RIP Old Time Radio

Emplower Wisconsin ^ | June 19, 2020 | Empower Wisconsin Staff

[Dr. Sivana]

If you compare the endings - criminal gets his comeuppance - from the late 1930s through the end in the 1950s, there was a definite progression from dying on the spot, to death sentence to suicide to death-by-misadventure during the escape.

A LOT changed with the onset of World War II, semi-vigilantes like Superman, Batman, and Prince Namor (The Submariner) changed their tactics, and Superman, who was quick to threaten certain bad guys with being tossed from a great height, never stuck around to show up in court, so sometimes justice had to be meted on the spot. (pre-code against killing). There was no room for vigilantism during WWII, probably the most understandable time to have both explicit censorship and self-censorship.

I only listened to a handful of the Shadow from the Orson Welles era, and they were always suitably dark, as befits the character and the medium of radio.

Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe seemed to mock some of these antics, as he (and assistant Archie Goodwin) would seem to suggest suicide to the guilty, either because he didn't really have enough to make it stick in a court of law, or because he didn't want to leave his brownstone home for a trial.

[wally_bert]

I can think of several Karens that would love to be the party approved neighborhood entertainment content controller.

[a fool in paradise]

Bet the American Lie-Berry Ass. doesn’t say a damned thing against this rising wave Leftist tide of calls for censorship and banning when Banned Book Week comes around this September

[MarkL]

No kidding. I remember just how much of what was happening during the Obama regime was as if the news of the day were straight out of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.”

Now, the left has taken not just 1984, but Animal Farm as “how to” manuals. And the way the dem in politics are allowing the mob to become the footsoldiers of the dem party, we could also be looking at something similar to Lord of the Flies, or any good history of the aftermath of the French Revolution.

And with the way the left is actively pushing the notion that anyone who disagrees with their far-left agenda is not just wrong, but evil, I think that they’ve been taking the writings of Mein Kampf to heart as well.

Mark

[a fool in paradise]

NPR sides with book banners

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/06/870910728/your-bookshelf-may-be-part-of-the-problem

Your Bookshelf May Be Part Of The Problem
June 6, 20207:00 AM ET

...You may have seen the phrase “decolonize your bookshelf” floating around. In essence, it is about actively resisting and casting aside the colonialist ideas of narrative, storytelling, and literature that have pervaded the American psyche for so long.

If you are white, take a moment to examine your bookshelf. What do you see? What books and authors have you allowed to influence your worldview, and how you process the issues of racism and prejudice toward the disenfranchised? Have you considered that, if you identify as white and read only the work of white authors, you are in some ways listening to an extension of your own voice on repeat? While the details and depth of experience may differ, white voices have dominated what has been considered canon for eons. That means non-white readers have had to process stories and historical events through a white author’s lens. The problem goes deeper than that, anyway, considering that even now 76% of publishing professionals — the people you might call the gatekeepers — are white...

---

The canon of Western Literature has been given the boot for over 30 years (the works of dead white males, they called it).

[Sans-Culotte]

Last week, I received an ebay order of a social studies book from 1960 that I remembered from when I was in elementary school in in the mid 60s. I read a lot of nonfiction, so I try to stay away from revisionist crap.

[mumblypeg]

I’ve got numerous vinyl 33 & 78 rpms —several are multi-record box sets—with titles like Golden Age of Radio, God Bless America, Vanguard’s Folk Songs & Minstrelsy, Smithsonian’s Americana. A lot of delta blues, bluegrass & gospel, when examined thru the PC lens, simply won’t pass muster to the ignorant mobs. Plus I have many decidedly not-PC
live reciedings of Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, et al.
All picked up at yard sales for a couple of dollars.
Bob Dylan was doing an “old tyme radio hour” for awhile, not too long ago, and Ive got several CDs of those shows. A lot of the songs Dylan played weren’t PC either.
I’m so glad to have these & will continue to collect them.
Maybe I can start a gypsy radio station.

[mumblypeg]

Maybe Mike needs to get the fist out of his ass.

[Calvin Locke]

... Orson Welles era, and they were always suitably dark, as befits the character...

The original Shadow character was a narrator that stood in the shadows...

Welles was the first personification of The Shadow as Lamont Cranston. I think he only did a year before skedaddling off to Hollywood on the Mercury Theater's War of the Worlds phenomenon. Welles would do the Sunday matinee at the Mercury Theater, then race by cab to the radio studio to do The Shadow.

Bill Johnstone was the second Lamont Cranston, as well as Inspector Cramer in Sidney Greenstreet's (versus Francis X. Bushman's) Nero Wolfe radio series.

[ConservativeDude]

gosh aren’t they just so literate!

[raccoonradio]

Exactly.
I do have Song of the South DVD which Disney
never put out on DVD but it was put
out in Europe.It was from something like OfficialSongOfTheSouth dot net or something and also included one of Warner
Bros (?!?) “Censored 11” shorts, Coal
Black and de Sebben Dwarfs.

[Moonmad27]

SiriusXM Radio Classics is still going strong.

[octex]

Be sure to add Rusty Warren’s “Knockers Up!” record.

It’s sure to rile up today’s feminists!

[newfreep]

NPR....Communist & race baiting propaganda spoken softly for easier consumption.

[foreverfree]

“1984” deserved a prequel, maybe dealing with Winston’s formative years and Big Brother’s rise to power, and the creation of the enforcement technology.