Not to miss the point: Lincoln news coverage of Gettysburg

FACTS: Washington, 1963

As the nation this week recalls the historic 18 August 1963 march on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, The Washington Post reminds us that sometimes the press misses the point.

His speech was delivered on the landing 18 steps below Lincoln's statue.  There is now an inscription on the step where Dr. King stood, commemorating that historic event. (*)

FACTS: GETTYSBURG, 1863 

November 19, 1863 At the dedication of the National Cemetery in Gettysburg President Lincoln delivers a two-minute speech with his high-pitch voice. Immediately following the speech he calls it a "flat failure." The speech is known today as the Gettysburg Address.

VIDEO: Daniel Day-Lewis transformed into campaigning Abraham Lincoln... 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2206640/Daniel-Day-Lewis-portrayal-president-Abraham-Lincoln-proves-unpopular-critics.html#ixzz3MQmUFKeh
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The first news coverage of Gettysburg appeared in the Nov. 21 edition, the delay being caused by the difficulty getting home from Gettysburg on the trains, more of which in a moment.

The Gettysburg Address, Performed By President Obama

The newspaper's own news account of the proceedings focuses largely on the lousy train service to and from Gettysburg that left thousands stranded in Hanover unable - after traveling hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles - to attend the event. The same occurred on the trip back out of Gettysburg.
As the Patriot & Union reporter noted, 

"The amount of blasphemy manufactured at that little hotel was considerable."

But to the point - the newspaper's own reporter described the President's speech in Gettysburg like this:

"The President then arose and delivered the dedicatory address, which was brief and calculated to arouse deep feeling."

(a 1905 rendering) literally verbatim: those 'silly remarks'

TASK 1. 

READ your  copy of the Gettysburg Address to students and then let them follow along as they watch the Presidential Lincoln Library

     TASK 2. 

Now, SHARE the scores you gave the reenactment of the Gettysburg Address.Pass out “Retraction for our 1863 editorial calling Gettysburg Address ‘silly remarks’” resource to students and explain to students that not everyone always agreed that the Gettysburg Address was  one of the greatest speeches in the history of the United States.

TASK 3. 

100 years ahead. Read the original 1963 article, “A Voice from the Dead,” by the Patriot and Union Newspaper.

TASK 4. 

 What do you think of the criticisms from the article.

• Were they right?
• 
  
• If wrong, how come they made that mistake?
• 
  
• How can we predict what speeches or events 
• 
  
• are going to become historical?
• 
  

PS: Read the Museum’s reenactment of the Gettysburg Address (click on task 1)

Lincoln Memorial Approval and Construction

The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated on Memorial Day—May 30, 1922.

Years in the making, the planning and building of the Memorial would end with soldiers and civilians from all sides of the Civil War together for the dedication ceremony—joined in peace as Lincoln had wished and fought for decades before.

(*) On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., made his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial (the speech was delivered on the landing 18 steps below Lincoln's statue); there is now an inscription on the step where Dr. King stood, commemorating that historic event. Dr. King was speaking at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

The March on Washington in 1963 brought 250,000 people to the National Mall

Maps and predictions - 1984 vs BNW

A. Copy 5 pieces of info from the talk.

B. Then answer these four questions:

1. What's the message for such a short talk?
2. Is it only natural that the media focuses on certain regions and topics?
3. How on earth could news coverage ever become equaled out? 
4. Should there be quotas? 

C. Considering Catalan papers, are news always most 

     important there where they happen?

D. ROUNDING OFF: Future predictions:

Brave new World (1932)  Aldous Huxley

1984 (1948)  by G. Orwell

Not afraid of flying

REPORTING NEWS

  Lawn Chair Larry's aerial adventure. 

In 1982, Lawnchair Larry attached 45 weather balloons to his lawnchair, packed a picnic lunch, and cut the rope--but instead of drifting above Los Angeles landscape as planned, he was rocketed into LA air traffic lanes by the lift of the balloons!

Astoundingly, Larry survived the flight, inspiring the movies Up! 

     How to make a piece of news interesting

(1982, California) Larry Walters of Los Angeles is one of the few amateur fliers to have survived to tell the tale. 

• "I have fulfilled my dream," said Walters, (create a background for him). "I've proved ............. works."
• Larry's boyhood dream was to fly. But life turned otherwise (EXPAND: He joined the local AirClub .........  
• He ended up with a plan : a  weather balloon scheme using his garden chair, 
• ((EXPAND: He studied... he bought ........ lately he was seeing at the local AirClub .........  
• That day, carrying (EXPAND: food tools,  .........)
• Larry planned to  float to a height of .............. , so that he would enjoy ..............
• Unluckily, he didn't. Instead he reached the shocking height of .................   where he stayed for  ................
• By sheer luck he managed to ....................
•  and slowly descended. (EXPAND: how? what tricks...)
• Not worrying for his life, he was arrested by .(EXPAND: charges? how? ...)
• As he was going to the police car, he as interviewed by a reporter sent to cover the daring story ............
• Asked why he had done it,  Larry replied  ".........................................."

The Federal Aviation Administration was not amused. Safety Inspector Neal Savoy said, "We know he broke some part of the Federal Aviation Act, and as soon as we decide which part it is, a charge will be filed."

DarwinAwards

(1982, California) Larry Walters of Los Angeles is one of the few to contend for the Darwin Awards and live to tell the tale. "I have fulfilled my 20-year dream," said Walters, a former truck driver for a company that makes TV commercials. "I'm staying on the ground. I've proved the thing works."

Larry's boyhood dream was to fly. But fates conspired to keep him from his dream. He joined the Air Force, but his poor eyesight disqualified him from the job of pilot. After he was discharged from the military, he sat in his backyard watching jets fly overhead.

He hatched his weather balloon scheme while sitting outside in his "extremely comfortable" Sears lawnchair. He purchased 45 weather balloons from an Army-Navy surplus store, tied them to his tethered lawnchair (dubbed the Inspiration I) and filled the four-foot diameter balloons with helium. Then, armed with some sandwiches, Miller Lite, and a pellet gun, he strapped himself into his lawnchair. He figured he would shoot to pop a few of the many balloons when it was time to descend.

Larry planned to sever the anchor and lazily float to a height of about 30 feet above the backyard, where he would enjoy a few hours of flight before coming back down. But things didn't work out quite as Larry planned.

When his friends cut the cord anchoring the lawnchair to his Jeep, he did not float lazily up to 30 feet. Instead he streaked into the LA sky as if shot from a cannon, pulled by the lift of 45 helium balloons, holding 33 cubic feet of helium each.

He didn't level off at 100 feet, nor did he level off at 1000 feet. After climbing and climbing, he leveled off at 16,000 feet.

At that height he felt he couldn't risk shooting any of the balloons, lest he unbalance the load and really find himself in trouble. So he stayed there, drifting cold and frightened with his beer and sandwiches, for more than 14 hours. He crossed the primary approach corridor of LAX, where startled Trans World Airlines and Delta Airlines pilots radioed in reports of the strange sight.

Eventually he gathered the nerve to shoot a few balloons, and slowly descended. The hanging tethers tangled and caught in a power line, blacking out a Long Beach neighborhood for 20 minutes. Larry climbed to safety, where he was arrested by waiting members of the LAPD. As he was led away in handcuffs, a reporter dispatched to cover the daring rescue asked him why he had done it. Larry replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit around."

The Federal Aviation Administration was not amused. Safety Inspector Neal Savoy said, "We know he broke some part of the Federal Aviation Act, and as soon as we decide which part it is, a charge will be filed."

Britain's weirdest mobile phone insurance claims

The mind boggles: Mobile phone users have given some wacky excuses when claiming insurance on handset

By WILLIAM COOK

PUBLISHED in DAILYMAIL:  25 October 2012

It takes a lot to separate some people from their phones, but these excuses used to claim insurance on lost or broken handsets really make the mind boggle.  

Website mobileinsurance has listed some of the most far-fetched claims it has received in the last twelve months, including phones baked into cakes, flushed down loos, and lost inside cows.

They have investigated every single one and many of the most bizarre claims were accepted.

                                  TOP TEN CRAZIEST CLAIMS

1. 1.  Lost inside a cow
2. 2.  Baked into a cake
3. 3.  Flushed down a lavatory
4. 4.  Snatched by a seagull
5. 5.  Blasted by fireworks
6. 6.  Stolen by monkeys
7. 7.  Dropped from a tree
8. 8.  Thrown at a boyfriend
9. 9.  Worn out by 'intimate' use
10. 10. Dropped overboard

1. But a cow in Devon was probably as shocked as its owner when the farmer lost his iPhone up its rear end. He was using the torch to help him deliver a calf.
2. A couple on a cruise tried to photograph themselves re-enacting the 'I'm the king of the world' scene from the movie Titanic, but lost their phone over the side. 
3. A Bristol woman in her twenties shamelessly told insurers that she'd worn out the vibrate function on her BlackBerry Bold 9900 by using it as an 'adult toy'.
4. One Liverpool girl in her twenties found out her boyfriend had been cheating on her and threw her HTC Desire X at him, but it hit the wall. 
5. A lady from Nottingham said she'd baked her phone into her daughter's birthday cake. She claimed the Nokia 630i fell into the Victoria sponge mixture and had not survived the heat of the oven. 
6. Bovine blunder: A Devon farmer claimed to have lost his phone inside a cow while delivering a calf
7. Meanwhile a frugal fan wanted to go to a Blur concert in Hyde Park without paying for a ticket. He ended up dropping his new iPhone whilst trying to film it from a tree. 
8. A builder using the toilet lost his iPhone 4S after it fell out of his back pocket. He only realised after flushing.
9. One dog-walker claimed a bird had bagged her blower on Barry Island beach in Wales. 
10. A pyrotechnician suffered another workplace accident while putting on a show at the National Fireworks Championships in Plymouth. It was only as the smoke cleared that he realised he'd left his iPhone 3GS in the 'blast zone'.
    
    

    t he realised he'd left his iPhone 3GS in the 'blast zone

'More exotic animals also seem to take an interest in phones, as a man in his thirties found out in the monkey enclosure at Longleat Safari Park, Wiltshire..

John Lamerton, the insurer's managing director said: 'Judging by these claims, you really never know what you might need to claim for. My advice would be to just use the phone as a phone.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2222879/I-lost-phone-inside-cow--Britains-weirdest-mobile-phone-insurance-claims.html#ixzz2BxtqEFdC

ANSWER:

Only the pyrotechnician and the Blur fan had their claims rejected by the company.