The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Another Great Movie

This is another good film from veteran director, John Ford. While dating to 1962, the film covered a major issue still being debated to this day, the role of force in law; more specifically, the need and use of guns to enforce the law. In the case of the movie, one of the main characters is a lawyer who was born, raised and educated in the eastern part of the country, who sees the written law as being most important, while the other main character is a western born and raised rancher, who is used to defending himself and others by force.

The basic story is about a highly respected U.S. senator, Ranse Stoddard, played by James Stewart, who returns to his western state* from Washington, D.C. for a funeral few people know anything about. He gives an interview to some newspaper men about his life and the life changing event from 25 years before; the killing of Liberty Valance, played by Lee Marvin, a brutal, gun slinging, whip brandishing leader of a band of outlaws, who controlled the town. This event propelled Stoddard to his eventual position in the U.S. Senate. Ranse and Liberty meet early on, as Valance and his outlaws rob the stage carrying Stoddard, and Valance severely beats the attorney, who is making his first trip out west. Stoddard vows to use the law to see Liberty Valance punished, but he finds the marshal, played by Andy Devine, is totally unable to enforce the law against such a ruthless man as Valance, as the marshal is merely a token of law who loves to eat. In fact, the marshal is TERRIFIED of Liberty Valance and his band. Only one man seems to have the respect of the outlaws, Tom Doniphon, played by John Wayne, a rancher who is a gunslinger in his own right. During the story, Doniphon is preparing to ask a waitress at the local restaurant, Hallie, played by Vera Miles, to marry him, but when Doniphon brings in the badly injured Stoddard, Hallie tends to the lawyer's wounds, and a connection begins to develop between the two.

As events proceed, the state is about to hold a convention dealing with statehood and the town's people select Stoddard as one of their two representatives to support the statehood effort. Many big ranchers don't want statehood and they hire Liberty Valance to intimidate the town and to force himself in as a convention delegate to vote against statehood. Valance humiliates Stoddard in a confrontation in the restaurant, and though he himself is then humiliated by Doniphon, the stage is set for some major confrontation between Valance and Stoddard, who eventually sees he needs to take up a gun to deal with Valance; that written law itself is not enough. While he practices firing a gun, and is also helped by Doniphon, Stoddard is woefully ill prepared to take on Liberty Valance in a gunfight.

Meanwhile, the publisher of the town's newspaper, Mr. Peabody, played by Edmund O'Brien, and the town's other pro-statehood delegate to the convention, publishes a front page story at great risk to himself about Liberty Valance's lawlessness, something Valance retaliates over, and this sets up the major confrontation between Valance and Stoddard. So as not to spoil the story for those who haven't seen the movie before, I will stop here, but this is a movie well worth seeing.

* The state's name is never given, nor is the state of his birth, only "back east."

Photo is from the 2009 Paramount Home Entertainment DVD

Word History:
Shoot-Like its close relative "shot," this word goes back to Indo European "skeud," with the notion "to project, to throw, to thrust outward, to move quickly." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "skeutanan," with the same general meanings. This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "sceotan," with the meaning, "hurl an object, cause an object to thrust outward, to move quickly," and also "to make a payment," likely from the notion of "handing over (projecting) money or goods to someone." This then became "shoten," before the modern form. The noun meaning, "a young plant," came from the verb in the 1400s, again with the notion of "thrusting up through the soil." The other Germanic languages have: German "schießen," Low German Saxon "scheten," Dutch "schieten," West Frisian "sjitte," Danish "skyde," Icelandic "skjóta," Norwegian "skyte" and Swedish "skjuta." Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish have all kept the "k" sound, while the other Germanic languages have all softened the beginning of the word.

The 'Go To Our Website' News Baloney

Television news, both local and national, as well as newspapers, seem unwilling to report the news in their respective formats anymore, or maybe it's about something else, like money. At times just the basics are given about a story, followed by, "For more information on this, go to our website." Going to some of the news websites can be frustrating, as you almost need to have a degree in computer technology to find a particular story, and even doing a search on their sites can leave you cussing and angry, as finding a particular story can be even more irritating than finding a piece of real personal mail amid the junk mail in your home or business mailbox. With all the things on their websites, including ads, you'd better have super fast internet speed, or you'll be cussing more about the time it takes just to get into their website, and then again if you click on any of the stories. It sure looks to me like this is just another way of getting money, as these news entities all derive revenue from ads placed on their websites. That's fine, but it just seems such a shoddy way to report the news, and the news now seems like a giant advertisement for their websites. A few years ago, an elderly lady said to me about the newspaper, "I pay to have the newspaper delivered to my home, and I start reading a story and they tell me to go to their website."

WORD HISTORY:
Site-This word, meaning essentially "location, position," and closely related to "situate" and "situation," has an unclear origin, but Latin had the verb "sinere," which meant "to set down, to place or put." This produced the Latin noun "situs" (from the participle of "sinere"), which meant "location, place." This gave French, a Latin based language, "site," which was carried to England by the Normans. The word didn't spread into general English usage until the latter part of the 1500s. The verb, meaning "to position/locate something to a place," came from the noun.

How We Got Our News

Since I never quite know where my writings will lead, I'll just say that this is the first of two or more articles about Americans and news. I actually started out thinking I could write one simple column about the subject, but as I went along....

Until the early 1980s, I’d guess that most Americans got their information about world and national events from television and newspapers. By “television,” I mean one of the three television networks: ABC, CBS, or NBC. For quite some time from the 1950s until about the early 1970s, NBC was often number one in the evening news ratings with “The Huntley/Brinkley Report,” which featured Chet Huntley and David Brinkley Monday through Friday evenings, initially from 6:15 until 6:30,* and a few years later from 6:30 until 7:00. To my recollection, Huntley was usually stationed in New York City and Brinkley was in Washington, D.C. Their show frequently ended with a humorous story, which then shifted to a smiling Huntley who would say “Good night, David,” and then go to a chuckling Brinkley who would say, “Good night, Chet, and good night for NBC News.” This ending became famous around the country. I grew up with these two, as our local station was then an NBC affiliate,** and I was really saddened when Chet Huntley finally retired, leaving just David Brinkley, who, a number of years later, jumped over to ABC and hosted “This Week With David Brinkley,” a Sunday morning info program that featured interviews with various political leaders and usually a lively discussion of the week’s events by the assembled news people, which often included George Will, the conservative newspaper columnist. CBS frequently challenged, and at times overtook, NBC in the evening news ratings with Walter Cronkite, who just recently passed away at age 92.

Then there was “Meet The Press,” a show that is even older than me…ah…I mean than other such programs, with its first broadcast dating back to 1947!!! It is something of a mini news conference, with members of “the press” (including television reporters) asking questions of a high profile political figure, or at times, figures.

Then we had “the Press;” that is, newspapers and magazines. They filled in gaps in the information television either ran by us too quickly, or chose to leave out, as newspapers gave a far wider view of the news. And to be quite honest, and if you’re a younger person, don’t be stunned by what I’m about to write here, but some folks did NOT have television back in the 1950s, so they relied upon newspapers. Even for stories we had already heard about from television, we could sit down and go at our own pace in checking out the information in the newspaper. Magazines often provided detailed stories to compliment the news, and while important, many were only available on a monthly basis, although the number of weekly publications grew as time passed (“Time,” “Newsweek,” “U.S. News & World Report” all come to mind.). The “New York Times” and the Washington papers were the big players in the national news business, and other newspapers all over the country were great sources of news on the local level, including covering things like city halls and county government. All newspapers offered their opinions (and still do) in the form of editorials. Further, local columnists contributed their viewpoints on a wide variety of issues: like explaining confusing ballot issues, or letting us know how a new zoning ordnance would affect our neighborhoods, or even sorting out the multitude of candidates for judicial offices. Many, if not most, newspapers picked up columns from the nationally known writers (“syndicated columnists”) on political matters, something that continues to this day. Not only this, but you could find out the visiting hours for your recently deceased neighbor, work the daily crossword puzzle, get a few chuckles from the comics, and even learn to play bridge, if you were so inclined (is anybody?). I shudder when I think about the demise of so many newspapers, large and small, today. (A word history is below the notes)

* How did we survive on less than 15 minutes of news (when time for commercials is deducted), or even later, less than 30 minutes of national and international news? Further, it should be noted that NBC and CBS were the two competitors, as ABC didn’t have an evening news program until some time in the 1960s.

** Initially this was before cable, and though we had another local station just 20 miles away (a CBS affiliate), reception was not always as clear as the NBC station, and you needed the good old “rabbit ears,” and preferably, a good antenna on the roof to try to get a clearer picture (You still needed the rabbit ears to even get the local station). If indeed you had an antenna, on clear evenings (seldom in the daytime, as there was too much interference) you might then even get a station from 50 to 75 miles away! With all of the technological changes that have come about over the decades, this stuff seems laughable today, but we struggled through, I guess because we didn’t know what we were missing.

WORD HISTORY:
Shrill-I've not been able to trace this word back to any Indo European root, and some linguists seem to believe it started as an "imitative" word; that is, our ancestors created a word that imitated the "high piercing sound" they heard. Since I can't find any other Indo European languages with a related word, they may well be correct. (See further below) Old English had "scralletan," a verb form which meant "to give off a loud sound, to sound loudly." It "seems" that this word "may" have given off "schrylle," by the 1300s, as the meaning was so similar, "piercing sound or high pitched voice." Very close English relatives, Low German and standard German, have "schrell" and "schrill," respectively, both with the same basic meaning as our word. This "may" indicate that the word arose in the West Germanic dialects of what is now northern Germany before some of those dialects left that area for Britain, as English and the German dialects are all West Germanic. Now, just to throw cold water on that theory, there is what certainly seems to be a related word, "skirl," which meant "to make piercing, loud sound(s). It is not commonly used, even in Britain, but it seems to have come into somewhat more common usage during the 1400s (that doesn't mean it wasn't around before then), and just from the context of what I've read, I take it that it was used more so in northern England and Scotland, where the Danes (North Germanic speakers) had an influence on English (I read that while archaic, it is still used in reference to bagpipes. Talk about "shrill!") The "sk" versus Old English "sc" (modern "sh") and the German dialects "sch," is one of the differences between North Germanic and West Germanic. Of course, too, the "r" sound is after the vowel in the North Germanic word. So now, what does this all mean? Well, "maybe" after the old Germanic dialects began to disperse, that this word developed in either the North dialects, or the West dialects, and that the other borrowed the word, as these groups weren't all that far apart in distance; northern Germany, Denmark, and Norway are all close. This may explain the apparent absence of the word from other Germanic languages.

News & Political Blogs

There is a difference between news and political blogs. I post links to some articles that are usually what I suppose we'd call "news;" that is, they have supposedly factual info, like statistics and such, and rather than my just repeating these things in my blog, I prefer that you have the ability to go right to the author's article and read the whole thing in context.

Blogs have changed much in the discourse on politics, since anyone can start a blog, and therefore, any and all points of view can have an advocate. The Internet has opened a whole new world of information to us, but on the downside, it has also opened us up to a great deal of misinformation. I'll split hairs here and say, there's a difference between misstating something by error, and misstating something with deliberate intent to smear someone.

Many of the popular blogs are written by professional media people, like columnists, and they certainly have many more resources at their disposal to gather info. My own political blogs, which is what I usually do, are generally a mixture of facts and opinion. When I'm not sure of particular facts, I usually write "to my recollection," or "as far as I know," or some such disclaimer.

Having said all of this, I just wonder why Sarah Palin, in one of her recent interviews, said that her record (presumably as governor) was distorted and it wouldn't have taken much to correct the record. Hmm, there are all sorts of venues to get your point of view across. As usual, Sarah didn't say exactly what it was she wanted to have corrected. From what I saw and heard, the interviewer missed the boat, as the next question should have been, "For instance, what is it that you feel was said against your record that you want to correct?" This was THE perfect place for Sarah Palin to tell us what she wants us to know, but she didn't do it. Maybe she needs a blog.