I e-mailed the Star-Tribune reporter, Suzanne Ziegler, on Thursday to ask if she had any response or explanation. She has not responded.
In the meantime, the government first announced it was going to suspend the CARS program because it was about to run out of money. Then they changed course, and are trying to race a $2 billion supplemental appropriation through Congress. Meanwhile, dealers are complaining that they can't get through the government's system to receive their money, and they are describing the whole plan as a fiasco.
To echo what so many others are saying: Do you really want a government that can't run a simple car-voucher program for 250,000 car purchases running a health-care program for 300 million people?
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Why newspapers are dying, Part 2
When I was a student at the University of Minesota, the Gopher hockey team had a player named Brian Zins, from the Aurora-Hoyt Lakes area of Minnesota's Iron Range. Years later, "Zinny" showed up here in Red Wing as the manager of a Chrysler dealership, and we actually had the chance to work together for a while. Our sons played hockey together, we've golfed together, etc....He's a terrific fellow who has spent most of his adult life in the car business, and is now a manager at a Chrysler dealership in Coon Rapids, Minnesota.
Most car retailers are very busy these days, thanks to the government's "Cash For Clunkers" program (real name: Cars Allowance Rebate Systeam, or CARS). This program, from the brain wizards in the Obama administration, allows consumers to trade in old cars that meet certain criteria, and get up to a $4,500 credit towards the purchase of a new car that gets better mileage.
Tuesday afternoon, Zinny takes a phone call from a woman who says, "I'm looking for a Jeep Patriot or Jeep Compass for my boss." He explained that they were out of those two particular models. She asked why they were out, and he said that the CARS program, along with low inventories that are normal for this time of year, had depleted their supply of the Patriot and Compass. "Are you afraid you're going to run out of cars?" she asked. Zinny answered with a joke that is common these days in the auto business: "They (the government) will run out of money before they (the dealers) run out of cars."
According to Zinny, the woman made a little more small talk, asked some questions that he considered a bit odd, and a few minues later the conversation ended.
The next morning, on the front page of the Star-Tribune, was a story about the CARS program and the increased business at area dealerships. Included in the story, by someone named Suzanne Ziegler, were quotes from "Brian Zins, a manager at Coon Rapids Chrysler Jeep."
I saw the story, and it caught my interest because I know Zinny is not a fan of the Star-Tribune, largely because of its institutional liberal slant. So I sent him an e-mail, asking in a good-natured way why he would give quotes to an organization I know he disdains. That's when the story gets interesting.
Zinny called me back and said, "She never told me she was a reporter." He took the call and believed he was talking to a customer who was - as she said - looking for a vehicle. "After she asked a couple of kind of odd questions, my antenna sort of went up," Brian said. "And then towards the end she mentioned that she worked for the Star-Tribune, but she never said she was a reporter."
Over the past 20-some years, I've dealt with reporters from all over the country, from the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, USA Today and all the major TV networks to small-town radio stations in rural Minnesota. In all of that time, I have NEVER had a conversation with a reporter who didn't first identify themself, and let me know I was talking to a news organization, for attribution.
To call someone under false pretenses, and take quotes for attribution without letting that person know they were talking to a reporter, is incredibly unethical for a couple of reasons.
First, people might speak differently if they know they're talking to a reporter. Think about how you would choose your words differently if you knew they were going to be printed or broadcast.
Second, many firms prohibit employees from talking to the media, preferring that all media inquiries be referred to someone authorized to talk about the business. I've worked in several different organizations in which I was the only one authorized to talk to the media. Imagine that Brian's employer had such a policy in place. He might well find himself out of a job because he spoke to a reporter operating under false pretenses.
Fortunately for Zinny, he didn't say anything that would embarrass him, his employer or the auto industry (and he wouldn't because he's a classy guy), but the entire incident begs the question, "Why?"
Why would a reporter not identify herself as such? Why would she make up a story about looking for a car "for her boss"? Why would she feel it necessary to deceive someone about the purpose of the conversation? Why should a businessperson be subjected to this kind of deception?
This is the kind of behavior that has led us to the point where, as you can see here, people have very low levels of trust in the media. Now, every time you see a quote in the Star-Tribune, you should wonder if the quote was obtained under false pretenses, if the person being quoted really said when they are reported to have said, and how they might have altered their remarks if they knew they were speaking to a reporter.
Most car retailers are very busy these days, thanks to the government's "Cash For Clunkers" program (real name: Cars Allowance Rebate Systeam, or CARS). This program, from the brain wizards in the Obama administration, allows consumers to trade in old cars that meet certain criteria, and get up to a $4,500 credit towards the purchase of a new car that gets better mileage.
Tuesday afternoon, Zinny takes a phone call from a woman who says, "I'm looking for a Jeep Patriot or Jeep Compass for my boss." He explained that they were out of those two particular models. She asked why they were out, and he said that the CARS program, along with low inventories that are normal for this time of year, had depleted their supply of the Patriot and Compass. "Are you afraid you're going to run out of cars?" she asked. Zinny answered with a joke that is common these days in the auto business: "They (the government) will run out of money before they (the dealers) run out of cars."
According to Zinny, the woman made a little more small talk, asked some questions that he considered a bit odd, and a few minues later the conversation ended.
The next morning, on the front page of the Star-Tribune, was a story about the CARS program and the increased business at area dealerships. Included in the story, by someone named Suzanne Ziegler, were quotes from "Brian Zins, a manager at Coon Rapids Chrysler Jeep."
I saw the story, and it caught my interest because I know Zinny is not a fan of the Star-Tribune, largely because of its institutional liberal slant. So I sent him an e-mail, asking in a good-natured way why he would give quotes to an organization I know he disdains. That's when the story gets interesting.
Zinny called me back and said, "She never told me she was a reporter." He took the call and believed he was talking to a customer who was - as she said - looking for a vehicle. "After she asked a couple of kind of odd questions, my antenna sort of went up," Brian said. "And then towards the end she mentioned that she worked for the Star-Tribune, but she never said she was a reporter."
Over the past 20-some years, I've dealt with reporters from all over the country, from the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, USA Today and all the major TV networks to small-town radio stations in rural Minnesota. In all of that time, I have NEVER had a conversation with a reporter who didn't first identify themself, and let me know I was talking to a news organization, for attribution.
To call someone under false pretenses, and take quotes for attribution without letting that person know they were talking to a reporter, is incredibly unethical for a couple of reasons.
First, people might speak differently if they know they're talking to a reporter. Think about how you would choose your words differently if you knew they were going to be printed or broadcast.
Second, many firms prohibit employees from talking to the media, preferring that all media inquiries be referred to someone authorized to talk about the business. I've worked in several different organizations in which I was the only one authorized to talk to the media. Imagine that Brian's employer had such a policy in place. He might well find himself out of a job because he spoke to a reporter operating under false pretenses.
Fortunately for Zinny, he didn't say anything that would embarrass him, his employer or the auto industry (and he wouldn't because he's a classy guy), but the entire incident begs the question, "Why?"
Why would a reporter not identify herself as such? Why would she make up a story about looking for a car "for her boss"? Why would she feel it necessary to deceive someone about the purpose of the conversation? Why should a businessperson be subjected to this kind of deception?
This is the kind of behavior that has led us to the point where, as you can see here, people have very low levels of trust in the media. Now, every time you see a quote in the Star-Tribune, you should wonder if the quote was obtained under false pretenses, if the person being quoted really said when they are reported to have said, and how they might have altered their remarks if they knew they were speaking to a reporter.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
A little hometown pride
When I tell people in other places that I live in Red Wing, most of the time the response I get is: "Is that where they make the shoes?" Yes, that Red Wing.Red Wing Shoe Company ("The Shoe," as the locals say) has been producing shoes here for 104 years, and they are easily the most famous product of Red Wing. It seems I can drive through almost any decent-sized town between New York and LA and find a Red Wing Shoe sign hanging outside some store.
My personal experience is limited to using their steel-toed work shoes for a use probably not foreseen: Baseball umpiring. I've spent years behind the plate wearing the shoes, which not only have the steel toe protection, but have a thick, molded plastic flap that covers the laces and the top of your foot. Great protection from foul balls and thrown bats, and you can stand in them all day. In addition to shoes, the company became known for high-quality boots, including the famous "Irish Setter" hunting boot.
A few years ago - I think for the company's 100th anniversay - they decided to create the world's biggest boot. A friend of mine - Dave Fredrickson - had the enviable job of chaperoning the boot around the country to trade shows, conv
entions, etc.Next week the company is opening a new retail store and museum along Red Wing's main street, and this morning they moved the boot from the factory to its new downtown location with a little four-block parade. Next time you need a little getaway, come on down to Pretty Red Wing and see the world's biggest boot!
A few quick facts:
Size: 638-1/2 D (Just right for a 120-foot tall person.)
It weighs 2,300 pounds and took 13 months to build.
The lace is 104 feet long, 2-1/4 inches wide, and runs through 3-1/2 inch eyelets that required 80 pounds of brass to make.
It's 20 feet long, 16 feet high, seven feet wide.
It's been recognized by the Guiness Book of Records as the World's Largest Footwear.
The final stitching required lowering a person into the boot with a pulley system.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
What a Harvard education gets you
It was my privilege, for about eight years, to serve on a board at Harvard University. My employer at the time - GE - was in the business of making loans for many things, including home improvements. And as part of being a "good corporate citizen" they helped fund an ongoing research project at Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies.
Because they were a donor, they got a seat on the board that oversaw the project, and somehow it fell to me to fill that board seat. And so twice a year I would pack up and head for Boston and Cambridge for a couple days of meetings, presentations and very nice lunches, and while it wasn't all that interesting, it seemed to impress people when I'd say "I've got to go to Harvard for a board meeting," so I kept on saying it.
What I learned over the years is that, while Harvard may be one of our more revered places for higher education, it's full of a lot of very silly people. Like most of academia, they operate in an atmosphere of unmatched political correctness. Also like most of academia, it's populated by people who have managed to weasal their way on to the higher-education gravy train by studying some tiny, arcane subject and convincing others that what they do is VERY important.
All you need to know about the efficacy of the Joint Center for Housing Studies is that every year we would get a presentation from some numbers nerd who sat down, analyzed every piece of data, talked to various "experts" and presented some very pretty charts that told us, year after year, "There is no evidence of a housing bubble." Turns out there WAS a housing bubble, and when it burst it took down large chunks of the global economy, but hey, even Harvard gets one wrong once in a while, I guess.
Which brings us to Henry Louis Gates, a Harvard professor and a ridiculously silly man in his own right. A Yale law school dropout, he quickly latched onto the intellecutally rigourous "Afro-American studies" scam and worked his way through the imp
ortant left-wing college campuses - Yale, Cornell, Duke - before landing at Harvard. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about his "important" work:
"As a literary theorist and critic, meanwhile, Gates has combined literary techniques of deconstruction with native African literary traditions; he draws on structuralism, post-structuralism, and semiotics to textual analysis and matters of identity politics. As a black intellectual and public figure, Gates has been an outspoken critic of the Eurocentric literary canon and has instead insisted that black literature must be evaluated by the aesthetic criteria of its culture of origin, not criteria imported from Western or European cultural traditions that express a "tone deafness to the black cultural voice" and result in "intellectual racism."
Nice work if you can get it, eh? Here's a boiled-down version: Gates rants and raves about how evil America is, how racist everyone else is and he produces nothing of value to society. A couple decades of that have brought him wealth, Harvard tenure and a small measure of fame.
(It should also be noted that as a literary expert, he's no great shakes. In the '90s he was called as an "expert witness" in the obscenity trial of rap group 2 Live Crew. Defending their profane lyrics he said, “It’s like Shakespeare’s ‘My love is like a red, red rose.’ ” Which is nice, except that Shakespeare never wrote that. The line was penned by Scottish poet Robert Burns about two centuries later. But that's okay, Prof. Gates: Those dead white people all look (and sound) alike, right?)
By now most of you know the current controversy. A neighbor of Gates' called the cops because she saw two men forcing open the door to Gates' home, and suspected a burglary. The cops arrived, found a man inside the house, and asked for ID. Drawing on his vast reservoir of intelligence and sensitivity, Gates responded to the request by saying, "Why? Because I am a black man in America?"
It seems to me a better response might have been, "Sure, here's my ID. I live here, and I appreciate the fact that you would respond so quickly to the report of a break-in at my house. But it's a simple misunderstanding. Thanks again." But of course, I'm not the enlightened beneficiary of a Harvard education, so what do I know?
From there, Gates escalated the situation by saying things like, "I'll talk to your mama," "You don't know who you're messin' with" and "You haven't heard the last of this." Eventually he became so belligerent that the cops arrested him for disorderly conduct.
At which point the political correctness heirarchy went into full-blown panic mode. The charges were dropped, the Governor of Massachusetts and the Mayor of Cambridge (both black) denounced the cops and the king of all diversity hires - President Obama - declared the police had "acted stupidly." Not as stupidly as, say, mouthing off at a press conference without knowing all the facts, but still pretty stupidly.
Then the pendulum swung the other way. Obama seemed to realize how stupid he sounded, and tried to back away from his own remarks, though without really apologizing. Then he called the cop involved to talk things over and now the empty buzzwords such as "teachable moment" and "racial reconciliation" are being thrown around. Everyone involved seems to be staking their claim to be offended and victimized.
Which is the logical product of all the silliness that goes on at places like Harvard, where the real world and common sense can't puncture the bubble of political correctness and identity politics that surrounds everything.
Parents, if your child has a chance to go to Harvard, here's my advice: Take the $50,000 per year you were going to spend, put $35K in the bank and use the rest to send them to St. Cloud State. The education will be just as good, and they'll have ample opportunity to learn that when a police officer asks for ID, your best move is to show him your drivers license.
Because they were a donor, they got a seat on the board that oversaw the project, and somehow it fell to me to fill that board seat. And so twice a year I would pack up and head for Boston and Cambridge for a couple days of meetings, presentations and very nice lunches, and while it wasn't all that interesting, it seemed to impress people when I'd say "I've got to go to Harvard for a board meeting," so I kept on saying it.
What I learned over the years is that, while Harvard may be one of our more revered places for higher education, it's full of a lot of very silly people. Like most of academia, they operate in an atmosphere of unmatched political correctness. Also like most of academia, it's populated by people who have managed to weasal their way on to the higher-education gravy train by studying some tiny, arcane subject and convincing others that what they do is VERY important.
All you need to know about the efficacy of the Joint Center for Housing Studies is that every year we would get a presentation from some numbers nerd who sat down, analyzed every piece of data, talked to various "experts" and presented some very pretty charts that told us, year after year, "There is no evidence of a housing bubble." Turns out there WAS a housing bubble, and when it burst it took down large chunks of the global economy, but hey, even Harvard gets one wrong once in a while, I guess.
Which brings us to Henry Louis Gates, a Harvard professor and a ridiculously silly man in his own right. A Yale law school dropout, he quickly latched onto the intellecutally rigourous "Afro-American studies" scam and worked his way through the imp
ortant left-wing college campuses - Yale, Cornell, Duke - before landing at Harvard. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about his "important" work:"As a literary theorist and critic, meanwhile, Gates has combined literary techniques of deconstruction with native African literary traditions; he draws on structuralism, post-structuralism, and semiotics to textual analysis and matters of identity politics. As a black intellectual and public figure, Gates has been an outspoken critic of the Eurocentric literary canon and has instead insisted that black literature must be evaluated by the aesthetic criteria of its culture of origin, not criteria imported from Western or European cultural traditions that express a "tone deafness to the black cultural voice" and result in "intellectual racism."
Nice work if you can get it, eh? Here's a boiled-down version: Gates rants and raves about how evil America is, how racist everyone else is and he produces nothing of value to society. A couple decades of that have brought him wealth, Harvard tenure and a small measure of fame.
(It should also be noted that as a literary expert, he's no great shakes. In the '90s he was called as an "expert witness" in the obscenity trial of rap group 2 Live Crew. Defending their profane lyrics he said, “It’s like Shakespeare’s ‘My love is like a red, red rose.’ ” Which is nice, except that Shakespeare never wrote that. The line was penned by Scottish poet Robert Burns about two centuries later. But that's okay, Prof. Gates: Those dead white people all look (and sound) alike, right?)
By now most of you know the current controversy. A neighbor of Gates' called the cops because she saw two men forcing open the door to Gates' home, and suspected a burglary. The cops arrived, found a man inside the house, and asked for ID. Drawing on his vast reservoir of intelligence and sensitivity, Gates responded to the request by saying, "Why? Because I am a black man in America?"
It seems to me a better response might have been, "Sure, here's my ID. I live here, and I appreciate the fact that you would respond so quickly to the report of a break-in at my house. But it's a simple misunderstanding. Thanks again." But of course, I'm not the enlightened beneficiary of a Harvard education, so what do I know?
From there, Gates escalated the situation by saying things like, "I'll talk to your mama," "You don't know who you're messin' with" and "You haven't heard the last of this." Eventually he became so belligerent that the cops arrested him for disorderly conduct.
At which point the political correctness heirarchy went into full-blown panic mode. The charges were dropped, the Governor of Massachusetts and the Mayor of Cambridge (both black) denounced the cops and the king of all diversity hires - President Obama - declared the police had "acted stupidly." Not as stupidly as, say, mouthing off at a press conference without knowing all the facts, but still pretty stupidly.
Then the pendulum swung the other way. Obama seemed to realize how stupid he sounded, and tried to back away from his own remarks, though without really apologizing. Then he called the cop involved to talk things over and now the empty buzzwords such as "teachable moment" and "racial reconciliation" are being thrown around. Everyone involved seems to be staking their claim to be offended and victimized.
Which is the logical product of all the silliness that goes on at places like Harvard, where the real world and common sense can't puncture the bubble of political correctness and identity politics that surrounds everything.
Parents, if your child has a chance to go to Harvard, here's my advice: Take the $50,000 per year you were going to spend, put $35K in the bank and use the rest to send them to St. Cloud State. The education will be just as good, and they'll have ample opportunity to learn that when a police officer asks for ID, your best move is to show him your drivers license.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The Thought Police at work
Meet Loren Spivack. An entrepreneurial sort, Spivak leased space for a kiosk in the Concord Hills shopping mall of Charlotte, NC, and sells bumper stickers, posters and other little doodads. Just another energetic American, trying to make a buck.
Spivack, however, committed the "sin" of selling bumper stickers with CONSERVATIVE ideas, ones that say things like "Impeach Obama" and "Work Harder, Obama Needs The Money." His kiosk - Free Market Warrior - also sells things with pro-life messages and criticism of various government agencies.
This caught the attention of a young airhead named Jennifer Ibanez, who doesn't like criticism of her political messiah, so she did what the education establishment has taught her to do: Instead of arguing on the merits, she calls the political criticism "racist." She and her girlfriends threatened to not shop at Concord Hills if the kiosk were allowed to stay in business.
Unbelievably, it worked. As you can see in the story here, Simon Property Group - the owner of Concord Hills - has told Mr. Spivack that his lease will not be renewed at the end of July because the items he sells aren't "neutral" enough.
Now, I understand the Simon Property Group is a private business, and it has a right to choose who will and won't be a tenant. But their outrage seems pretty selective. The Charlotte TV station covering the story noted that other stores in the mall sell t-shirts and other merchandise "so crude we've chosen not to share them."
In other words, Simon Property Group isn't opposed to profane, off-color messages, it's just opposed to conservative messages. Not very "neutral."
Well, just as Simon Property Group - and by the way, the group's owner, Mel Simon, is an Obama contributor - has a right to decide who their tenants are, we also have a right to decide where we shop and how we spend our dollars. And for my friends in Minnesota, there is a way to strike back.
According to Simon Property Group's web site - http://www.simon.com/ - the company owns three properties in Minnesota; The Albertville Outlet Mall, Maplewood Mall and Southdale. I used the "Guest Services" link on Simon's web site to let them know that I will never again shop at any of these three malls unless Free Market Warrior's lease is renewed. I realize it's a drop in the bucket - or even less - to a huge corporation, but it's my little way of trying to take a stand.
If you don't live in Minnesota, the http://www.simon.com/ site has an easy search function to show you what properties they own and operate around the country. It would nice if they heard from a number of us.
Spivack, however, committed the "sin" of selling bumper stickers with CONSERVATIVE ideas, ones that say things like "Impeach Obama" and "Work Harder, Obama Needs The Money." His kiosk - Free Market Warrior - also sells things with pro-life messages and criticism of various government agencies.
This caught the attention of a young airhead named Jennifer Ibanez, who doesn't like criticism of her political messiah, so she did what the education establishment has taught her to do: Instead of arguing on the merits, she calls the political criticism "racist." She and her girlfriends threatened to not shop at Concord Hills if the kiosk were allowed to stay in business.
Unbelievably, it worked. As you can see in the story here, Simon Property Group - the owner of Concord Hills - has told Mr. Spivack that his lease will not be renewed at the end of July because the items he sells aren't "neutral" enough.
Now, I understand the Simon Property Group is a private business, and it has a right to choose who will and won't be a tenant. But their outrage seems pretty selective. The Charlotte TV station covering the story noted that other stores in the mall sell t-shirts and other merchandise "so crude we've chosen not to share them."
In other words, Simon Property Group isn't opposed to profane, off-color messages, it's just opposed to conservative messages. Not very "neutral."
Well, just as Simon Property Group - and by the way, the group's owner, Mel Simon, is an Obama contributor - has a right to decide who their tenants are, we also have a right to decide where we shop and how we spend our dollars. And for my friends in Minnesota, there is a way to strike back.
According to Simon Property Group's web site - http://www.simon.com/ - the company owns three properties in Minnesota; The Albertville Outlet Mall, Maplewood Mall and Southdale. I used the "Guest Services" link on Simon's web site to let them know that I will never again shop at any of these three malls unless Free Market Warrior's lease is renewed. I realize it's a drop in the bucket - or even less - to a huge corporation, but it's my little way of trying to take a stand.
If you don't live in Minnesota, the http://www.simon.com/ site has an easy search function to show you what properties they own and operate around the country. It would nice if they heard from a number of us.
Monday, July 20, 2009
The dumbest woman in America?
Could this be the dumbest woman in America? I think it's possible after seeing a clip (hat tip to http://www.realclearpolitics.com/) of Whoopi Goldberg on "The View" this morning, questioning whether the moon landing actually happened, or had been faked in a movie studio.She said she has "real questions as to whether the moonwalk actually happened," citing the "rippling flag" as evidence of possible fakery.
Her stupidity speaks for itself, and it seems to be contagious among Hollywood types. Director Oliver Stone swallowed whole the insane, criminal behavior of Jim Garrison and turned it into the movie "JFK." Charlie Sheen - whose acting I love - is on record saying that the World Trade Center was brought down by a "controlled demolition."
In the academic world - where science and reason should triumph - there's a kook UMD profressor that has "proof" that Paul Wellstone's plane was shot down on orders from the White House.
What I always find interesting about liberal nutjobs is that they'll believe any far-out conspiracy theory, but yet they will accept, without even blinking, the idea of man-made global warming, which is quickly being exposed as one of the tallest piles of BS ever put forth.
Here's a clip of Buzz Aldren dealing with a moon landing skeptic. It would be great if he could give Whoopi the same "explanation."
Sunday, July 19, 2009
The typo on the moon
Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and Neil Armstrong's first moonwalk. There are a million anniversary stories online for anyone who wants to recall the details or those who are too young to remember it.
I was a space junkie as a kid. I remember listening to the radio during John Glenn's Mercury flight - the first manned earth orbit - and I was 12 years old when Armstrong stepped out on to the lunar surface. I could tell you about the history of the Mercury program, the Gemini program, the different astronauts' names and backgrounds. I knew what the CM was, along with the LEM, an EVA and all the other nifty acronyms. As noted in the previous post, I chose Kennedy's "Put a man on the moon" speech for oratory competition in high school.
(When I arrived in Washington in 1987 as Sen. Boschwitz' press secretary, I was thrilled to find that our next-door neighbor in the Hart Senate Office Building was the senator from Ohio, John Glenn! I got to meet him several times and ask a few space questions along the way. Big thrill.)
But my favorite Apollo 11 story was one I didn't hear until years later, listening to Pat Buchanan during a TV interview. He had been a speechwriter in the Nixon White House, along with William Safire, who was later a New York Times columnist. They were asked to help come up with the langugage for the plaque that would be attached to Apollo 11's Lunar Excursion Module (The "LEM") and left behind after the moon landing.
The plaque - pictured here - reads HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOO
T UPON THE MOON JULY 1969 A.D.WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND.
I was a space junkie as a kid. I remember listening to the radio during John Glenn's Mercury flight - the first manned earth orbit - and I was 12 years old when Armstrong stepped out on to the lunar surface. I could tell you about the history of the Mercury program, the Gemini program, the different astronauts' names and backgrounds. I knew what the CM was, along with the LEM, an EVA and all the other nifty acronyms. As noted in the previous post, I chose Kennedy's "Put a man on the moon" speech for oratory competition in high school.
(When I arrived in Washington in 1987 as Sen. Boschwitz' press secretary, I was thrilled to find that our next-door neighbor in the Hart Senate Office Building was the senator from Ohio, John Glenn! I got to meet him several times and ask a few space questions along the way. Big thrill.)
But my favorite Apollo 11 story was one I didn't hear until years later, listening to Pat Buchanan during a TV interview. He had been a speechwriter in the Nixon White House, along with William Safire, who was later a New York Times columnist. They were asked to help come up with the langugage for the plaque that would be attached to Apollo 11's Lunar Excursion Module (The "LEM") and left behind after the moon landing.
The plaque - pictured here - reads HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOO
T UPON THE MOON JULY 1969 A.D.WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND.Buchanan - a devout Catholic - was pressing, with Nixon's backing, to have the text include the words "Under God" after the "We came in peace," sentence. NASA, however, was wary of having any religious connotation, and kept rejecting the language.
Buchanan and Safire then came up with an idea. The proposed text had a date of "July 1969" on it. The two of them inserted the initials "A.D" after the date. AD stands for Anno Domini, Latin for "In the year of the Lord." Buchanan said it was their way of subtly making the point that the hand of God was at work in all of this.
It worked, no one at NASA objected, and their plan seemed perfect. Except for one little thing: When properly used, the A.D. initials come before the year, not after it. To be correct, the plaque should read "July, A.D. 1969." And so the first moon plaque actually has a typo in it.
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