Friday, April 09, 2004
Gordon Lowe is a man I have known for ten years. He is the Stake Patriarch for the Edgemont Stake. He and his wife just celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. Gordon served in World War II as a fighter/bomber pilot. He is retired and lives with his wife in Provo, Utah. He enjoys fulfilling his church callings and doing family and church history.
I use to listen to the children’s programs when I was very young. For a while we didn’t have a radio but when we did we had favorite ones like Jack Armstrong and a few others. I didn’t take an interest in the news at that point. I was around twelve years old at this time. We listened to the crystal sets before the radio. We didn’t have any super heterodyne but that came in to our territory maybe around 1930. All I remember about the media then are those entertainment programs. I didn’t listen to the news. But later when I was college age, I listened a lot because we were getting into the beginnings of World War II. There were lot of excursions into Africa Ethiopia Mussolini and that was in the news.
In 1949 we got our first TV set. We watched a few things. We watched the news a little bit. There were the children’s programs we didn’t watch but our little children did. We had a TV set when I went to graduate school in Minnesota. I still have it downstairs I haven’t thrown it away. But it’s a big copper chasse. Chasse itself was a part of the communication. Electrical circuitry and that kind of entertained my wife and children while I was away at work and school. Sometimes we watched Jack Bennack mostly for entertainment. I don’t think we had much interest in the educational programs.
I couldn’t watch it too often because I was busy in graduate school. I would sometimes maybe watch it in the evenings.
When I was growing up we didn’t have access to radio or TV. Our children did of course. They watched Ms. Francis’s program in the morning which was an educational show. And that’s been useful to them.
The biggest news was the bombing of Pear Harbor. I remember I was in the car and had a car radio and I was driving. President Roosevelt was speaking and that was big news to us all. We then listened to a lot of what went on because those were big events and each new thing that happened in the war we were very sure to tune in to hear that, which is the same as what we do with our current situations.
While I was fighting in World War II the only form of communication with home was through V-mail. The government would reprint our letter and our family would receive that. It was a letter size reduced as a little paper and service men and women had that to mail their letters. It took a couple weeks probably for those letters to get back and forth.
We had in our unit public relations people and their job to take pictures and send those to the local papers back home with a little account of what the pictures meant and who was in it and what was going on. The PR people weren’t embedded in our unit because we were an air force unit. I flew as a pilot bomber. So our home base was never attacked we were isolated from everything. So we didn’t have people scurrying around from the press, but I’m sure they did in the infantry and other units. The PR people never interfered. They were groundlings; they were usually the butt of our jokes sometimes. We’d always kid about them not being able to fly and how they were afraid to fly. They were always males.
The media now perhaps gives a more biased report. Maybe you can’t call it reporting but rather editorializing compared to how the news was once reported. I have felt pretty comfortable listening to Walter Cronkite but it seems to me he’s taken a turn for the worse, but he’s still publishing. We would always listen to Ed Murrow for national and international affairs, because they seemed to report more of the facts than they were carping at whatever they wanted to shoot at. I don’t know if that’s a fair assessment or not but I think that I’d have to go with the criticism that we have a more liberal press now than there used to be. The liberal press makes me more suspicious of what’s being reported. I go to FOX news on TV to get the news. I don’t listen to CBS or NBC. Fox news claims that they are fair and balanced and they try to give both sides and they don’t follow really that closely I’m sure but the others well I listen to Tom Brokaw. But to know exactly what’s happening I’m never quite sure. And I think Fox news has done pretty well. People can call in and comment on both sides of the issue. The anchor, Sean Hannity, takes his position though he claims he takes both sides.
The most popular TV shows are the ones I never watch. I usually choose not to watch them as soon I see a little of it. I’m not interested in the entertainment that’s on TV. I think it’s too crude. In fact the commercials, I don’t even listen to commercials. I turn them off. The ones I do listen to are those that are entertaining. Some of them are better than the shows.
Everything that is on radio is in dispersed with commercial advertising as they are on TV. That’s just how they do it. But some of the commercials I think are crude also and kind of turns me off and plants a little seed that says don’t purchase any of this kind of stuff. Like Seven Up currently. From the Seven Up ads I have decided to buy no more of it.
I use the Internet chiefly for email and church and family history. I get some advertising. I don’t call it slamming because I actually agree to receive certain ones. Some like Bose and Serif I’m interested in their products so I accept them. I guess I could turn them off. We have bought some things on the Internet. Mostly I have bought books with Amazon books. We get some used books from them. But after you pay postage it costs just as much as if I bought them here. But Amazon is less of a hassle. I may not be able to find the book I need here in town, so it’s been useful in that respect. The Internet has also been useful with family members. We get email from Baghdad. My grandson is stationed in Baghdad and he sends us email every once in a while. He also telephones us once a week from there and keeps us up to date of what he knows.
I’ve accessed a number of Websites. It has been useful in getting information about products and so on. I’ve had several times where all of a sudden I come upon very pornographic material and I don’t have anything on my computer that stops those kinds of sites. There was a time when my internet was through BYU and there were certain things that I couldn’t reach and they would block them. But there definitely are things on the Internet that I think could be very damaging for children, I guess adults too. These things are not prohibited and I don’t know how far the FCC should go to prohibit them. I think it’s necessary to have regulations. I don’t know how far they should go though. I guess partly I’m with those who say, “If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.” But I think there are some things that should not be allowed. We certainly have some definition of obscenity and pornography. I guess they have to be regulated or it would become some common place and have a bad effect on people. It’s hard for FCC or any to establish what values we should conform to and establishing a certain set of basic standards that they ought to impose.
I use to listen to the children’s programs when I was very young. For a while we didn’t have a radio but when we did we had favorite ones like Jack Armstrong and a few others. I didn’t take an interest in the news at that point. I was around twelve years old at this time. We listened to the crystal sets before the radio. We didn’t have any super heterodyne but that came in to our territory maybe around 1930. All I remember about the media then are those entertainment programs. I didn’t listen to the news. But later when I was college age, I listened a lot because we were getting into the beginnings of World War II. There were lot of excursions into Africa Ethiopia Mussolini and that was in the news.
In 1949 we got our first TV set. We watched a few things. We watched the news a little bit. There were the children’s programs we didn’t watch but our little children did. We had a TV set when I went to graduate school in Minnesota. I still have it downstairs I haven’t thrown it away. But it’s a big copper chasse. Chasse itself was a part of the communication. Electrical circuitry and that kind of entertained my wife and children while I was away at work and school. Sometimes we watched Jack Bennack mostly for entertainment. I don’t think we had much interest in the educational programs.
I couldn’t watch it too often because I was busy in graduate school. I would sometimes maybe watch it in the evenings.
When I was growing up we didn’t have access to radio or TV. Our children did of course. They watched Ms. Francis’s program in the morning which was an educational show. And that’s been useful to them.
The biggest news was the bombing of Pear Harbor. I remember I was in the car and had a car radio and I was driving. President Roosevelt was speaking and that was big news to us all. We then listened to a lot of what went on because those were big events and each new thing that happened in the war we were very sure to tune in to hear that, which is the same as what we do with our current situations.
While I was fighting in World War II the only form of communication with home was through V-mail. The government would reprint our letter and our family would receive that. It was a letter size reduced as a little paper and service men and women had that to mail their letters. It took a couple weeks probably for those letters to get back and forth.
We had in our unit public relations people and their job to take pictures and send those to the local papers back home with a little account of what the pictures meant and who was in it and what was going on. The PR people weren’t embedded in our unit because we were an air force unit. I flew as a pilot bomber. So our home base was never attacked we were isolated from everything. So we didn’t have people scurrying around from the press, but I’m sure they did in the infantry and other units. The PR people never interfered. They were groundlings; they were usually the butt of our jokes sometimes. We’d always kid about them not being able to fly and how they were afraid to fly. They were always males.
The media now perhaps gives a more biased report. Maybe you can’t call it reporting but rather editorializing compared to how the news was once reported. I have felt pretty comfortable listening to Walter Cronkite but it seems to me he’s taken a turn for the worse, but he’s still publishing. We would always listen to Ed Murrow for national and international affairs, because they seemed to report more of the facts than they were carping at whatever they wanted to shoot at. I don’t know if that’s a fair assessment or not but I think that I’d have to go with the criticism that we have a more liberal press now than there used to be. The liberal press makes me more suspicious of what’s being reported. I go to FOX news on TV to get the news. I don’t listen to CBS or NBC. Fox news claims that they are fair and balanced and they try to give both sides and they don’t follow really that closely I’m sure but the others well I listen to Tom Brokaw. But to know exactly what’s happening I’m never quite sure. And I think Fox news has done pretty well. People can call in and comment on both sides of the issue. The anchor, Sean Hannity, takes his position though he claims he takes both sides.
The most popular TV shows are the ones I never watch. I usually choose not to watch them as soon I see a little of it. I’m not interested in the entertainment that’s on TV. I think it’s too crude. In fact the commercials, I don’t even listen to commercials. I turn them off. The ones I do listen to are those that are entertaining. Some of them are better than the shows.
Everything that is on radio is in dispersed with commercial advertising as they are on TV. That’s just how they do it. But some of the commercials I think are crude also and kind of turns me off and plants a little seed that says don’t purchase any of this kind of stuff. Like Seven Up currently. From the Seven Up ads I have decided to buy no more of it.
I use the Internet chiefly for email and church and family history. I get some advertising. I don’t call it slamming because I actually agree to receive certain ones. Some like Bose and Serif I’m interested in their products so I accept them. I guess I could turn them off. We have bought some things on the Internet. Mostly I have bought books with Amazon books. We get some used books from them. But after you pay postage it costs just as much as if I bought them here. But Amazon is less of a hassle. I may not be able to find the book I need here in town, so it’s been useful in that respect. The Internet has also been useful with family members. We get email from Baghdad. My grandson is stationed in Baghdad and he sends us email every once in a while. He also telephones us once a week from there and keeps us up to date of what he knows.
I’ve accessed a number of Websites. It has been useful in getting information about products and so on. I’ve had several times where all of a sudden I come upon very pornographic material and I don’t have anything on my computer that stops those kinds of sites. There was a time when my internet was through BYU and there were certain things that I couldn’t reach and they would block them. But there definitely are things on the Internet that I think could be very damaging for children, I guess adults too. These things are not prohibited and I don’t know how far the FCC should go to prohibit them. I think it’s necessary to have regulations. I don’t know how far they should go though. I guess partly I’m with those who say, “If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.” But I think there are some things that should not be allowed. We certainly have some definition of obscenity and pornography. I guess they have to be regulated or it would become some common place and have a bad effect on people. It’s hard for FCC or any to establish what values we should conform to and establishing a certain set of basic standards that they ought to impose.
