i prefer pi

I’m writing a paper on Reagan’s address to the nation following the Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986. Dr. Ritter (my communication professor) is a scholar of Presidential rhetoric, and consequently, he has copies of a lot of drafts and other documents from that day that went into the penning of Reagan’s famous speech. It’s really very interesting to see the visions and revisions that went into its writing as Peggy Noonan (and other aides, advisors, and speechwriters) worked in a white heat to produce what is considered one of the greatest American oratories of the 20th century. If my paper is any good, I’ll post a copy when I finish.

I found a fairly amusing ancillary document in a file with a lot of other responses to Reagan’s address. While most of them are positive, this one has an interesting perspective on Reagan’s historical reference. I hope that I won’t get into trouble for posting the full text here.

January 31, 1986

Mr. Ronald ReaganPresident of the United Statesof AmericaThe White HouseWashington D.C. Mr. President,     In your address to the nation on the occasion of the tragedyat Cape Canaveral, you drew parallels between the loss of the livesof the crew aboard the Challenger and the death of Sir FrancisDrake off the coast of Panama “390 years ago”.    Sir Francis Drake was an English pirate, who delighted in theslaughter of the civilian citizens of the colonial city of Porto-belo. Gold and silver were stockpiled in this Atlantic port, a-waiting shipment to Spain. It was therefore a prime target for thegreed-motivated expeditions of men like Drake. It was in an attemptto loot, destroy and ravage the city and it’s population of nuns,women, children and missionaries, that Drake was happily annihilated.    Because the legends of English pirates have always been romanticized in Anglo-American history books. I am not surprised tooccasionally encounter this misconception. However, to further thecredence of this gross inaccuracy in a presidential address, letalone compare the ambitions of a pirate to those that motivated ourlost astronauts can only be the result of careless historical re-search. I respectfully suggest you reprimand those responsible.I find the portrayal of a pirate as a figure of history to be admiredand eulogized in your speech on the occasion of the deaths of sevengenuine heroes, to be insulting to the memories of those astronautsand offensive to their families, as well as to the memories of thosepeople massacred that day in Portobelo and to all the people ofPanama. Respectfully,

[signed]

Charles F. BrannanPhoto Editor/NY U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT

Cited from: Letter to the President from Charles Brannan, January 31, 1986, SP 1029 374517 - End, Subject File, White House Office of Records Management, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.

I wonder what kind of responses I would have been reading if, as was penned in an early draft of the speech, “the Challenger Seven” had been replaced with “the Magnificent Seven.” One reviewer of an afternoon draft wrote “We can’t say ‘Magnificent Seven’ – they were a motley bunch of gun-slingers hired to [hunt?] another bunch – one was a drunk, another a…” (the handwriting becomes indistinguishable). It would be interesting to look at pop culture references in Presidential speeches, especially Reagan’s. I agree with the commentator, but no matter what you think of the film, the score has one of the best Western themes ever.

EDIT: By the way, the poem from which Reagan borrows, “High Flight” by John Gillespie Magee, has been a favorite of mine for a long time and inspired the title of a post from last year.

It’s too bad that I used “It’s too bad that…” four times in my last four entries.

Zaphod, Arthur, and Martin all have their own Xangas. It’s too bad that they’re unfunny.

Today has probably been the most draining day in recent memory, with the possible exception of my marathon “work all night/demo my project/pack and fly home overnight/drive down to school for RA training” 24 hour period back in August. I’m going to sleep, and I refuse to set my alarm. I don’t have to be anywhere for 11 hours. Bliss!

I ran a campus loop tonight, and one thing that I noticed was how sweet the campus smells. Even though most blooms are closed for the night, you can pick up the smell of honeysuckle here and there, and freshly-cut grass (without malodorous gasoline fumes) is all over campus. It’s too bad that I was stuck inside all day today…

How to start a fire using a can of soda and chocolate bar. Yet another useless survival skill that I hope I’ll never need to use but which is really cool nonetheless. Was anyone else completely sucked into books like Gary Paulsen’s The Hatchet while growing up? (I’m guessing this is an almost-exclusively male club). I tore through almost everything that guy wrote… Dogsong, the other “Brian” books, The Haymeadow. If you could get past the often-incredible premises (in The River it was that the government asked the main character to go back into the wilderness so that he could teach an ill-equipped journalist how he survived with just a hatchet), there was some great adolescent male adventuring in there. Nostalgia++

EDIT: Holy toledo! There are two more, Brian’s Return and Brian’s Hunt. At this point, it would seem that the author is milking his cash cow for all she’s worth, but I’ll probably bite.

What? I’d rather see the grown-up Jetsons.

Nancy and I played Scrabble tonight (last night?), and in a desperate effort to get rid of the Q and U in my tray, I threw down “SQUAIN” about 4 turns before the end. It turns out that “squain” is not (nor has it ever been) a word. Oops — Nancy should have won. I’m not sure who won at SSBM, but I feel like I had a moral victory because I held my own against the duplicitous ice climbers after not having played for a year. I had a really good time.

Sometimes being an RA leads to some really uncomfortable, really late nights. Sometimes it means that I get paid while I get a full night’s rest. Here’s to hoping that tomorrow night is of the latter ilk…

I went to Muster for the first time last night, and I enjoyed the experience. I wish that I’d gone in the past so that (if for no other reason) I’d be able to say that I understood why people make such a big deal about it.

Dimitri and I sat on the steps of the Coke Building with some other friends while eating at the Muster BBQ yesterday for lunch. He and I made a pact to meet up on the same spot on April 21st, 2055 if the Lord wills that we’re both still kicking. If I shouldn’t make it, then Comrade, I hope that you’ll answer “here.”

Back in January or February of 2002, my excitement for Episode II was so great that I gave in and scoured TheForce.net and several other Star Wars fan sites, looking for any spoiler, rumor, or scrap of information that I could find about the upcoming film. When May 16th finally rolled around, I knew everything that could possibly be known about the movie — characters, plot details, scene descriptions, the leaked soundtrack, an easter egg or two, and even a few minutes of footage from a poor-quality bootleg that hit the streets a few days before release. Even though nothing was really new when I finally saw the film, I still loved it and ended up seeing it four or five times on the big screen.

But later, I began to wonder what it would have been like to go into the theater knowing nothing, absolutely nothing at all, except for the title. I thought back to one scene in particular from Episode I when Darth Maul activates the second blade on his lightsaber for the first time. Whoa. This was new and unexpected — except that they gave that shot away in the first trailer that they released. How much more awesome would it have been to be sitting in the theater when you saw that for the first time? I resolved to go spoiler-free for Episode III.

Since that time, I’ve stayed as far away as possible from information about the film. I stopped reading TF.n about a year ago. I covered my ears and left the theater when the teaser played before The Incredibles back in November. I stayed away from the Episode III special features on the Original Trilogy DVD set, and I haven’t gone anywhere near the “making-of” web featurettes. The soundtrack is still alien to my ears, and Dimitri and I didn’t make any midnight runs to Wal-Mart when the toys were released. I’ve threatened eviscerations to people with loose lips on several occasions. Now I have these to contend with. Oh well… I can make it just a month more.