In the four and a half hours of ceaseless spectacle that was Super Bowl XLVII - even the Roman numerals are excessive - there were only two minutes that made you stop and truly listen.
They were courtesy of Paul Harvey, the late, great radio broadcaster. Chrysler had the inspired idea to make two minutes of his speech at a 1978 Future Farmers of America convention into the soundtrack for an ad for the Ram truck while affecting still photos of American farm life scrolled on the screen.
The spot stuck out for thoroughly how un-Super Bowl it was. It's a wonder that CBS didn't refuse to air it on grounds that it wasn't appropriate for the occasion. It was simple. It was quiet. It was thoughtful. It was eloquent. It was everything that our celebrity-soaked pop culture, which dominates Super Bowl Sunday almost as much as football does, is not.
All the fantastic glitz and sometimes hilarious vulgarity that define the events around the Super Bowl - the halftime shows and the ads - can't make up for a desperate poverty of expression. No one has anything to say and, in any case, wouldn't know how to say it. Not Paul Harvey. His speech is a little gem of literary craftsmanship. It shows that words still retain the power to move us, even in a relentlessly visual age driven from distraction to distraction.
Harvey picks up the story of creation: "And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, 'I need a caretaker' - so God made a farmer." It goes on to describe characteristics of the dutiful farmer, punctuating each riff with the same kicker: "God said, 'I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk the cows, work all day in the field, milks cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board' - so God made a farmer."
In its pacing and its imagery, the speech is a kind of prose-poem. Delivered by Harvey, who could make a pitch for laundry detergent sound like a passage from the King James Bible, it packs great rhetorical force. Listening to it can make someone who never would want to touch cows, especially before dawn, wonder why he didn't have the good fortune to have to milk them twice a day. In short, it is a memorably compelling performance, and without bells or whistles, let alone staging so elaborate it might challenge the logisticians who pulled off the invasion of Normandy.
That was left for Beyonce. Someday a cultural historian will write the definitive history of the Super Bowl halftime and how it morphed from a showcase for the likes of the Grambling State University marching band to a platform for gyrating pop stars. (Michael Jackson started the trend in 1993.) Beyonce dressed like she was headed for a shift at the local gentlemen's club, and put on a show that was an all-out assault on the senses. She was stunning and athletic, as well as tasteless and unedifying.
The Harvey ad was schmaltzy rustic romanticism, to be sure, but it celebrated something worthy. It was uplifting rather than degrading. It spoke of selflessness and virtue in moving terms.
The farmer is patient. He is willing "to sit up all night with a newborn colt, and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.'" He is ingenious. He can "shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire." He is hard-working. He "will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from 'tractor back,' will put in another 72 hours." He is a family man. He bales "a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing."
Harvey's speech has such resonance because what he describes aren't agrarian qualities so much as stereotypically American qualities. They represent what we want ourselves to be like - even if God didn't make us farmers.
I hate dog movies. In dog movies, the good, loyal, lovable dog always dies at the end and I end up sitting there in the dark with big tears streaming down my cheeks.
I’ve not kept it a secret that I find people who dress their dogs in clothes to be, to put it nicely, somewhat more than just eccentric. And many friendly, helpful readers out there have not kept it a secret that they really wish I would not express my views about dogs dressed as humans.
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
It sounds like the plot from a dystopian libertarian novel. The word “patriot” and the phrase “educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights” triggered heightened scrutiny from the most intrusive agency in the federal government.
The action at the bird feeder has been spectacular lately: Cardinals, finches, songbirds in impressive variety crowding around all day long in search of sustenance. It is truly gratifying …
Everyone presumes that Sen. Chuck Schumer, the media-hungry Democrat from New York, wants to be the next Senate majority leader. His performance in the negotiations over the Gang of Eight immigration plan should bolster his case for an eventual promotion.
Photos: Aftermath of massive tornado in Moore
Storm victims were pulled from the rubble and residents began surveying the damage late Monday and early Tuesday in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, where a powerful tornado destroyed entire neighborhoods and left dozens dead.
Photos: Aftermath of massive tornado in Moore
Storm victims were pulled from the rubble and residents began surveying the damage late Monday and early Tuesday in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, where a powerful tornado destroyed entire neighborhoods and left dozens dead.
Photos: Aftermath of massive tornado in Moore
Storm victims were pulled from the rubble and residents began surveying the damage late Monday and early Tuesday in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, where a powerful tornado destroyed entire neighborhoods and left dozens dead.
Commentary
Discussion
Paul Harvey's triumph
By Rich Lowry CNHI
In the four and a half hours of ceaseless spectacle that was Super Bowl XLVII - even the Roman numerals are excessive - there were only two minutes that made you stop and truly listen.
They were courtesy of Paul Harvey, the late, great radio broadcaster. Chrysler had the inspired idea to make two minutes of his speech at a 1978 Future Farmers of America convention into the soundtrack for an ad for the Ram truck while affecting still photos of American farm life scrolled on the screen.
The spot stuck out for thoroughly how un-Super Bowl it was. It's a wonder that CBS didn't refuse to air it on grounds that it wasn't appropriate for the occasion. It was simple. It was quiet. It was thoughtful. It was eloquent. It was everything that our celebrity-soaked pop culture, which dominates Super Bowl Sunday almost as much as football does, is not.
All the fantastic glitz and sometimes hilarious vulgarity that define the events around the Super Bowl - the halftime shows and the ads - can't make up for a desperate poverty of expression. No one has anything to say and, in any case, wouldn't know how to say it. Not Paul Harvey. His speech is a little gem of literary craftsmanship. It shows that words still retain the power to move us, even in a relentlessly visual age driven from distraction to distraction.
Harvey picks up the story of creation: "And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, 'I need a caretaker' - so God made a farmer." It goes on to describe characteristics of the dutiful farmer, punctuating each riff with the same kicker: "God said, 'I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk the cows, work all day in the field, milks cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board' - so God made a farmer."
In its pacing and its imagery, the speech is a kind of prose-poem. Delivered by Harvey, who could make a pitch for laundry detergent sound like a passage from the King James Bible, it packs great rhetorical force. Listening to it can make someone who never would want to touch cows, especially before dawn, wonder why he didn't have the good fortune to have to milk them twice a day. In short, it is a memorably compelling performance, and without bells or whistles, let alone staging so elaborate it might challenge the logisticians who pulled off the invasion of Normandy.
That was left for Beyonce. Someday a cultural historian will write the definitive history of the Super Bowl halftime and how it morphed from a showcase for the likes of the Grambling State University marching band to a platform for gyrating pop stars. (Michael Jackson started the trend in 1993.) Beyonce dressed like she was headed for a shift at the local gentlemen's club, and put on a show that was an all-out assault on the senses. She was stunning and athletic, as well as tasteless and unedifying.
The Harvey ad was schmaltzy rustic romanticism, to be sure, but it celebrated something worthy. It was uplifting rather than degrading. It spoke of selflessness and virtue in moving terms.
The farmer is patient. He is willing "to sit up all night with a newborn colt, and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.'" He is ingenious. He can "shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire." He is hard-working. He "will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from 'tractor back,' will put in another 72 hours." He is a family man. He bales "a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing."
Harvey's speech has such resonance because what he describes aren't agrarian qualities so much as stereotypically American qualities. They represent what we want ourselves to be like - even if God didn't make us farmers.
(c) 2013 by King Features Syndicate
I hate dog movies. In dog movies, the good, loyal, lovable dog always dies at the end and I end up sitting there in the dark with big tears streaming down my cheeks.
May 21, 2013
Mr. President, the buck stops with you.
President Truman set that standard, with these very words posted on a sign on his Oval Office desk.
But now, with over a thousand days left in this second Obama administration, we find a Nixonian stench emerging from the “W. House.”
May 21, 2013
Rarely has the White House briefing room so resembled the main ballroom at a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference.
May 21, 2013
I’ve not kept it a secret that I find people who dress their dogs in clothes to be, to put it nicely, somewhat more than just eccentric. And many friendly, helpful readers out there have not kept it a secret that they really wish I would not express my views about dogs dressed as humans.
May 17, 2013
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
May 17, 2013
The federal government recently announced new regulations for buying fast food.
May 17, 2013
It sounds like the plot from a dystopian libertarian novel. The word “patriot” and the phrase “educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights” triggered heightened scrutiny from the most intrusive agency in the federal government.
May 17, 2013
The action at the bird feeder has been spectacular lately: Cardinals, finches, songbirds in impressive variety crowding around all day long in search of sustenance. It is truly gratifying …
For my neighbor.
That’s what it’s like at his feeder.
May 14, 2013
On April 27, Dr. Jeff Butts demonstrated a rare form of servant leadership as he participated in the Go Love Indy westside service project.
May 13, 2013
Everyone presumes that Sen. Chuck Schumer, the media-hungry Democrat from New York, wants to be the next Senate majority leader. His performance in the negotiations over the Gang of Eight immigration plan should bolster his case for an eventual promotion.
May 13, 2013
Follow me on Twitter
Will you be attending this year's Indy 500?
Tires
Telecommunications
Beauty Salons
Government
May 21, 2013
Complete Report:
Part I: Are We Prepared? | Part II: Disaster Dollars
Part III: Lessons Learned | Part IV: Warning Signs
Part V: The Big One
May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013
Complete Report:
Part I: Are We Prepared? | Part II: Disaster Dollars
Part III: Lessons Learned | Part IV: Warning Signs
Part V: The Big One
Restaurants in avon
Tires in avon
Telecommunications in avon
Pizza Restaurants in avon
Beauty Salons in avon
Government in avon
Click for More
Powered by Local.com
Site Map
© 2013 Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. · CNHI Classified Advertising Network · CNHI News Service
Associated Press content © 2013. All rights reserved. AP content may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Our site is powered by Zope. Some parts of our site may require you to download the Flash Player Plugin.
Privacy Policy | AP News Registry privacy policy
Terms and Conditions
Advertiser Index
Hendricks County Flyer, Avon, IN 8109 Kingston St., Suite 500 Avon, IN 46123