Bob CollinsThe Monday Morning Rouser:
1) THE TEST OF TIME
Yes, it’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day and, yes, every news organization will play a part of his famous “I’ve Got A Dream” speech. But few will play more than the usual 15 or 20 seconds of the speech, which is too bad because relatively few people have listened to the entire thing.
It was two years ago that I had the day off, so I headed to the hangar to work on the great airplane project, not thinking of the reason I had the day off. But I had the radio on and NPR’s Talk of the Nation presented the entire speech.
And there and then I put down the tools, sat in the cold hangar, and felt ashamed that me, a child of the ’60s, had gone the 47 years having never listened to the entire speech.
Here’s the entire speech:
I wonder if any of our politicians will stand up and say “It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white because probably there are at least a few hundred million people in China who are smarter, better-educated, and harder-working than you and private companies would much rather hire any of them.”
2) PUTTING THE “AWE” IN “AWESOME”
It’s unlikely that this is the final video that Red Bull wants to go viral, but here’s another look at Saturday night’s Crashed Ice event.
The video didn’t make mention of one of the highlights of the evening, when a rat scurried into the crowd near Mother Teresa St.
Here’s another:
It was a wonderful night with people in a great mood. But are we ready to embrace this as a sport worth following? Probably not. Few people cared who won the championship (By the way, who did win the championship?), and we also noticed that as the competition neared the end, there was fewer and fewer thrills and spills because the skaters were… good.
I’d spend another three hours with frozen toes to be in the crowd again in a heartbeat.
It was another moment when I wondered why more people in Minnesota aren’t madly in love with winter.
Like, apparently, Leif Enger …
Cedar Lake, the World from Leif Enger on Vimeo.
3) THE HUMAN SIDE OF SCORN
It must be tough enough being an actor/actress in Fargo without having the world make fun of you.
“I am a North Dakota native. I love North Dakota. And I was really, really excited to be part of this,” Phaidra Yunker, 30, tells the Fargo Forum. “And now it’s awful.”
“I had to call my parents and be like, ‘You know, you’re probably going to hear these words thrown around like slutty, sleazy, sickening,’ ” she said. “And I don’t think the ad is any of those.”
She’s on the left.
Here’s what we didn’t know when the tourism ad controversy flared last week. The guy with the beer and the boots is the beau of the women in the middle.
It didn’t do much for you? It doesn’t matter, tourism officials said. It was aimed at Canadians.
4) DELAYING DREAMS
Gerald and Barbara Heil of White Bear Lake are still missing. They were on the luxury liner that hit the rocks in Italy and capsized. Their daughter, who lives near Chicago, tells a familiar tale. Her parents didn’t splurge much when she was growing up because they were sending their kids to private school, figuring when they were grown and gone, they’d have time to spend together traveling the world.
She talked to Chicago radio station WBBM. Hear the interview here.
5) THE LAST WEEK OF GARY
This is it and it’s not a heck of a deal. Gary Eichten is in his last week of work at the joint he built — the newsroom at Minnesota Public Radio. The Pioneer Press’ Amy Carlson Gustafson captured the Eichtens perfectly in this story over the weekend:
“I’ve never been in a journalism classroom,” he says. “I’ve always been intimidated by people who are journalists. I don’t think of myself as one. I’m a radio announcer who does news stuff. I’m self-taught.”
If that’s true — if Eichten said it, it is — it calls for a redefinition of what a journalist is.
Curiously, former Tim Pawlenty handler Brian McClung gets a prominent role in the feature. No governor in the last few decades avoided appearances on Midday as much as Pawlenty did.
Bonus: But when did we become jaded with the usual forms of sport? When did recreational exercise become so extreme? (BBC)
TODAY’S QUESTION
It’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a time for honoring the civil rights leader who pushed for non-violent social change. Today’s Question: What’s the best way to honor Martin Luther King, Jr.?
WHAT WE’RE DOING
It’s a holiday for the bloggers today. We’ll see you again tomorrow.
Midmorning (9-11 a.m.) – First hour: The growth in health care costs in the U.S. has slowed to it’s lowest rate in nearly 50 years, but some observers believe it’s less a result of health care reform than a by-product of the economy.
Second hour: For much of American history, racial identity has been defined in terms of black and white. But because of their heritage and physical appearance, some families walk the line between cultures. A new book chronicles three mixed-race families whose identities were called into question at various periods in history – with surprising consequences. (Rebroadcast)
Midday (11 a.m. – 1 p.m.) – First hour: Rep. Keith Ellison.
Second hour: Historian Taylor Branch, speaking this morning at Gustavus Adolphus College.
Talk of the Nation (1-3 p.m.) – First hour: The superPACS came out swinging in South Carolina, where the political attack ads are on nearly every television screen. Ted Koppel reports on super PACS, plus Ambassador Thomas Pickering calls for diplomacy, not military strikes in Iran.
Second hour: What are we learning about alcohol?
