Podcast 567-Western Legends

Podcast 567-Western Legends. The first thing one learns on a big road trip of the Western US is that it is vast. That sky. Those mountains. The desert. The border. In the Southwest these features take on mythical proportions. It’s fertile ground for two of the greatest legends of the west. One of them dates by to 1881. The other is new by historical standards, dating back only to 1947. Each legend features a town. A town seemingly in ‘the middle of nowhere’. Tombstone Arizona developed quickly as a silver mining and ranching center. Tombstone quickly attracted gamblers and fast women interested in separating cowpokes and miners from their hard earned money. It also attracted a legendary western lawman from Dodge City, Wyatt Earp and his two brothers. It didn’t take long for trouble to find the ‘retired’ Earp. The gunfight at the OK corral is the kind of legend that spawns myth, and Hollywood loves legends that spawn myth. What really happened on October 26th, 1881 in Tombstone will be debated for many years to come. In modern day Tombstone the gunfight replayed everyday in a life-imitating-art-WestWorld kind of way. A new legend has captured the attention of the world in a completely different kind of way. In another desert near another lonely town something happened in June and July of 1947 that has never been completely resolved. The incident at Roswell is truly a modern legend. Podcast 567-Western Legends  takes you inside homespun museums and reenactments in two different towns in two unique places in the American Southwest. These are not National Parks. In their own way, the people of Roswell, New Mexico and the people of Tombstone, Arizona are paying tribute and still trying to make some sense of the events that made their towns famous across the world and influenced the thinking of generations of Americans. Sponsored by X Government Cars.

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Podcast 522-BobDavis Podcasts Radio Show 34

Podcast 522-BobDavis Podcasts Radio Show 34. A tumultuous week ends in chaos and violence . Two officer involved shootings, and a sniper attack on police in Dallas, Texas which killed and wounded several officers. Further threats against police. People saying absurd and terrible things with no basis in fact, and that’s just the elected officials. News anchors, talk radio hosts, people on social media hurling accusations, name calling, explanations of what happened (especially by those who were not there), and terrible information on all these stories. A woman live streams an extraordinary event and the first reaction by FaceBook and some citizens is that people should not have the ability to live stream or post videos that might be considered ‘offensive’ or ‘controversial’? The original plan for the radio show this week was to condense Podcast 521 into three more palatable segments:  A segment focused on the decision by the FBI not to recommend indictment in the Hillary Clinton email scandal, which seems to have surprised only so called conservatives. One focused on how ill served we are by the media in general and a segment focused on a story no one is reporting; the financial situation internationally and the potential for a major breakdown due to the bad decisions that have been made by leaders on the economy. After delaying production of Podcast 522-BobDavis Podcasts Radio Show 34 to wait for more details on the big stories to break, I decided to change the opening segment and continue with the plan. Oddly enough, it all seemed to fit together. There are many problems in our society, but one of the big ones is how our media is not up to the task of dealing with the kinds of stories we’re seeing this week. Rather than investigate and report news, it advocates. Rather than investigate and advance the story so we’re better informed, it leaves that to cheeky types who yell at each other around a so-called roundtable, or interviews bystanders and calls it coverage. The population as a whole does not have the patience to learn the contours of an issue, is keen to argue and defend a position without any real knowledge on these stories, and social media seems to magnify the worst traits of the human character. Previous podcasts have discussed the possibility of unpredictable events to change our lives irrevocably. After what happened this week, I feel even more strongly that the black swan is just below the horizon. Sponsored by X Government Cars and Hydrus.

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