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A voice from the deep-distant past. Teddy Roosevelt was considered to be the first Progressive President of the United States. During his time in office from 1901, (following the assassination of William McKinley) until 1908, he Created the National Park Service as we know it today. He signed into law the Pure Food and Drug Act, Child Labor laws, campaigned for a Healthcare System (which just goes to show you how long that argument's been going on), and introduced sweeping Anti-Trust legislation.

In 1912, after unsuccessfully attempting a nomination via the Republican Party, he formed his own Bullmoose Party and ran on a third-party ticket, against Woodrow Wilson.

Here is an address he made during that campaign, recorded on September 22, 1912 - the title of the address is "Liberty Of The People." Since the sound is a little rough (recording was in its infancy at the time), here is a transcript of that address:

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Realizing just how much the world changes in a period of fifteen years, the world of 1957 was considerably different than the world of 1942 on this day. In 1942 Russia was an ally against Germany and the Axis plague eager to dominate Europe. In 1957 a divided Germany was now our ally against the "evil empire" of Russia and the Soviet Union.

So in 1957, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer visited Washington in an effort of seek continued support from the Eisenhower administration and to bolster Adenauer's position with the West during the upcoming elections in West Germany. Facing a bitter election fight at home, Adenauer was keen on receiving assurances from Washington that support, economically as well as militarily would continue and increase. And also some sign, however small, that the possibility of reunification of the two Germany's would become a possibility.

Commenting on the meeting as well as an observation over the upcoming British Elections was Cedric Foster, a regular newscaster/commentator for the Mutual Broadcasting System on May 31st, 1957.

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This May 2nd in 1979 saw Britain on overload during the last day of campaigning just before the election. Projected to win, via recent polls, was incumbent Prime Minister James Callahan and the Labour Party. Dropping in the polls and not expected to win was challenger Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative Party. The last day of criss-crossing Britain, Thatcher promised that, if elected she would clamp down on the power of Labor Unions. Harbinger of things to come, for sure. But on this day, Callahan was expected to remain in power and the Thatcher promises were regarded as empty threats.

Not such empty threats was the assassination of Ayatullah Motahari in Tehran. A newly discovered group calling themselves Forghan claimed responsibility. The group, it was thought, was purported to be made up of supporters of The Shah and promised a lot more.

Seven bombs went off in and around Paris overnight. No injuries or loss of life, but the perps remained a mystery.

The United Nations flag was flying over Pyongyang for the first time since anyone could remember. It signified a visit from UN Secretary Kurt Waldheim for talks regarding unification of the two Koreas.

And speaking of talks - discussions on the trade imbalance between the U.S. and Japan got underway between President Jimmy Carter and visiting Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira.

In other Capitol Hill news - President Carter was readying to announce his replacement for Army Chief of Staff General Rogers, who was leaving to replace Gen. Alexander Haig as NATO Commander in Europe.

The endless War on Drugs was heating up again. This time in Southern Floria where it was announced 14 people were so far under indictment for Drug Smuggling in Miami with many more to come.

Boston Pops Icon Arthur Fiedler celebrated his 50th season with the orchestra in a gala celebration.

And John Wayne was back in the hospital with a not-so-good prognosis.

All this and much more via The CBS World News Roundup for May 2, 1979.

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The news on this morning in April of 1945 was about the eventual collapse of Germany and the end of the War in Europe. With news reports coming in, and bulletins being reported one on top of the other, news of the Fall of Berlin was being reported. Soviet troops had succeeded in occupying the center of the city, while defacto head of the German government, Heinrich Himmler was busy hammering out surrender terms. The latest communique had Himmler attempting to reach a surrender with the Allies without including the Russians. Needless to say, it was rejected. And despite some rumors to the contrary, no Surrender had been arrived at. Allied forces were systematically taking over and occupying every other German city, with news that Munich had fallen while this broadcast was on the air. Also reported was news that the Allies had liberated the Dachau Conentration camp, and news of that discovery would be coming in time. During the course of the morning news broadcast, an address by Gen. Spaatz of the Allied Air Forces announced confirmation that the German Luftwaffe had been completely obliterated and subsequently, the Allied Air Force would changed its role over to tactical support of ground forces during these final hours/days.

Meanwhile, the War in the Pacific was still far from over. With news reports of a Kamikaze attack on an Allied Hospital ship near Okinawa brought outrage from the Allied High Command and fighting was still intense.

And that was the news for this April 30, 1945, as presented in two morning Newscasts over NBC. One, the Morning Roundup and the later Alka-Seltzer News Of The World.

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News on this day in 1945 was entirely about the historic linkup of Soviet and Western-Allied forces at the Elbe River, effectively cutting Germany in half and sealing the fate of Hitler's "Thousand year Reich". It would be a matter of days, and with bulletins racing in, with reports cutting in and flying on top of each other, it was clear the war in Europe would be over soon. Still, there was caution, and it was stressed over and over in the course of the newscasts that this was not to be considered the end of the war in Europe. Fighting was still intense. With overwhelming numbers of displaced, refugees and former Nazi officials fleeing to safety managing to clog the roads leading to Berlin.

As the reports kept coming in, the later bulletins placed Russian troops, within blocks of the Chancery in Berlin, seizing the Deutches Bank building. So there were conflicting reports with some saying the allies were 75 miles away from the heart of Berlin, and later reports of fighting going on in the streets of Berlin. No one knew for sure and Allied censorship of news reports made it difficult to get an accurate picture of just far along everything was going.

And that's what the news sounded like from 11:00pm-12:00 midnight via NBC and WEAF in New York for April 27th, 1945.

I always talk about how many concerts are broadcast any given day by the radio networks in Europe, and how many of them are live on-the-spot. Well, to prove that point, here is a concert that was recorded lived earlier today (8:00 pm Paris time - 11:00 am Los Angeles time) featuring Orchestre National de France led by podium superstar Daniele Gatti and featuring Antonio Meneses, cello in music by Faure`, Saint-Saens, Debussy and Ravel.

Both the orchestra and soloist are given rousing ovations and, as is customary, they play rousing encores.

Great concert all the way around, and to hear it live as-it's-happening is a bonus.

The concert is divided between two players and the intermission feature has been edited out (no interviews, just commercial recordings featuring Meneses) and the announcements have been edited down in order to take the concert down from its original three hours to a reasonable length.

Here's what's being played:

Part 1 - Gabriel Fauré

Pelléas et Mélisande, Musique de scène pour la pièce de Maeterlinck(1902)

Camille Saint-Saëns

Concerto N°1 en la mineur Op.33 (1869)

Part 2 - Claude Debussy

Jeux (1912)

Maurice Ravel

Daphnis et Chloé, Suite N°2 (1913)

Antonio Meneses, Violoncelle
Orchestre National de France
Daniele Gatti, Direction

Who says music is dead? Not around here.

Remember, it's Anti-Road Rage Wednesday so step away from the computer and turn the speakers up.

And enjoy.

Aside from the U.S. Presidential election in 1948, the other big news story was the 1948 Italian Elections. The staunchly anti-Communist government of Alcide de Gasperi was in big fear of being toppled by a Communist led movement to upset the election. This was one of the big popularity contests between the West and Communist East and one of the big showdowns in the Cold War period. Speculation ran the gamut, as did the fear factor in the Press that a Communist led government in Italy would indicate the Soviets were well on their way to becoming a dominating force in Europe.

And so the big news also became the big story with most U.S. commentators, including this one - Clifton Utley who delivered his commentary on the upcoming Italian elections on March 18, 1948, viewing it as an epic showdown between Soviet style Communism and Western style Democracy with Italy, a country still in the grips of digging itself out of the devastation of World War 2, stuck somewhere in the middle.

The Post-World War 2 period and the Cold War era had no shortage of cliffhangers and upheavals.

As names and titles and ideologies become blurred and distorted in recent years, the old adage that if you repeat a lie over and over enough times it winds up becoming fact certainly rings true where the subject of Socialism pops up. The tendency of our media and our friends on the right wing side of the spectrum to paint Liberals with the same brush as Socialists is one of those stereotypes that just ain't so.

From the same batch of interviews that gave us Saul Alinsky earlier this week, I also ran across an interview recorded two weeks later, also for Harper's Magazine and their weekly radio program At Issue, with Michael Harrington. A name not mentioned much these days, Michael Harrington was an American Socialist, political activist and Political Science Professor who was also founder of the Democratic Socialists Of America. A writer of several books, the most popular being The Other America: Poverty In The United States which came out in 1962. Since his death in 1989 he's been largely overlooked and mostly forgotten where discussions of political ideology are concerned. Too bad. Perhaps Harrington isn't as catchy a name as Alinsky.

In this interview he talks about the differences between Liberalism and Socialism:

Michael Harrington: “The Liberal is convinced that working within the structure of a Capitalist society, no matter how modified, still a Capitalist society; an ameliorated, reformist welfare-state Capitalist society. But a society in which wealth is systematically maldistributed. That working within the framework of such a society it’s possible to achieve a just social order through reform without attacking the basic fundamentals of the society, the structure of the society. I believe, and Socialists believe, that as long as you have that fundamental structure of inequality, every reform is going to be eviscerated or subverted. For example; although most people don’t know it, the money spent on public housing in the United States is about half the value of one tax deduction for the homebuilding, middle-class and rich. In 1962 we spent about $865 million on Public housing and that tax deduction for the one-fifth top income recipients in this country was worth a $Billion and a Half. Or let me take an example from Europe which is sited in my article in the current issue of Harper’s: In Europe, when industry was nationalized, the main recipient of benefit from that nationalization, and I’m in favor of it, but the main recipient of benefits from it was private industry.”

An insightful interview with more than the average number of eerie prophecies, particularly since the interview was conducted in February 1970.

More essential listening.

(the slow task of picking up the pieces)

On this day, July 8, 1945 Europe was two months into peace. Although there was still a war going on in the Pacific, Europe was slowly starting the process of putting the pieces back together from a continent ravaged by war since 1939. As part of a weekly broadcast to American listeners, the BBC World Service ran a program called London Column dealing with events surrounding European recovery, the slow adjustment to life without war and how it was taking shape.

Sometimes putting the pieces of a puzzle back are more fascinating than the puzzle itself, and Post War Europe was in the midst of sweeping change, sixty-five years ago today.

(Carlos Miguel Prieto - new faces on World Podiums)

Since last weeks installment of the Mid-Week concert went so well, we're back for another mid-week taste of the concert hall. This time a concert by the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, guest conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto, a rising young star in conducting circles who has guest conducted a number of symphony orchestras throughout Europe and the U.S. since this concert was first broadcast on December 4, 2005 by AVRO Radio 4 in Holland.

Two works tonight - Lydische Nacht by the Dutch composer Alphons Diepenbrock, who was a contemporary of Gustav Mahler and a warhorse, Tchaikovsky's Symphony Nr. 5. A little over an hour's worth of music and the announcer (in case you were wondering) is in Dutch.

If you aren't familiar with Alphons Diepenbrock, I urge you to check him out. It'll be worth it.

Enjoy.