Like a lot of people of a certain age, most of my memories of the 1960s – specifically of the Viet Nam War and of the Lunar landings – are narrated by Walter Cronkite. It’s sort of fitting in a sad way that he left us this week when we are remembering Apollo 11.

For those who weren’t around then, this video might give you some sense of the enormity of what we could accomplish back then.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Forty years ago today Apollo 11 was launched sending men to the Moon (themoderatevoice.com)
• What If the Apollo Program Had Continued? (science.slashdot.org)
• The giant Apollo 11 post (kottke.org)
• The Lede: NASA Releases Moonwalk Video (thelede.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Cool photos of the Apollo landing sites from low Moon orbit (kottke.org)
• Moon Orbiter to Photograph Apollo 11 Landing Site (space.com)
• Giant Step, Full Stop (nytimes.com)

Related Posts:

• 40 Years Ago This Week
• The Year Everything Changed

Earthrise

Related Posts:

• The Most Trusted Voice
• The Year Everything Changed

Hugh being denied entry to the first venue, or

Finding out that Jason Korman is Nevel Papperman’s uncle.

Random Posts

• Girl Crazy
• New Blog Alert
• Upcoming

Dear Scott,

I’ll be on the corner of Reade and West Broadway wearing my bespoke coat and shirt, 501s heavily cuffed and a scarf, always with the scarf.

What is it with the scarf?

Oh never mind. Just be there.

Yours,

David

Link

Random Posts

• Take the Survey
• Should PR Own Social Media?
• More tales of PR gone horribly wrong

So if you are around Stamford, CT on the morning of July 14, please join us. It promises to be a fun event.

Details.

Related Posts:

• Public Relations For Start Ups
• Assembla in WebWorkerDaily
• The New News Release

A collection of random thoughts from the past couple of weeks:

• Beth Harte is exactly right when she says PR has never been about authenticity. I can’t add anything to what she says, just go read it.
• Working with the US Olympic Committee, NBC Sports and the individual athletes participating in the Winter Games has introduced me to a whole new world. Beyond watching the Yankees and the Giants I’ve never been much of a sports fan but after spending just a few months working with the members of the US Team I’m a confirmed fan. Come February I’ll be cheering like a maniac.
• I can really do with a bit less Michael Jackson right about now.
• I’m doing a lot of work with video lately. My editing skills leave much to be desired, as do my interviewing chops, but you’ll be able to see the fruits of my labors shortly.
• I’m really happy about Senator Al Franken.
• I’m finding the whole Sarah Palin “I’m not a quiter.. I quit” thing to be very funny.

That’s all for now.

Related Posts:

• Finally
• Blogger Deported From China
• Some folks are getting this right

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Random Posts

• More Proof That Apple Is Eating Your Lunch
• My 15 minutes
• The ick factor

It’s sad how this ending mirrors so many endings before it. The meteoric rise to fame. The quick fall from superstar to laughing stock to object of morbid curiosity. And then the death scene, complete with mysterious handlers, enablers, doctors and assorted hangers-on.

There was a long stretch of time, roughly corresponding to my college years (’82-’86), when Michael Jackson wasn’t just everywhere, he was Everywhere. It’s become cliche to say there will never be another moment like that again, but I really doubt there will ever be another performer who could stop the World quite like he did in those years.

Random Posts

• I want my wide screen iPod
• Mainstream media says ‘blah blah blah’
• You can stop reading right now

I will tell you this about iLiver 2.0: It’s nanoengineered, and it kicks ass. I wake up every morning feeling like Shaft, Superfly, James Bond and Kung Fu all put together. I’m bench-pressing twice my body weight, and I am so friggin ready to kick some low-rent tabloid hack wannabe ass that’s it not even funny.

Welcome back Fake Steve. We missed you.

Random Posts

• Schwag
• Seafood
• Web Whatever point Whenever

Kids are a wonderfully blank canvas. While some people see this as an opportunity to impart serious knowledge, I prefer teaching my daughter how to stand on a chair during music class, hold a crayon up in the air, and yell out, “Play Free Bird!”

Yay MetroDad and a belated Happy Father’s Day ya’ll.

Random Posts

• Social Media Camp
• Bloggers need booze
• The death of physical media