Callers: John In Tennessee, Charles In California, Dave In Massachusetts
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome. This is Lark In Texas with you… on a Saturday - September 17, 2011 - for the next hour.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome. This is Lark In Texas with you… on a Saturday - September 17, 2011 - for the next hour.
This network exists… to bring forth real news and information… you’d be hard-pressed to find… anywhere else.
And like you, I’m Justa Numerican… concerned about the same things you’re concerned about… the separating of facts… from fiction… and the best investment value… for our time spent together.
You’re tuned to… Republic Broadcasting… because you can handle the truth!
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Our call-in number today is toll-free… 800-313-9443. Your calls are an important part of what makes this network unique…
… Since RBN is talk radio… entirely supported by producers… of first-quality products… and YOU… a one-of-a-kind listener!
So check out the website too, folks… Republic Broadcasting [dot] o-r-g… is well worth a visit.
If you’re from my neck-o-the-woods… and you’ve tuned to 1140… on the AM dial…
… KHFX out of Cleburne… and north central Texas… we’d especially like to hear from you!
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There is no such thing in America as an independent press, unless it is in the country towns.
You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to writes (sic) his honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.
I am paid one hundred and fifty dollars a week for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with--others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things--and any of you who would be so foolish as to write his honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job.
The business of the New York journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his race and his country for his daily bread.
You know this and I know it, and what folly is this to be toasting an "Independent Press."
We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping-jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.
~The words you heard… were those of John Swinton - in his day, a venerated old-time journalist at the New York Tribune
He is answering, at a banquet of his fellow editors on April 12th, 1883, the toast to…
… "An Independent Press"
And I’ll be back… after these short messages
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Reminds me of that brief time – over 40 years ago – when I’d worked as a wire room attendant on the graveyard shift… of a city newspaper. A copy boy is one who might one day work his way up… to be a cub reporter… like Jimmy Olsen at The Daily Planet… of Superman comics… and of TV fame…
… And I worked over at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram offices… downtown. I lived at home still… and I remember I had to get parental consent… before I could land such a plumb job.
The pay was $1.75 an hour; and it was $.20 an hour more than McDonald’s paid. Furthermore, it was darned near double what my previous job had paid… washing dishes… and bussing tables… at a nearby spaghetti restaurant.
The founders of this publishing concern had the largest circulation in north Texas – even over that of the Dallas Morning News – but like many hometown newspapers across the country, it too went the way of the others… so got swallowed up… by out-of-state investors.
Before long the locals began calling it the Startle-Gram. The previous newspaper for which I’d worked… selling subscriptions door-to-door… to the Fort Worth Press – had finally closed its doors forever. And you know… I never did win… that trip to Disneyland.
Anyway, long story short, I got to brush shoulders with… some of the pillars of our community… during my stay there… of some 5 or 6 months. I also learned to fly solo… at one of those old-fashioned telephone switchboards you saw… in the old movies… we grew up watching.
And they all called me kid… as in “Hey kid!” – like in the movies. Whenever I was asked to be on the lookout… for sightings of particular stories… steadily clicking in over the wires like a cacophony of typewriters… I was earnestly proficient … and unobtrusive… as was expected of me.
But the best-known faces – the ones you see above their bylines in the newspaper… hardly ever made an appearance on my graveyard shift. Mostly it was drunks short on time… trying to meet their deadlines… and local cops or sheriff’s deputies… talking to sleepy-eyed, irritable reporters… who’d been awakened during the night by a staffer… of some horrific crime… or of a major accident… for which fresh copy… had to be rushed to the typesetters. So, of course, it would show up as a news item in the morning edition.
The editorial writers provided their readers… with only color… and opinion. But the “real news” was spoon-fed them… by the wire service agencies - like Reuters, Associated Press, UPI, Gannet, Knight-Ridder, Getty Images, the NYT, LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, and a few other big city majors.
So the glamor of it all… soon wore off… and my friends were enjoying their summer vacations. Soon I’d be off to my first year of college… and to new life… on my own.
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Within all our families… are heard truisms, aphorisms, pithy sayings, expressions… timeless words with which to live by. As I was raised [some would say] in an irreligious home – my mom was an avowed atheist, my stepdad an agnostic – I recall these:
God helps those who help themselves
Familiarity breeds contempt
Eat up, young man, or go stand in the corner
Why don’t you just mind your own p’s and q’s?
Don’t forget… to dot your I’s and cross your t’s
Don’t do as I do; do as I say
We all have thoughts that would shame even the devil
Hold your friends close, but your enemies closer
Other families will quote Biblical scripture or sacred texts from other traditions. In 1966 – when I was but a 12-year-old schoolboy in a 6th grade elementary class – I remembered these words, in paraphrase, from my teacher… who had gently… but sternly… corrected another student… using the word human as a subjective noun… in a sentence.
The words of Ms. Jessie Jones, a classic old-maid schoolmarm – slim, erudite, with indomitable presence in the classroom… for some 40 years. To me she seemed the stalwart Christian woman who loved her students… and the calling… for which she was equally devoted. Nearing retirement age, perhaps she suffered in ways… we who were privileged to be in her class… could not fully have comprehended.
‘Human’ is an adjective properly directed toward a noun, especially ‘being’ – by separating these words, making the word ‘human’ a noun, and casting aside the word ‘being’ as if unnecessary, Man becomes separated… from his essential nature… of who… and what… he truly is [in the grand “design” of it all].
And… as I was to learn later… in follow-up remarks… separated from God.
I wonder what Ms. Jones might say today… if she was to speak to… our National Education [and Sharing] Day. I use ‘our’ somewhat guardedly here… because if she were still with us in the flesh… I doubt Ms. Jones could scarcely countenance… such a thing as… Public Law 102-14 – the Noahide Laws – which bestowed national honor onto a former member of the Chabbad Lubavitch sect. As understood… a highly respected rabbi… who over the course of his lifetime… many devotees had regarded… the living Jewish Messiah.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994) was purportedly in a weakened condition at the time this great honor was bestowed on him. And I’m quite sure that upon the occasion of Public Law 102-14’s signing by Pappy Bush into law… back in 1991… following its prior passage via secretive voice vote… in the U.S. Congress… Jews from around the world… must have felt tremendous pride.
Yet now… for the first time in America’s history… there had been legislated into existence… two classes of its citizenry: the Gentile and the Jew
So would it be a surprise to you… that I am less concerned for my status in relation to the State – that of US national, federated, 14th Amendment citizen, or as a citizen of the State of Texas – than I am for my countrymen today… and our current state of being?
Tell me what you think: 800-313-9443
If we want to recapture the hearts and minds of our fellow Numericans, YOU must regard Big Media as irrelevant. Now what say you? Aren’t we the only honest media left?
