ALL ABOUT DR. BEN CARSON

Last week was a whirlwind for Dr. Benjamin Carson in which he catapulted himself into the national discussion about some of the important issues of the day.  He may have also laid the foundations for a future career in politics. 

It started on February 7th at the 61st Annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C.  With President Barack Obama sitting just feet away, Dr. Carson stood up for conservative principles, discussing the national debt, political correctness, education and, yes, health care. The video of the speech immediately went viral.  All you have to do is watch it to understand why it has become such a hit.



While Obama, the grand master of class warfare, sat and listened, Dr. Carson delivered this statement which goes directly to the heart of the matter:

"What we need to do is come up with something simple. And when I pick up my Bible, you know what I see? I see the fairest individual in the universe, God, and he's given us a system. It's called a tithe.

"We don't necessarily have to do 10% but it's the principle. He didn't say if your crops fail, don't give me any tithe or if you have a bumper crop, give me triple tithe. So there must be something inherently fair about proportionality. You make $10 billion, you put in a billion. You make $10 you put in one. Of course you've got to get rid of the loopholes. Some people say, 'Well that's not fair because it doesn't hurt the guy who made $10 billion as much as the guy who made 10.' Where does it say you've got to hurt the guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot. We don't need to hurt him. It's that kind of thinking that has resulted in 602 banks in the Cayman Islands. That money needs to be back here building our infrastructure and creating jobs."

My suggestion is to watch the video and focus on Dr. Carson.  Then watch it again and focus on Obama as he's being forced to listen to this gentle but devastating critique of the Left's failed ideologies.  The reason that MSNBC types went ballistic over this speech is not really because Dr. Carson brought politics into the prayer breakfast but because he did it with sophistication and absolute clarity.

The following evening Dr. Carson appeared on Hannity and provided additional insight.

    

That same day, the Wall Street Journal came out with an article titled "Ben Carson For President."  

Last Wednesday Politico ran an article written by Rich Lowry titled "Ben Carson vs. Obama."  Lowry wrote:

…Carson has a very traditional American attitude toward success. He celebrates it unabashedly and believes in the gospel of self-reliance. Don’t become dependent on anyone else. Don’t consider yourself a victim. Don’t begrudge others their success. Get an education; work hard; and thank God every day you were born in the greatest country in the world.

Carson’s is a voice of hope and aspiration but also of rigor and of standards. He spent a long part of his speech decrying the decline of American education.

From Billy Hallowell at The Blaze: 

Dr. Carson is a Famous Pediatric Surgeon

Carson, 61, is the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital (he obtained this lead position at the age of 33). His career focus is on traumatic brain injury and brain and spinal cord tumors, among dire health issues.

According to his biography, he has written over 100 publications about neurosurgery and he has penned numerous books. On top of that, the renowned doctor has received more than 50 honorary doctorate degrees and President George W. Bush gave him the Presidential Medal of Honor (see other honors over at Bio.com). Read more about Carson’s professional background here.

He's a Pioneer in the Separation of Conjoined Twins

Among his many talents, Carson has made bold attempts to separate conjoined twins. His first surgery in 1987 ended up being a success, as he was able to separate two 7-month-old twins from Germany. While Patrick and Benjamin Binder walked away with some brain damage from the procedure, it was an encouraging move in the right direction for an extremely-dangerous procedure. Carson’s surgery paved the way for other attempts to help ease the pain and horror craniopagus (joined at the head) twins experience.

Bio.com has more about other similar surgeries that the doctor conducted over the years:

In 1994, Carson and his team went to South Africa to separate the Makwaeba twins. The operation was unsuccessful, as both girls died from complications of the surgery. Carson was devastated, but vowed to press on, as he knew such procedures could be successful. In 1997, Carson and team went to Zambia in South Central Africa to separate infant boys Luka and Joseph Banda. This operation was especially difficult because the boys were joined at the tops of their heads, making this the first time a surgery of this type had been performed. After a 28-hour operation, both boys survived and neither suffered brain damage.

It was these operations that brought a plethora of media attention to Carson, paving the way for popularity and a public profile that continues to expand in scope.

Carson's Early Life Wasn't Easy

Judging from his career, one would never assume that the doctor’s early years were difficult. However, his story truly is a rags to riches tale, as his mother was instrumental in teaching him the values needed to succeed. He shared many of these struggles during Thursday’s address. He was raised by a single mom (named Sonya) who devoted herself to hard work in an effort to support her two children. Despite only having a third-grade education, she instilled educational values that forever resonated with her son.

Bio.com provides some snapshots into his early life:

There were occasions when [Sonya's] boys wouldn’t see her for days at a time, because she would go to work at 5:00 AM and come home around 11:00 PM, going from one job to the next. She was frugal with the family’s finances, cleaning and patching clothes from the Goodwill in order to dress the boys. The family would also go to local farmers and offer to pick corn or other vegetables in exchange for a portion of the yield. She would then can the produce for the kids’ meals. Her actions, and the way she managed the family, proved to be a tremendous influence on Ben and [his brother]. [...]

Determined to turn her sons’ [bad grades] around, Sonya limited their TV time to just a few select programs and refused to let them go outside to play until they’d finished their homework. She was criticized for this by her friends, who said her boys would grow up to hate her. But she was determined that her sons would have greater opportunities than she did. She required them to read two library books a week and give her written reports, even though with her poor education she could barely read them. She would take the papers and review them, scanning over the words and turning pages. Then she would place a checkmark at the top of the page showing her approval.

Considering his background, his push for hard work and responsibility was notable during yesterday’s prayer breakfast speech. While many utter such sentiments without experience to accompany them, Carson’s life shows that devotion to education really can pave the way to prosperity.

There Was a Movie Made About His Life

Carson’s life and work are so coveted, in fact, that a feature film was made about the doctor. “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story” was a made-for-television film that came out in 2009. A synopsis provides more information about the movie, which has relatively high ratings on IMDB:

From Amazon.com: Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. (Actor in a Supporting Role, Jerry Maguire, 1996) stars in this true story about a renowned brain surgeon who overcame obstacles to change the course of medicine forever. Young Ben Carson didn’t have much of a chance. Growing up in a broken home amongst poverty and prejudice, his grades suffered and his temper flared. And yet, his mother never lost her faith in him. Insisting he follow the opportunities she never had, she helped to grow his imagination, intelligence and, most importantly, his belief in himself. That faith would be his gift – the thing that would drive him to follow his dream of becoming one of the world’s leading neurosurgeons.

Here’s the trailer:

He Runs a Non-Profit Aimed at Helping Young Scholars 

Education is clearly important to Carson. And considering his own path to success, his focus upon the need for a more knowledgeable and prepared populace is understandable. With his wife, Candy, he founded the Carson Scholars Fund in 1994, an organization devoted to helping solve America’s education crisis.

Recognizing that the public education system is in crisis, the Carsons decided to help motivate young people to take interest in learning at an early age. Here’s a description of what the Carson Scholars Fund does:

Carson Scholarships are awarded to students in grades 4-11 who exemplify academic excellence and humanitarian qualities. Winners receive a $1,000 scholarship to be invested toward their college education, along with a recognition package, and an invitation to attend an awards banquet. Carson Scholars become role models and leaders at their schools.

You can find out more about the organization on its official web site.

Carson Is a Cancer Survivor 

Carson helps children who are battling brain cancer, but he is also a prostate cancer survivor. In 2002, while in the midst of his bustling medical career, the doctor found out that he had an aggressive form of the disease. He found out this shocking news while in the middle of performing a surgery on a child.

In an interview with “Good Morning America,” Carson later described putting the news out of his mind so that he could successfully finish the procedure. However, rather than focusing exclusively on himself in that terrible moment, he selflessly thought about the many patients he would be unable to help if the disease took his life.

“I have the ability to put things out of my mind, so I just put it out of my mind and finished the operation,” he said. “But certainly, you know, that evening it did weigh heavily upon me as I began to realize that wow, I have cancer. The thing that bothered me was the fact that I would be leaving so many people behind.”

Inevitably, he overcame the disease and is now healthy.

He's Also a Devout Christian

In case you didn’t know, Carson is a Christian. Jesus Christ was a fixture in his National Prayer Breakfast speech (as was the Bible). He’s a Seventh-Day Adventist who believes that the United States has been uniquely blessed by God. In addition to caring deeply about his patients’ physical health, he has expressed a deep devotion to addressing the nation’s spiritual and political issues — something he did head-on during yesterday’s speech.

The Christian Broadcasting Network once profiled Carson, noting that his views about America are rooted in its history and founding:

Dr. Carson believes as a nation, America has been favored by God because we have acknowledged Him. The forefathers of our nation were clearly guided by Sovereign leadership when they knelt and prayed for wisdom at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Together they stood up and assembled a seventeen page document known as the Constitution of the United States of America. Our nation was founded on principles revealed to us in the Bible by a righteous and just God. These teachings began in the home and continued at school. In early public schools reading from the Bible was not only common, it was expected.

In order for America to continue leading the world, Carson believes that it’s important to apply God’s standards to individuals’ lives. Rather than embracing partisan solutions, CBN notes that he wants the nation to “stop being political and start being logical” in addressing key issues.

And from Daniel Foster at National Review:

He has an IMDB page.

Carson has achieved worldwide recognition as a bold pioneer in the surgical separation of conjoined twins. His path-breaking work also led to a Hollywood stint. In 2003, a mutual friend put Dr. Carson in touch with the Farrelly Brothers, the comedy-directing duo behind There’s Something about Mary. The Farrellys wanted Carson to play himself in their new project Stuck on You, starring Greg Kinnear and Matt Damon as conjoined twins. Carson agreed, but on the condition that the Farrellys promised to host the premiere in Baltimore and use it to raise funds for his educational foundations. The directors agreed. Carson, along with his wife and two children, had cameos in the movie, and the Baltimore premiere raised over $400,000.

He almost killed his friend over a radio-station selection.

As a child, Carson earned himself a reputation for having a violent temper. How violent? As a seventh-grader, he swung at a much bigger boy with a combination lock in his hand, after the boy had tormented Carson for being “dumb.” The blow tore a three-inch gash in the boy’s head. A year later, after another boy hit Carson with a glancing blow from a small rock, Carson grabbed a much bigger rock and winged it at the boy’s face, destroying his glasses and breaking his nose. In the ninth grade came the worst incident of all. While arguing with his friend Bob over which station to listen to on a transistor radio, the 15-year-old Carson took a camping knife from his back pocket and lunged toward Bob, miraculously snapping the blade in half on the boy’s belt buckle.

“In general I was a good kid,” Carson wrote in his autobiography. “It usually took a lot to make me mad. But once I reached the boiling point, I lost all rational control. Totally without thinking, when my anger was aroused, I grabbed the nearest brick, rock, or stick to bash someone. It was as if I had no conscious will in the matter.”

Carson was so terrified by the near-stabbing that he ran home and locked himself in the bathroom and tearfully read his Bible and prayed for God to take his temper from him. After a few hours, Carson says, a feeling of “lightness” came over him and he found himself a changed person. He never had a problem with his temper again.

He was a teenage shrink.

Carson knew he wanted to be a doctor from the age of eight. But it was psychiatry, not brain surgery, that was his first love. His older brother Curtis had scrimped and saved to buy young Bennie a subscription to Psychology Today for his 13th birthday. Carson struggled with the articles but was enthralled, and read every book on the field he could get his hands on. All the headshrinkers on TV seemed so worldly and smart, and, as Carson puts it, he “figured that with so many crazy people living in the United States, psychiatrists must make a good living.” The teenage Carson grew so confident in his budding knowledge of psychology that he fancied himself Kid Analyst to schoolmates and friends. He’d ask them “What’s troubling you today?” and “Do you want to talk about it?” and many in his cohort confided their hopes and fears to him.

He was a medal-winning marksman and a dining companion of General William Westmoreland.

Despite having joined high-school ROTC a semester late, Carson was a superstar cadet, racking up medals in drill and riflery. He flew through the ranks, moving from private to second lieutenant in a year and change and then so thoroughly acing his field-grade exams (he set a new record) that he leap-frogged straight to lieutenant colonel, and then became one of three full-bird colonels in all of Detroit. In recognition of his achievement, a 17-year-old Carson was given the opportunity to dine with General William Westmoreland, the top U.S. commander in Vietnam, and was offered a full scholarship to West Point.

Obama isn’t the first president he’s rubbed elbows with.

This was Carson’s second appearance at a National Prayer Breakfast. He first addressed the gathering in 1997, when it was President Bill Clinton seated at his right (he got in a few un-PC digs there as well, bashing touchy-feely modern parenting and using the same U.S./Rome comparison). In 2008, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush, who called Carson “a scholar, a healer, and a leader.” He is also a recipient of the Horatio Alger Award, which is given to extraordinary self-made Americans. Other recipients include Herman Cain, Bob Dole, and Phil Gramm, along with Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Herbert Hoover, and Ronald Reagan. Perhaps there is a trend here.

Last Friday, Dr. Carson joined Twitter.

Today I've officially joined the twitterverse.
— Dr. Ben Carson (@RealBenCarson) February 15, 2013

  
Finally, here is another video of Dr. Carson being interviewed in 2010.  This one deals more with his medical career but on the issue of our health care system he mentions the same ideas that he brought up at the prayer breakfast.  Like the others, it is well worth the time to listen to the entire interview.

 
 

BILL WHITTLE'S VIRTUAL PRESIDENCY

Bill Whittle gave a speech shortly after the election last November that I found incredibly inspiring.  During the hour-long talk he mentioned that he was planning a new project for 2013 and beyond in which he would be the Virtual President.  It sounded like a great idea and now it has become a virtual reality.  

He has already given his virtual inauguration speech.  Now that we've had Obama's SOTU address to Congress I'm sure that there'll be a virtual SOTU coming soon.  In the meantime, here is the virtual inauguration speech by V-POTUS Bill Whittle.  As always, it is remarkably inspiring and a powerful statement of Conservative principles.

Be sure and check out the website, sign up for e-mail alerts, etc.  Trust me, it's worth it.

ST. VALENTINE'S DAY IN THE AGE OF OBAMA

FEAR OF THE #OBAMAQUESTER

Via The Hill:

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) urged her colleagues to reach a compromise to prevent spending cuts through sequestration, arguing that government programs are already as lean as they can be.

"We're at the bone almost, and sequester, that is across-the-board cuts, will literally destroy us and put us in a recession," she said on the House floor Wednesday.

She called on Republicans to meet Democrats at the negotiating table and rejected the idea that President Obama delivered a partisan State of the Union address Tuesday night.

"May I ask them to take some cotton out of their ears, because in actuality, the president extended his hands of friendship," she said. "I don't want to hear the fact that the president is divisive. The president is leading, and he's led well."

Jackson Lee suggested lawmakers should take inspiration from President Lincoln’s leadership during the Civil War.

"I stand here as a freed slave because this Congress came together. Are we going to be able to do it today to free America?"

The president, Democrats and the media will still blame Republicans if the sequester goes into effect but the truth is out now. Bob Woodward informed everyone that the sequester was Team Obama's idea and Obama’s propagandist, Jay Carney, was forced by Bret Baier into admitting it on Tuesday.

BRET BAIER: Fair to say, but it was the president’s idea… You concede that point, right?

JAY CARNEY: What I will concede is that we were looking and the Republicans were looking for a trigger around which to build the mechanism to get us out of default possibility and the sequester was one of the ideas put forward, yes, by the president’s team. 

The Dems would like to forget that this was Obama’s idea all along.  Their game has always been to manufacture situations that would enable them to demonize the GOP. In fact, six months ago Obama accused Republicans of “trying to wriggle out” of their sequester agreement:

If the Republicans were "wriggling" then, they aren't now.  Politico reported yesterday morning that the GOP has reached a consensus that the sequester needs to take place as an opening round of spending reductions, especially in the absence of any action from Senate Democrats:

Top congressional Republicans predicted Wednesday that the sequester will hit at the end of the month – the latest chapter in the series of budget battles that have stymied Washington in the last few years.

Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, a member of Senate Republican leadership, said “I think the sequester’s gonna happen” and said the Pentagon needs more discretion to target the budget cuts so they don’t hit defense programs indiscriminately.

“The right thing to do is reduce spending,” Blunt said at POLITICO’s post-State of the Union event. “The wrong way to do it is with across-the-board cuts.”

And Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, said at POLITICO’s event that there is a “greater chance that they’ll be implemented than not at this point.” He argued that the GOP-led House has been out front on the sequester conundrum, noting that it twice passed legislation in the last Congress to avert the budget cuts.

“Obviously nothing was done” by the Senate and the White House, Lankford said. “We’re in the same boat now.”

Yesterday Paul Ryan made similar points on CBS, telling Charlie Rose that while Barack Obama complained about his own budget demand now that it’s about to hit, he hasn’t offered any alternatives:

In an appearance on "CBS This Morning" Wednesday, the chairman of the House Budget Committee condemned what he calls economic "brinksmanship" practiced by the president and Democrats in the Senate.

Ryan said the sequester, which would go into effect next month, is likely, "because the president hasn't put a budget on the table. The Senate hasn't passed a budget in four years ... Don't forget that it's the president who first proposed the sequester and it's the president who designed the sequester as it is now designed."

"We have acted in the House. The president has not. The Senate has not and therefore ... I think it's going to happen."

The sequester, agreed upon by lawmakers last summer as part of the solution to a bitter fight over the debt ceiling, was designed to be so drastic that both sides would be forced to reach an alternate agreement on deficit reduction. So far, that hasn't happened.

I say that the House GOP should continue to stand firm and call Obama's very cynical bluff.  They've made efforts to address the situation.  Obama and the Democrats have not, except to tell lies and rely on the Establishment Media to crank up the propaganda machine.  It's a fact that the original "really bad idea" was put forward by the White House.  TIME TO MAKE A STAND!

     

OBAMA STATE DEPT. ANNOUNCES TAXPAYER-FUNDED "HIP HOP GROUP AUDIOPHARMACY" TOUR IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

Last Sunday Nancy Pelosi scoffed at the idea that our government has a spending problem.  Well, as long as our tax dollars are being used to fund this kind of nonsense I'd say she's dead wrong about that.

Via the Weekly Standard:

This morning, the State Department announced, "Hip Hop Group Audiopharmacy to Tour Southeast Asia and the Pacific with American Music Abroad."

"The U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs is pleased to announce that San Francisco-based hip hop group Audiopharmacy will tour Southeast Asia and the Pacific as part of the American Music Abroad program," the State Department announced.

"With roots in hip hop, Audiopharmacy fuses live instrumentation and global musical styles, making for an eclectic and evolving sound.

"The quartet will tour Indonesia (February 14-26), Fiji (February 27-March 4), New Zealand (March 5-7), Samoa (March 8-11) and the Solomon Islands (March 12-16).

Keep reading…

The short biographies of the quartet are hilarious.  

TEAO (producer/guitar/turntablist) hails from San Francisco, California.  As a DJ/music producer and multi-instrumentalist, he founded an international art/music collective in 2002 called Audiopharmacy Prescriptions to raise a consciousness and global awareness of humanity’s ability to build prosperous and harmonious communities through art and music.

RAS K’DEE (vocals/keyboard) is a Native California (Pomo)/African musician, community educator, and renowned lyricist, producer, & lead vocalist/keyboardist for San Francisco-based live world hip-hop ensemble, Audiopharmacy. For K’dee, his musical inspiration is deeply rooted from his experience as a Pomo/African artist.  Translating artistically through hip-hop rhymes and soulful melodies, K’dee invokes the songs and dances from traditional ceremonies of his native people, and tells stories of resistance, healing, community & empowerment that can be understood and felt universally by all people.

KWOME GUSTAVE (drums) was born into a family where music was as essential to life as food, water, air, and spirituality.  Ras Kwome learned early that his destiny was to continue the musical work that his father, Ras Ibeshee, began with one of the most treasured bands from the US Virgin Islands – The Zioneers.   Playing drums at an early age, he worked hard to emulate Carlton Barret – the drummer for Bob Marley & the Wailers.  After a few years, Ras Kwome’s skills became apparent to his father, who then groomed him to become a future member of their band.

And my personal favorite:

KEEPYAHJOY (bass/bucket drums) born Christopher Romanelli, and raised in New York, he now lives in San Francisco.  He is known in the streets from San Francisco to Tokyo as “The Bucketman,” whose inspiring and infectious rhythms can have anyone within earshot to break out in dance.  Keepyahjoy is an original member of Audiopharmacy and has toured the world with the band since 2004.  

If I didn't know any better, I'd swear this was like something out of a Saturday Night Live sketch.  Which reminds me... 

SO GOD MADE A LIBERAL

Courtesy of SooperMexican:

THE SPEECH: A TIME FOR CHOOSING

Nancy and Ronald Reagan in 1964, the year he delivered "The Speech"

I didn't get a chance to do this yesterday on Reagan's birthday but I can hardly let it go by without honoring it.  Twitchy has a collection of tweets celebrating the day.  This video was tweeted and retweeted yesterday and for good reason.  It's the entire televised speech Reagan gave on October 27, 1964 on behalf of the Goldwater campaign.  It was titled "A Time For Choosing" and now remembered simply as "The Speech."  The name of the program was "A Rendezvous With Destiny."  The speech raised $1 million for Goldwater's campaign and is considered the event that launched Reagan's political career.

Among other things, it is remarkable (and frightening) how eerily similar the problems he addressed on that day are to the problems we face on this day, except that today they are even more acute.  And the rhetoric of the liberals is also quite familiar to us.  During the speech, Reagan uttered this famous quote:

Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we're always "against" things -- we're never "for" anything.

Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

You can read the complete transcript of the speech here.  I would strongly suggest that you take the time to listen to the entire speech and also read the transcript.  It is a magnificent example of why Reagan was known as the "Great Communicator" and it needs to be read as well as heard.  Here is an excerpt:

Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, "We don't know how lucky we are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to." And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.

And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man.

This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down: [up] man's old -- old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.

In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the "Great Society," or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people. But they've been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves; and all of the things I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say, "The cold war will end through our acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism." Another voice says, "The profit motive has become outmoded. It must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state." Or, "Our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century." Senator Fulbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the President as "our moral teacher and our leader," and he says he is "hobbled in his task by the restrictions of power imposed on him by this antiquated document." He must "be freed," so that he "can do for us" what he knows "is best." And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government."

Well, I, for one, resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government" -- this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.

"Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so."

SO GOD MADE A FARMER

On a night when Twitter crushed Facebook and Google+ in the social media free-for-all, this was my favorite moment of the entire Super Bowl.  The commercial that stood out to most viewers and received the most online buzz didn’t have models, nerds, babies, or rapid-fire jump cuts, but it did celebrate our nation's agricultural heritage and the virtues found within the culture.  AdWeek declared it to be the best Super Bowl ad.  

By combining powerful images with the poetry of the late Paul Harvey the commercial provided viewers with an emotionally satisfying two minutes of advertising.  The beauty of the ad all but eclipsed the product itself.  But....who cares!?

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 how thoroughly 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.

Alexis Madrigal

Julio Varela

Of course, the Left didn't miss an opportunity to kick dirt on the ad.  For city-slickers Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic and Julio Varela of NBCLatino there were simply too many white folks represented in the depiction of rural America.  And one of MSNBC's top in-house proglodyte race hustlers, Melissa Harris-Perry, took the opportunity to get her social justice on.  I'm sure there were plenty of atheists who howled at the moon because of the repeated use of the word GOD.  This is to be expected since cranks and trolls will always be cranky and trollish.

I think part of the reason progs felt the need to respond was the effectiveness of the ad.  Mary Katherine Ham categorizes it as sweet:

There are four kinds of Super Bowl ads. Shock ads (encompassing both sexy and gross-out shock), Joke ads, Stunt casting ads, and Sweet ads. They sometimes overlap– gross-out Shock + Joke (the Doritos oeuvre) or Joke + Stunt casting, etc. It’s Shock, Joke, and Stunt that get the pre-game coverage, with the networks threatening to ban certain ads and companies happily riding the wave of publicity (the Go Daddy strategy).

But I’d argue it’s the Sweet ads that win the day. One of the few memorable ads of the last several years is the VW Darth Vader ad, in which a mid-class German sedan becomes a way to fulfill your six-year-old’s childhood fantasy. One of the best Super Bowl ads of all time is the Coca-Cola jersey toss. As the Shock, Joke, and Stunt ads up the ante every year, requiring more and more shocks, laughs, or stars to impress, Sweet ads gain a unique ability to cut through the noise.

Last night, you saw that power most notably in the Dodge Farmer ad. I was watching the Super Bowl with a group of 30-something couples, and the place went silent as Paul Harvey’s beautifully resonant, retro voiceover came on. Dodge understood its customers, respected rural America (and those who feel an affinity for it), and connected with them on a deep, emotional level.

Here is the speech in its original form as delivered by Harvey in 1978:


And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said I need a caretaker- So God made a farmer.

God said I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk the cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board – So God made a farmer.

I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild; somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to await lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon, and mean it - So God made a farmer.

God said I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt, and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say maybe next year. I need somebody who can shape an axe handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make a harness out of hay wire, feed sacks and shoe straps, who at planting time and harvest season will finish his forty hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from tractor back, will put in another 72 hours – So God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain, and yet stop in midfield and race to help when he sees first smoke from a neighbor's place - So God made a farmer.

God said I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to wean lambs and pigs and tend to pink combed pullets; who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadowlark.

It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners; somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed, and rake and disk and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with a five-mile drive to church.

Somebody who would bale a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing; who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply with smiling eyes when his son says he want to spend his life doing what dad does...

So God made a farmer.