D-Day’s-75th-WW2-Significance-Bob Davis Podcast 838

Highly Significant

I think World War Two might have been the most significant historic event in more than the last two hundred years. These days people don’t think or talk much about the second world war, but we’re living in the world created by it. Learn more in D-Day’s-75th-WW2-Significance-Bob Davis Podcast 838.

Father’s and Grandfather’s War

Like most kids growing up in the 70’s World War 2 was our father’s war. Our grandfather’s war.

Certainly World War 2 was historic. Almost every American family has stories from that war. Family members who served. Army Air Force, Marines, Army and Navy or Coast Guard. The stories fade a little more every year, as our fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers, mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers fade too. Inevitably, the significance of that war gets lost in time.

When Everything Changed

What’s most noteworthy is the structure of the world today is the result of World War 2. Especially relevant to this podcast is this. The world that preceded the start of the war in 1939 is gone. The life Americans knew before the war, was obliterated by it. Learn more in D-Day’s-75th-WW2-Significance-Bob Davis Podcast 838.

Governments Run Amok

When I was growing up we’d go to the army surplus store in Hammond, Indiana. We’d pick through the boots, jackets, and tanker goggles. Whenever we could we watched all the black and white movies. ‘The Longest Day‘, ‘The Sands of Iwo Jima‘, ‘They Were Expendable‘ and many others. Those movies miss or gloss over mistakes governments made that got us into that war.

Gold Star Windows Up and Down the Block

I am old enough to remember the faded gold stars in the windows of the old ladies on the block, who’s sons never came home. Some were from the Korean and Vietnam wars, but many were still there from World War 2. They were the most faded.

How Could They Have Survived Omaha Beach?

In addition I am lucky enough to have been to Normandy, and of course, Omaha Beach. I have two takeaways. That hill is close to the water and very steep, and I wonder how anyone could have survived crawling up under fire the morning of June 6th, 1944.

They Didn’t Talk About It…They Did It

In conclusion we don’t think about the war that changed the world. Forever.

These days there’s a lot of talk about making the world a better place.

Those who fought that war, actually did.

Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul

D-Day’s-75th-WW2-Significance-Bob Davis Podcast 838

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Podcast 596-Our Values

Journalism’s new norm is reaction. It is called News. In Podcast 596-Values, news coverage today is a reaction to something someone said or wrote. News is reaction to a new initiative by some government entity. Donald Trump hasn’t been president for a month yet. Already it seems like a year. Trump’s pace of executive orders, executive actions, tweets and initiatives allows him to dominate the media battle space while he cooks up another controversy stew to cauterize yesterday’s controversy.

In Podcast 596-Values, where is the media battle ground? It’s not the Internet. It’s some some battlefield in Europe or Virginia where armies clashed. It’s not a battlefield with stories of élan, bravery or great deeds. The media battle space is our brain. This battlefield is as small or as expansive as it needs to be. As the media storm rages and the wind blows, how do we know our tent is securely fastened and isn’t going to blow away? It call comes down to something called values.

In Podcast 596-Our Values, time to take a pause in this daily insanity of back and forth partisan media coverage. A break from ‘journalists’ who call two or three people, get some quotes, write it up and call it a day. Time to take a look at what we believe as individuals and as a people. Democrat, Republican, Populist, Populist Nationalist, Libertarian, Communist, Socialist, Moderate, Partisan, and Extreme alike. We’re all on a journey together in our lifetime on this planet.

What do we believe? What are the Values we hold dear? Where do those values come from? How do those values anchor us when the gales of change blow up even when those gales are generated from the hot air of politicians in Washington? Politicians who cry and grandstand secure in the knowledge the things they say and do won’t be investigated for any length of time or to any real conclusion?

Reporters determine our values by looking at the latest poll or driving to a shopping center and asking people in the parking lot a few questions. The result is a few hundred words taking the ‘temperature’ of regular everyday ‘folk’. Don’t have any supporters of the president in your state to talk to? Just drive across the state line to the first town and sit in the parking lot of a Safeway or Piggly Wiggly until mom and the kids show up, or chat up and write up what old uncle Frank thinks, while he sits in his 1997 Lincoln waiting for Aunt June. The headline? “Middle America Supports Trump”. Boom.

Work on a national TV show? Find that article about middle america. Get that pollster on the show. Find that Congressmen who says that crazy stuff. Get that woman on from that foundation. Say some stuff. Get some calls. Move on to the next ‘story’. Clicks. Listens. Comments. Calls. Ratings!

The battlefield is the mind. How do you avoid becoming a casualty in the partisan political war? It’s increasingly a battlefield filled with threats. More and more it’s a battlefield better characterized as a moonscape no man’s land, where the shell shocked wander, dazed and confused. Survival in this environment depends on what we believe. Why we believe it. Where we learned it. Who taught us. Where we get our information. How we check our information. What anchors us in the storm, or what kind of ground we have pounded our tent pegs into.

Sponsored by X Government Cars and Hydrus Performance.

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Podcast 291

Time Machine. Take a break from the thrum of the daily news cycle, climb aboard The Bob Davis Podcasts Time Machine. If you could go back to anytime in history, where and when would you choose? Live from the Living Room of the Broadcast Bunker. If you love to read history, sometimes don’t you wish you could open a book, and go to the era written about? What eras and places would you visit and why? The 1920’s, Civil War, Ancient Greece, China about 600 years ago or India nearly a thousand years ago. What about Chicago in the 1890’s. Most people pick different eras for different reasons, and the times they pick to visit or to live in, are often windows into their personalities. Did people in different time periods understand what was happening in their world any more than we understand what is happening in ours? If we were to visit those times, even knowing what happened, let alone detailed knowledge of history, how would our own perceptions about a time change? How great would be to be able to visit the street you grew up on at different times, and see if it lives up to your memories. Another difference is age, as it relates to the times people want to visit. Younger people these days are interested in the 1970’s, even though not every house had brown shag carpeting, egg shell hanging chairs, and a brand new Admiral Color TV. Even the most recent eras in our history seem like they happened a million years ago. Believe it or not, cell phones were still physically huge in the 1990’s, and got really hot after about ten minutes of talking. And what about visiting the future? How far forward would you go, and what do you think you would find there? (Editor’s Note: My head hurts.) Sponsored by My Complete Basement and DepotStar.

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