On this day in 1926, the radio program San 'n Henry debuts on WGN radio in Chicago. The show, starring white performers Freeman Gosden and Chaarles Carrell, portrayed two black characters from Harlem looking for extra money during the Great Depression. The show later changed its name to Amos 'n' Andy, the highest-rated comedy in radio history. The NAACP protested both the radio and TV series for promoting racial stereotypes, but the protests did nothing to dampen the popularity of the shows. Amos 'n' Andy ran in reruns for many years around the world until the government of Kenya banned the program in 1963. This action renewed protests in the United States, and CBS finally withdrew the program from circulation. A sequel to Amos 'n' Andy that was disguised as a cartoon -- Calvin and the Colonel--debuted in 1961.
Strangely enough, on this day in 1971, the first episode of "All In The Family" aired on national television, introducing the world to the conservative mind of America.
Ironically, two of the biggest mouths in radio were both born on this day: Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern. They are like the two-types of music: Country and Western. You can't make this shit up.
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| Amos and Andy |
On this day in 1992, in the Stanley Kubrick's film 2001 Space Odyssey, the computer named HAL was built at the University of Illinois in Champagne-Urbana. A little trivia, the acronym HAL is actually one letter removed from IBM. See it? H=I, A=B, L=M. But that's only a little bit of the mystery of 2001 Space Odyssey, for more on this film check out Jays Analysis.
Not surprising to those of us paying attention, but on the same day that HAL was created in Stanley Kubrick's film, the World Wide Web in the form of Line Mode Browser v.1.1 was made available by anonymous FTP. Yes, that was the beginning of the web as we know it.
And of course we all the know the history of the internet; how it made information available for the first time without the controls of the church and Big-Business. And out of this information, we saw that what the US Media was selling us wasn't the truth. We saw how the big-mouth radio-jocks who were telling us the media was liberal, were actually serving the modern aristocracy while pretending to be a regular Joe. They weren't no regular Joe's. If anything, they were the servants of the Great Satan himself: They cried for deregulation by saying regulations was "Big Government Interference." And when they finally got rid of all the Roosevelt Regulations that were put in place to avoid another depression, they gave us another depression. And without missing a beat, we now have a president who is giving us more deregulation and tax-cuts which have never worked and never will, but the main-stream media doesn't bring it up; nor do you really care.
Also, thank God for hackers for they have given us a truth most of us still can't handle. One of my favorite findings by "hackers" was in 2006 when the hackers took down the neo-Nazi's site being mouthed by Hal Turner. It was during this "hacking" that they looked at Hal Turner's files and discovered that he was a paid FBI informent. Incensed that the FBI was using taxpayers' money to fund racist and homophobic hate speech, they chose to publicize their findings. By publicizing these findings, they were put on a most-wanted list as enemies of the state. Since this time, the mainstream media has portrayed "hackers" as the enemy of the state. This is ever-so-evident with the current Wikileaks situation. More precisely, Julian Assange. If you don't know what he's done for truth, you should. He is the guy that gave us the poop on Guantanamo Bay by posting the secret US government-authored operation manual that explained how guards could hide prisoners from the Red Cross to prevent anyone from being called to account for human rights abuses. Since this time, Assange has been under indictment for charges that the accusers have retracted and the Swedish authorities know this but continue to push for his arrest from US pressure. If Assange were to go to face charges in Sweden, they would be immediately dropped, and Assagne would be handed over to the USA were he would face life imprisonment without a trial! Yes, without a trial? If another country were doing that, our media would be all over it...but, the liberal press, does nothing. Which brings me to my point: thank God for the internet, for next year around this time it will be gone thanks to the reversal of the Net Neutrality "Regulations," and finally, the same big money funding the world media and endless wars will finally be able to filter the truth. But you don't care, you got your Opra and ESPN to keep your mind off of it.
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The 12th card of the Major Arcan is The Hanged Man, who dangles by his foot in a head-down position. Though such a position seems helpless, The Hanged Man is nevertheless spiritually powerful and deeply thoughtful.
