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."
Can't listen, Flash only (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a shame too, because I'm sure the recordings would be interesting to hear.
It just goes to show why Flash must die [slashdot.org].
Panic of 1873 (Score:4, Interesting)
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=477k3d8mh2wmtpc4b6h07p4hy9z83x18 [chronicle.com]
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:banking (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, either option seems silly. First, we're rewarding foolishness on the part of both the buyer and seller, which only encourages further such action in the future. Second, unemployment is still at reasonable levels, there may not be as much credit on the market, but the market is definitely not dry, and won't be as long as the fed keeps money available which it's done all along.
It looks like fear mongering on behalf of wall street is about to put 700 billion dollars into the pockets of the upper 90% via stock increases as banks unload these securities which they should have never created in the first place.
Re:banking (Score:1, Interesting)
there may not be as much credit on the market, but the market is definitely not dry, and won't be as long as the fed keeps money available which it's done all along.
Bzzzt. Your grasp of reality ended with that statement. The BANKS determine the actual credit that's being lent, the Fed coalition can only suggest the rate and offer 'injections' of capital at times of severe crisis. Unless the banks start building liquidity (read: improving, not deteriorating as they currently are) we are headed for a real problem. Continuing on the course of 'stay out of the failing banks way' will result in severe unemployment, sooner rather than later.
Re:banking (Score:3, Interesting)
This overlooks the recent enemy shift, and while may have likely formed the personalities of the Americans making their decisions today, isn't the root of it anymore.
If you're talking pre-fall-of-the-USSR, then 'Communism' is in fact the '-ism' that drives decisions.
Today, however, one should only fear the Terrorist. Occasionally Communists are Terrorists as well, but often times they are not. All non-Terrorists are presently 'cool' with the United States...
In short: 'sed -e "s/Communism/Terrorism/g"'
So, the reason most Americans chafe at socialist programs today is primarily because they are EXPENSIVE, and we need that money to occupy Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
Bryan's not exactly electifying, is he? (Score:3, Interesting)
Bryan was supposed to be the premier orator of his era -- his "Cross of Gold" speech brought the house down at the Democratic convention in 1896. But that recording is just a snoozefest -- admittedly, it's about banking, which is important but boring (which is no doubt one of the reasons we're in trouble today), but the rhythm is just stately and bland and blah. Maybe the experience of being in a studio rather than in front of a live, reacting crowd was so foreign that it didn't occur to him that he should be using the same oratorical techniques, and instead was just reading prepared remarks.
Re:Panic of 1873 (Score:1, Interesting)
It's all relative in politics... US politicians are still talking about Vietnam (~40 years) and it doesn't look like that obsession is going to end in the next decade or so...
(Hell, every tin-pot dictator who pops up anywhere in the world gets compared to Hitler(!)... How long will that comparison still resonate?)
You got it! Were you ready too? (Score:1, Interesting)
It is completely misleading and dishonest of you to compare the purchase of $700B of yielding assets to the grating of $700B cash. They are just not the same thing.
Absolutely correct. So when you actually read the Bills before congress, and you realize they are authorizing a 11 Trillion dollar handout rather than a 700 Billion dollar purchase, you understand everything.
This is just last minute profit-taking by the Bush crony system. They presented a guaranteed-to-fail bill (which ironically almost passed due to our economically inept representation) to blow the stock market through the basement. If you check it out, you'll see that plenty of Texans and their buddies were well prepared for this crash.
If the Bush Bailout goes through, it's not quite as good for them economically because of the necessary devaluation of the dollar that will entail. That's even after the handout gets pushed into Switzerland and the Caymans. But it's great politically, because then either Obama or McCain gets to be the next Hoover, which either way is a win for the team.
Since I figured it out in advance, I get to make lots of money too. See ya in the poorhouse suckers!!
Re:Can't listen, Flash only (Score:1, Interesting)
What about all those security updates for Winamp, Windows Media Player, and pretty much any other audio player?
If you don't trust a flash applet, why would you trust an mp3 file that can possibly be malicious?
Re:Prescient? (Score:5, Interesting)
The government may have adjusted the rules to try and give people loans to poorer people, but you cannot say the bank was forced to give them loans. There is a lot of process that goes into getting a loan which includes checks and balances on whom is supposed to get approved. The fact of the matter is that too many people had in an interest in pushing loans, good or bad, because they got an immediate payoff and they could pass a bad loan to someone else. Think of all the people who get a cut when you sell a house,
That's right, the bank got an immediate payoff for making the loan! Why? Because they turned around and sold the loan. Basically everyone could pass the buck onto someone else. Unless your were the final sucker who got caught holding the loan which ends up worthless. It was a game of hot-potato being played by financial experts who convinced themselves they knew better than someone else.
As for politcal activism, that is a load of crap. It came down to businesses wanted to do business anyway they like without any oversight, it was only a matter of time before someone came up with this Ponzi scheme. If people had to actually hold onto the loans that they made none of this stuff would have happened. But you would have had rich financial analyst's screaming "this not a free market!"
Re:banking (Score:2, Interesting)
It's people like you, who think you're smart enough to engineer a solution to every problem, who got us into this mess.
Nobody is that smart. Nobody should have the power to manipulate the variables by fiat. Nobody should have the power to tell people what to do with their own company, their own money, their own property, their own skills, labor, or body. Nobody .
Anyone who implies that he or she is that smart is full of shit no matter what letters they have after their names. (D), (R), and PhD included.
Now, I'm not an anarchist. I think that we should band together and form governments to stop people from victimizing each other. But that's it. That's the good idea that has gone so horribly wrong all over the world.
-Peter
Re:Banking and Democrat Change (Score:3, Interesting)
You mean this Barney Frank? [nytimes.com]
Truth is both parties share blame for this. Republicans liked loosening credit for housing because they felt fewer regulations and more liquidity = good. Democrats liked it because they felt more houses for lower income people = good.
By July 2007 (when the credit crunch first began) it was obvious housing was a bubble set to burst, so both sides were rapidly backtracking from their previous positions. Democrats were disavowing having ever advocated housing for those with less than mediocre credit. Republicans however couldn't disavow their core belief that less government regulation is better, so ended up taking most of the blame. I give Barney Frank credit for recognizing his mistake and acting to rectify it in 2007, but that does not absolve him of blame for having helped originally cause the problem in the first half of the decade.
Re:banking (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at Argentina to see what would happen with a few more years of incompetants that can't keep the theives under control.
Anti- (Score:3, Interesting)
People think that conservatives are anti-intellectual, which isn't necessarily the case. It's that they're anti-elitism.
That's fine as far as it goes, but the question is -- where does a lack of respect for real elite achievements begin?
When you're going in for surgery, are you going to be anti-elite?
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.
Anybody who understand that practical results matter more than expert advice is exhibiting common sense. I don't think most people are going to argue otherwise. I get really, really nervous, however, when people start to question whether expertise is important at all -- or the idea that looking towards expertise is "elitism."
Fortunately, there's signs that this isn't actually so much a conservative philosophy as it is a convenient tool for discarding expert advice that you don't want to believe, regardless of where you are on the political spectrum. And there's plenty of evidence that the accomplished and wealthy are happy to support conservative politics as well as liberal.