeves in this whole situation is the 'thrown out of your home' argument. MOST people who are in trouble have only owned their home a few years. It's not like this property has been in the family for generations and now they are losing it. It's not like the kids grew up there. They purchased a home on a bad loan, couldn't afford it, and will have to move out. Most of them have no equity in the home (otherwise we wouldn't have a problem), so if the lender allows them to make a short sale, they really aren't out too much. It's not like we are going to have millions of people living under bridges - they just won't OWN their house anymore.
Re:Sounds condescending to modern ears (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit, William Buckley was an elitist motherfucker and he deserved to be in a few respects, even though he was really just a "personality" more than a real player. Do you think Paul Wolfowitz and Henry Kissinger aren't elitist? Why don't you call one of them up and ask if next time you're in Washington or around Harvard, maybe you could pick up a beer and chat about politics, maybe you could even offer, as an equal, some of your insights into military and economic strategies. (Here's a hint though, if you get your meeting with them: don't actually try to discuss creationism with them. It would be quite a gaffe.)
Conservatives are not "anti-elitist" in any sense, except to the extent that it's an effective line for selling their agenda to the masses.
In short, you're not a moron for being an elitist or anti-elitist. You're a moron for actually believing that conservatives are anti-elitist.
New math was a disaster, but pinning it all on the liberals is a little bit circular reasoning which requires already your identification of elitist/anti-elitist on party lines.
Re:banking (Score:3, Insightful)
> If a company though that a CEO or whoever was not worth $35 million they wouldn't pay them that much.
Nonsense! The company doesn't set the CEO remuneration, the Board does.
Every year I and 30,000 other shareholders vote against the remuneration package of my mortgagee and every year we are defeated by the Board's one million nominal votes. ONE MILLION.
Why? Because members of the Board are themselves CEOs and Directors in other companies...
Re:Sounds condescending to modern ears (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you seen the furor over Palin's belief in creationism? What about people who oppose all religion? All of these things show that they think they know better than the people that they're talking about.
People think that conservatives are anti-intellectual, which isn't necessarily the case. It's that they're anti-elitism.
If you believe in creationism, then yes, you are anti-intellectual by definition. There is no reason guiding a belief in creationism; only faith.
And "elite" means "above average" or "excellent". If you're anti-elite, then you're pro-mediocrity, and that's certainly not a quality I look for in a leader. But it is a belief that got us George Bush.
I'm pro-elite and proud of it. We should be demanding more from our leaders, not less. If I want somebody I can drink a beer with, I'll call up a friend. That's not what I'm expecting from a President (or Vice President, for that matter).
When it comes down to it, there are people in this country and in the world who think that if you hold a certain belief, you are instantly a moron and someone who isn't to be given respect.
When your beliefs have been disproven by science many, many times in many, many ways, and those scientific results have been published in very public ways over a period of a century or more, then they're probably right to think that.
Do you also believe the world is flat? And should I not think you a moron for that belief?
Re:Can't listen, Flash only I didn't listen to it, (Score:3, Insightful)
Biden does a fine job of making himself look stupid, he doesn't need our help. Though surprisingly he did manage to cry in the debate...
He was speaking of his wife and daughter who were killed as I understand it.
What sort of heartless fuck are you? Will you laugh when your family is killed, or will you just not care?"
Re:Sounds condescending to modern ears (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course if you hold certain beliefs you are a moron.
For example, if you believe in creationism, you ARE a moron. If you believe Sarah Palin is qualified to be president, you ARE a moron.
That's not condescension, its facts.
Re:Sounds condescending to modern ears (Score:2, Insightful)
I find it funny that both sides of the political spectrum make the same accusations about each other.
Being really into party politics in America is like being a Chicago Baseball fan.
(For those unfamiliar with Chicago Baseball, the city has both a American & National league team, I think that by law you have to like one and despise the other, there is no reason to any discussion about who is better, just devotion to one and revilement of the other)
Re:banking (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, we should stand up and be proud and bold like we used to be. Let's stard by abolishing the FDA and CDC and disbanding every state medical and nursing board. We'll have so much freedom we won't know what to do with ourselves!
Your argument might have made sense, oh, about 100 years ago. But we've had government regulated healthcare in this country of ours for quite some time already. Most current proposals are either a federal safety-net for those who don't have access to insurance, or basic universal insurance that can be supplemented with private insurance options. Yeah, I can see arguing these might affect your taxes, but not the rest of your so-called freedoms on that list.
Re:conservatives are anti-elitism? (Score:2, Insightful)
No, that's because Democrats always promise they will raise taxes on the "rich" and give services to the "poor" like bureaucratic Robin Hoods.
Re:Sounds condescending to modern ears (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sounds condescending to modern ears (Score:1, Insightful)
All of these things show that they think they know better than the people that they're talking about.
Thinking that you're right and someone else is wrong isn't condescension.
Strictly speaking, condescension is more about actions than thoughts but, leaving that aside, condescension is about treating someone as inferior.
How can you forget Obama's famous quote about people clinging to guns and xenophobia out of bitterness over lost jobs?
I'm not seeing that Obama views such people as inferior; only that Obama views such people as wrong.
Essentially, what Obama was saying is that he was showing up at town-hall meetings wanting to talk about economic policies that could help them get jobs but all they wanted to talk about guns and intolerance. In Obama's view, it wasn't lack of guns or too much tolerance that had caused them to lose their jobs.
Have you seen the furor over Palin's belief in creationism?
The concern is that if gets power she will use that power to try to force creationism to be taught in biology classes. Teaching creationism in biology class is totally unworkable because evolution is the foundation of biology. The concern is not that she is inferior (although she might not be superior enough to be the best possible choice for president), the concern is that she might try to force an entirely unworkable policy on US schools.
In both cases, the issue is not inferiority, the issue is wrongness.
Re:Can't listen, Flash only (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe because this is 2008, and they're not trying to cater to the teeny-tiny, incredibly miniscule number of Slashdot whiners who still live in the Dark Ages and refuse to use any Flash whatsoever even though it's the most popular cross-platform web solution for delivering multimedia content.
Re:banking (Score:3, Insightful)
If everyone involved was being "foolish" on a massive scale, perhaps we should look at the possibility that the rules (or lack therof) of the game they were playing was encouraging foolish behavior, no?
The real root cause of all this was the blind rush to deregulation that congress has engaged in over the last 30 years. A game with no rules isn't any fun for anyone.
Re:Can't listen, Flash only I didn't listen to it, (Score:1, Insightful)
While almost every poll shows Biden winning the debate, they also pretty much universally show that Palin exceeded expectations much more so than Biden. In that regard, it was a win for the Republicans.
If you consider that there were many Americans who went into that debate thinking that they'd like to Vote for McCain, but couldn't on the possible chance that a 72-76 year old would keel over and die and we'd be left with Palin who would make the Bush years seem like an enlightened era. But with her performance, she's upgraded her status from "can't construct sentences" to "wholly unqualified" in many people's eyes. And that frees them up to vote for McCain if they feel he'd make the better president.
I'd say that in this election, more than any other that I've been alive to see, the issue of the vice president's competency is important. Normally, the VP does very little, and that wouldn't much change for the two VP candidates. But with one candidate being 72 years old and the other candidate being an African-American (nothing against him personally, but there are a lot of racist nut-jobs out there that could resort to violence rather than live with having a black President), the importance of who would take over the office of President in the event of the elected President's death will factor into people's decision making.
And in that regard, Palin did well enough that she may be considered, if not yet an asset to McCain, at least not a large a liability as she seemed to be going into the debate.