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(1960 ended up like just about every other year before and since: Crisis)

It's getting about that time of year when the long glances back start. For C&L and just about every other blog it will be a look at 2009; what went on, what didn't go on, what crisis did we land in or avert. How did life as we know it change this particular year.

Since Newstalgia is mostly knee-deep in the past,I thought I would kick off the roundup of year-enders with a look at 1960 and how the world changed during that particular 12 months, and how a lot of it has remained the same.

1960 saw the election of a new President and the Cold War entering new and uncharted territory. It saw Africa emerging as a continent of newly independent nations, the Middle East contemplating Israel as a nuclear neighbor. Latin America was deemed the next hot spot in East-West relationships and Germany struggling with its divided status.

On December 28, 1960 CBS News ran a one-hour round table discussion between Edward R. Murrow, Howard K. Smith, David Schoenbrun, Daniel Schorr and other notable CBS News reporters, weighing the issues that made 1960 a memorable year.

Howard K. Smith: “Well, I think our change is about as drastic a change as you can have under constitutional government. I’ve emphasized the fact that the Presidents and their intents differ drastically. But the men around them differ too. The emphasis in the previous administration was on businessmen. At present I think scholars probably have a plurality. It’s said that if all the appointees made by Kennedy so far were to walk down the hall together there would be a deafening jangle of Phi Beta Kappa keys. And there are three Rhodes Scholars among them. Many of them are famed for some very useful and active ideas, but the main thing that induces me to believe this will be an active administration is the fact there has seldom been, since the Civil War, such an accumulation of crises and merely problems as there is now and we have to act or there will be disaster.”

Always the threat of disaster and some crisis. No matter when.

1960 or 2009 - it doesn't really change.

. . .and neither does the cost of keeping blogs together.

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(The Perceived World Of Leisure - 1958 - it looked good on paper)

From the CBS Radio Documentary series "The Hidden Revolution", broadcast from April 1958 narrated by Edward R. Murrow. The subject was The Twenty Hour Work Week, and how life in 1958 was adjusting to it (which, of course it never really did - then as now, leisure time was a foreign concept). But at the time, all things were possible.

Edward R. Murrow: “Americans living in 1958 face an era in which all of the problems of the good life, including the uses of leisure time can be, indeed must be, assessed as one of the most important parts of the Hidden Revolution. In the next thirty minutes, we intend to explore the possibilities inherent in a situation where most men and women may find themselves working in what our fathers would have thought of as paradise; a time, a place where an individual works a twenty hour week.”

Well . . .it sounded good. But reality was a different thing entirely.

h/t ThoughtProfiles's:

A juxtaposition of the past and current use of McCarthyism.

A must watch. They did an excellent job with this mash up. Maybe someone could get George Will to watch it.

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Countdown's Worst Persons for Sept. 16, 2009 with winner Joe Wilson. Runners up Michelle Bachmann and Glenn Beck.

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(Teenage gang members of the 1950s - West Side Story for real)

One of the upshots of the leaps in technology of the 1950s was the tape recorder - yes, that strange contraption with reels, part of that substrata lovingly referred to as "analogue".

When tape recording became popular, especially in broadcasting, it created a whole new generation of gathering news and documentary material that wasn't available before. Because it was portable (and reasonably light-weight), it was now possible to get up close and personal with the subjects you were trying to shed light on - take things to the streets, as it were.

And because of that, a whole series of documentaries started cramming the airwaves, covering everything from Atomic Bomb tests to Cow milking.

One series of documentaries, produced by a special department of CBS Radio News was called Unit One. Several weeks ago I ran another Unit One Documentary called "38th Parallel U.S.A.".

This Documentary, aired on April 21, 1958 and narrated by Edward R. Murrow, focuses on the rise in juvenile delinquency in New York City. "Who Killed Michael Farmer?" looked at the problem of teenage gangs in the 1950's through the eyes of the gang members and the court system.

Gang member: “It was ten-thirty when we entered the park. We saw couples on the benches in the back of the pool and they all stared at us. I guess they musta saw the gang there, I don’t think they were fifty or sixty feet away. When we reached the front of the stairs we looked up and there was two other gang members on top of the stairs. There were two smaller ones, and they had Garrison belts wrapped around their hands. They didn’t say nothin’ to us, they looked kinda scared.”

Gang member #2: “I was scared. I knew they were gonna jump them and everything but I was scared. When they were comin’ up, they were all separated and everything like that”.

Gang Member: “I saw the main body of the gang slowly walk out of the bushes, on my right. I turned around fast, to see what Michael was gonna do and this kid come runnin at me with a belt. Then I ran myself and I told Michael to run.”

Interesting material that wasn't covered this way before. Remember, we're looking at a slice of society from 51 years ago that was, for the most part, ignored by the mainstream press. In 1958 they started pointing a microscope at it. In many ways, it helped change the perception of our society.

(Senator Joseph McCarthy R-Wisconsin - 1954)

March 9th marks the 55th anniversary of the now-famous showdown between Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy that night in 1954. Anyone who has seen the excellent 2005 film "Good Night and Good Luck" will know the story surrounding this milestone in broadcasting. If you haven't seen it, it's well worth taking a look. But in the meantime, here's the real thing, as it happened. It's been edited down to conform to the 10 minute maximum from YouTube, but the essence is all there.

Bluster and smears appear timeless, probably now more than ever, as witnessed by showboat pundits and self-appointed consciences. Fifty-five years and not all that much, aside from the players has changed. However, it would be nice if a few more Murrow's showed up.

"No one familiar with the history of his country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating. But the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one, and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly".