A review of Ken Burns’ “Horatio’s Drive: America's First Road Trip”

“♪ He'd have to get under—get out and get under—to fix his little machine
He was just dying to cuddle his queen
But ev'ry minute
When he'd begin it
He'd have to get under—get out and get under—then he'd get back at the wheel ♪

♪ A dozen times they'd start to hug and kiss
And then the darned old engine, it would miss
And then he'd have to get under—get out and get under—and fix up his automobile ♪”

– “He'd Have to Get Under – Get Out and Get Under (to Fix Up His Automobile),” a Vaudeville hit from 1913

Some journeys are epic, and done for “serious” reasons – such as frontier exploration, political diplomacy, and scientific discovery. Other journeys are not serious at all, and are done more on a whim. “Horatio's Drive” was in the latter category. In the summer of 1903, Horatio Nelson Jackson undertook the first cross-country automobile journey across the United States. It turned into a race, whose prize was nothing more than bragging rights. The cars broke down many times along the way, and they had to wait for supplies to arrive by train at times. Horatio Nelson Jackson brought along a mechanic named Sewall K. Crocker, and his pet pit bull Bud. There were also letters to Horatio's wife Bertha Richardson Jackson back at home. For reasons unknown to history, he called her “Swipes.” Tom Hanks acts as the voice of Horatio Nelson Jackson, adding his talents to the film.

Bud, Jackson's pet pit bull

A review of Ken Burns’ “Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio” (PBS)

Sometimes these three men were friends … At other times, they were cutthroat business rivals

The filmmaker Ken Burns became famous when “The Civil War” came out in 1990. At the time I write this, “The Civil War” is still the most popular program ever shown on PBS. But few today know about another program that he later made, which came out in 1992. The film that I refer to is, of course, the film “Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio.” Although the subject is a bit obscure, it’s actually much more interesting than one might assume from this fact. It’s a biography of three different men (all very interesting), who helped to create the industry of radio. They were pioneers in the invention of a new information and entertainment medium. Some of them were even friends and colleagues with each other in earlier years, but some of them were cutthroat business rivals and bitter enemies later on. This film is thus a bit like doing twin biographies of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, as Ken Burns does in “The Civil War.” But with one exception, no one died in this market competition between these three businessmen; although that doesn’t make it any less dramatic. (The person who did die, incidentally, was one of these three men – I shall not say which one – when he jumped out of a New York City window to fall 13 stories to his death. This suicide was brought on by his being beaten at the game of business, and thus driven to some amount of poverty and ruin.)

What is “Blackstonian property”?

“There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property; or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe.”

– Sir William Blackstone's “Commentaries on the Laws of England” (1760's), Book 2, Chapter 1

When William Blackstone wrote his “Commentaries on the Laws of England,” he dedicated the entire second volume of this work to property law. He titled this volume “Of the Rights of Things” – that is, the right to own things as property. One of the very first things that he says in the opening chapter of that volume is that “There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property; or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe.” (Source: Book 2, Chapter 1) This is one of the most famous passages in the “Commentaries.” Today, this definition is sometimes referred to as “Blackstonian property.” But right after that, Blackstone said something else that some might take to contradict that. Does it really do so? I shall examine this question below.

Sir William Blackstone

The Fourteenth Amendment is something of a mixed bag …

It might seem strange to say it today, but the “Bill of Rights” amendments were once understood to apply only to the federal government, rather than to the states as well. This was a particular problem when you consider that the states had (at times) denied these protections to African Americans (and others), even after the abolition of slavery by the Thirteenth Amendment.

First page of the Fourteenth Amendment

A review of PBS’s “George W. Bush” (American Experience)

“A year ago, my approval rating was in the 30s, my nominee for the Supreme Court had just withdrawn, and my vice president had shot someone … Those were the good old days.”

– George W. Bush, in a series of jokes at a White House dinner (28 March 2007)

To begin with, this documentary is a hatchet job …

I normally love documentaries, and have watched more than a hundred of them. This included many about American presidents, and I wanted to add this one to the list. Not surprisingly, this turned out to be a hatchet job, with extreme left-wing bias. It is so biased, in fact, as to be factually inaccurate, in ways that I shall describe below.

George W. Bush