In the past few days I’ve added a couple of features to this blog, the beginning of a section of links (“blogroll” in the language of blogging), and a page of quotes from The You of My Song. The links are an important part of the site, as a large part of the book is concerned with communication, and most of these links are to my most trusted and admired sources, people I think everybody should know. These links are just the beginning. I will continue to add more as time goes by.
I want to mention an amazing source which I ran across while doing the research for The You of My Song. I thought that YouTube.com was a site for teenagers to show off their skills in skate boarding and ukelele playing, and for nostalgia buffs to find performances by Leadbelly and Buddy Holly. It is that, but it is much more. I found that it is also a vast audio-visual library of historic and present personages and events. This discovery occurred when I was searching the Web for President Eisenhower’s farewell address, the one where he warns about the potential threat to the American democracy posed by “the military-industrial complex.”
Not only did I find the full text but also a link to a YouTube video where I could watch and listen to Eisenhower giving the speech. I found it fascinating, both for its content and its incredibly easy availability. Now we have instant access to discourses of all sorts, from Winston Churchill’s “We will fight them on the beaches” address to Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech and George W. Bush’s bloopers. Thanks to YouTube we can see and hear Malcom X, Alexander Fleming, Hitler, Stalin, and Roosevelt, in the comfort of our own computers. Don’t just take my word for it. See for yourself. Here’s the Eisenhower speech I mentioned:
YouTube is not only good for historic figures. You can also search contemporary subjects, and the results are equally enriching. If you liked Eisenhower’s farewell address from 1951, have a look at this speech by Canadian journalist and activist, Naomi Klein, presented to a Los Angeles audience in 2005:
Enough for today. If you hadn’t used YouTube before, I hope you will enjoy discovering it. It’s not the only source of audio-video content on the Web, however. Next time we’ll take a look at a fascinating interview from The New Yorker site. See you then.
Filed under: sources | Tagged: Mike Booth, sources, The New Yorker, The You of My Song, YouTube
Thanks, Mike. Those are two perceptive commentaries, on the danger to democracy posed by the monster that the political-military complex has grown into and on the phony version of what happens in Iraq that is fed to the public. But how many of the American people are listening?And how many are sufficiently awake to the damage that has been done to the US image around the world to vote as common sense dictates?