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Sound Bites of the 1908 Presidential Candidates
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."
Spoiled kids today. In MY day, we had to listen to presidential debates on wax cylinders! And it cost us the equivalent of eight dollars, too!
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
McCain must be excited to hear his old wax cylinder recordings again.
Of course what they don't tell you is that most people just ripped the wax cylinders into an oral history form and passed it on that way via a peer to peer approach.
People complained that the problem with the P2P network was that you couldn't tell what was the original and what was either a bad copy or just some virus put in there by someone else to mislead people, but people in South Texas claimed it was the only way they could do it as the Wax cylinders were not available in their area due to them melting.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
but...
When i was waiting for my train, three people were coming down the escalator. I heard one kinda laughingly tell the other two, "Palin said, 'John McCain already *tapped me*'." There there was more laughter. I couldn't *help* but wonder what kind of "tapping" McCain did....
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
"Mister Taft, what is your position on young whippersnappers using Edison's sound capturing device to obtain songs of popular performers and listening to it later, not paying music admission prices? Is this the end of Music Hall?"
People didn't have the same concept of time in the olden days, two events in the same century seemed practically simultaneous to them. They also walked very quickly, talked in funny voices, and could only see in black and white.
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What are you talking 'bout, you young whippersnapper? Tarnation, in MY day we didn't have no dad blamed newfangled wax cylinders. We had to trudge hundreds of miles through the snow, uphill (both ways) to find a whistle stop where we could hear the varmints. Before shootin' at 'em, of course. Gotta make sure ya ain't shootin' at the wrong one. Then we'd tar and feather 'em and run 'em outta town on a rail.
I'd tell ya to git offen my lawn, but we didn't even have no durned lawns back then.
Free Martian Whores!
You are not the gadfly you think you are, and you are not the martyr you wish you were.
... Pro-Life, etc....
I think pro-life is about as indefensible of a position as anyone can come up with. I'm anti-life. Kill 'em all, I say! ;)
Personal anecdote. Yesterday, the only person I know who supports Bush said that a Ph.D. should be required to run for president. Again, this guy supports Bush. And then he added that it should also be required in order to vote. Everybody in the room politely ignored him and moved on with the meeting, but this made for some fun gossip.
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Care to share some examples of condescending progressives? I always thought the neo-cons were the most condescending. They only talk in sound bites, about pre-approved talking points. It is as if they think the American public are too stupid to understand real discussion about real issues.
What a superb example.