Here is “Science for smart people” by Tom Naughton from Ancestry on Vimeo.

Here is the YouTube video – the one to watch.

Sure, Donahue was a boob, even when he was right (such as war), but just 30 years later, can you imagine any television talk show host bringing on an intellectual with the caliber of Milton Friedman? Compare Oprah or Sally Jesse Raphael. Donahue also interviewed Ayn Rand. In light of that, I have many fond memories of the Phil Donahue show. My Mom had his show on all the time, so I watched it, whenever possible, from the time I was about ten years old. I learned much from the debate/discussion on his show. In fact, I remember this particular Donahue show, back in the days of militia media attention, like it was yesterday.

Who are the Elders? They set the standards. They hand down the lore. They’re the oldest and wisest. By proceeding through the world each day with dignity and humanity, they show the young what it is that should be emulated. They’re the tribal chieftains. This role has probably existed since caveman days, because people need guidance and encouragement, they need to be heartened by examples of endurance. They need to be inspired.

…The new Elders will have to rescue America from the precipice. They’ll have to be mature, think of the collective, of the country as a whole.

Like all statists of the Old Guard, or its followers, she deplores the new media platforms.

“The bloggers are parasitical on the conventional media,” Posner wrote. “They copy the news and opinion generated by the conventional media, often at considerable expense, without picking up any of the tab. The degree of parasitism is striking in the case of those blogs that provide their readers with links to newspaper articles. The links enable the audience to read the articles without buying the newspaper.”

His solution is to make linking on the Internet illegal. As much as you want to laugh, this idea has been picking up some steam for a few years now. Here’s Posner’s unhinged post at the Becker-Posner blog. He laments the decline of pro-establishment, old-guard newspaper media, and essentially his aim is to protect the industry and insure its continuation, in spite of the fact that the market has made its choice by rejecting stale, state media organs in favor of online content. Posner adds:

I am pessimistic about a recovery by the newspapers. One reason is the current economic situation. A serious, protracted economic crisis can result in changes in consumer behavior that persist after the end of the crisis. A change in consumption, even in some sense involuntary, can be a learning experience. People make what they think will be merely temporary adjustments in their consumption behavior to reduce financial distress but may discover that they like elements of their new consumption pattern; and businesses too, which have reduced their newspaper (and other print-media) ad expenditures drastically. They may never go back.

Posner laments the modernization of media, but more so, he despises the freedom, spontaneity, and lack of barriers to entry on the Internet. The state hates that the Internet lacks information gatekeepers, thereby undermining its propaganda spread through the slew of state-regulated media outlets.