Inside Chris's Head » History

When Did Amateur Become a Dirty Word?

chris2x — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 02:16:13 +0000

It seems over the last few years main stream media has increasingly taken the position that main stream media is “professional” and that bloggers and podcasters are “amateurs”. When did “amateur” become a dirty word? I am an amateur, after all I have a podcast that proudly proclaims myself the “Amateur Traveler“. But what’s so bad about being an amateur?

The word “amateur” does not mean a beginner or someone who is bad at doing something, or at least it did not originally mean this. An amateur was someone who did something for the “love of it”. A century ago it was the professional who was under a cloud of suspicion as someone with impure motives.

Lets take the example of Jim Thorpe, sometimes called the “greatest athlete of all times”:

At the tender age of 24, Thorpe sailed with the American Olympic team to Antwerp, Belgium for the 1912 Olympic Games. Remarkably, he trained aboard the ship on the journey across sea. He blew away the competition in both the pentathlon and the decathlon and set records that would stand for decades. King Gustav V presented Thorpe with his gold medals for both accomplishments. As stated in Bob Berontas’ “Jim Thorpe, Sac and Fox Athlete”: “Before Thorpe could walk away, the king grabbed his hand and uttered the senta3ence that was to follow for the rest of his life. ‘Sir,’ he declared, ‘you are the greatest athlete in the world,’ Thope, never a man to stand on ceremony, answered simple and honestly, ‘Thanks King.’”

Thorpe’s glorious Olympic wins were jeopardized in 1913 when it came out that he played two semi-professional seasons of baseball. The Olympics Committee had strict rules about Olympians receiving monetary compensation for participating in professional athletics. Thorpe, who stated he played for the love of the game and not the money, was put under the microscope. Ultimately, it was decided that his baseball experience adversely affected his amateur status in the track and field events. His name was removed from the record books and his gold medals were taken away.

When Scientific American used to run a column called the Amateur Scientist from (1958 to 1978) they were not trying to encourage stupid people to build proton accelerators in their basements (Accelerator, proton. how to construct, 1971 Aug, pg 106). They were instead harkening back to the days of the renaissance man (or woman). It used to be encouraged for people to dabble in science out of a genuine interest without regard to what they did for a living. And why not, the most influential theory of the 20th century was proposed by an amateur scientist who worked as a patent clerk.

Mark Spitz was an amateur athlete as were all Olympic athletes of his day. One could be an amateur and still be the best. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are professional athletes. Jose Conseco was a professional athlete so a professional may not show professionalism any more than an amateur needs to be amateurish.

It is not my intention to try and swing the pendulum back to the days of Jim Thorpe or the early days of the internet when any hint of commercialism was seen as wrong. Rather we should see that whether or not a person is paid for their endeavors is not the sole measure of the value of their work. Edward R. Murrow was a professional journalist, but so was William Randolph “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war” Hearst. A professional journalist can make making money their sole goal or they can aim somewhat higher.

So let’s not, as if we could, strive for an internet void of commercial interests but instead evaluate work based on value and quality remembering that the Ark was built by an amateur, the Titanic was built by professionals.

FBI Memo: "It's a Wonderful Life" is Communist Propaganda

chris2x — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 08:32:42 +0000

“Here’s to George Baily”!, or should we say comrade Baily?

In 1947, the FBI considered this anti-cosummerist message as subsersive Communist propaganda. The FBI thought the movie smeared American values such as wealth and free enterprise while glorifying anti-American values such as the triumph of the common man.

History Maps

chris2x — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 03:33:47 +0000

If you have ever been sitting around the house wondering how large the Empire of Sargon got then you need this site with historic maps.

chris2x — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 04:09:46 +0000

I am not a big fan of war, but the best named war in history started on this day in 1739 when Robert Jenkins’s ear was cut off, sparking the War of Jenkinss Ear between Spain and England.

Jenkins’s Ear, War of, 173941, struggle between England and Spain. It grew out of the commercial rivalry of the two powers and led to involvement in the larger War of the Austrian Succession. The incident that gave the name to the war occurred in 1731 when, according to Robert Jenkins, master of the ship Rebecca, he had his ear cut off by Spanish coast guards. English smuggling and resentment at exclusion from the Spanish colonial trade caused the war, but Jenkins’s story in the House of Commons (1738), reinforced by the showing of his carefully preserved ear, had a tremendous propaganda effect and forced the reluctant Sir Robert Walpole to declare war. The hostilities with Spain up to 1741 were marked only by the naval engagements of Admiral Edward Vernon in the West Indies.

Star-Spangled Banner

chris2x — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 01:20:45 +0000

On this day in 1931 The “Star-Spangled Banner” was adopted as the national anthem of the United states. So before 1931 baseball games started with that awkward pause before “play ball!”.

Propaganda Posters

chris2x — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 07:05:41 +0000

The Free Information Society has an interesting collection of propaganda posters from World War II.

Dark Day In History

chris2x — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 07:01:20 +0000

On this date in 1973 Baseball’s American League adopted the “designated hitter” rule which allowed another player to bat for the pitcher, starting the slow decline of the American civilization. Disco also came out of the 1970s, clearly those were the days that tried men’s souls.

Calfornia's First Freeway

chris2x — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 06:20:32 +0000

On this day in 1940 California opened its first freeway. As it turns out World War II would start in less than a year. During World War II the government implemented gas rationing. So there may have been sometime that LA’s Freeways were not crowded, but not in 1940.

The Arroyo Seco Parkway runs between Los Angeles and Pasadena in Southern California for a distance of approximately 8.2 miles. This National Register-eligible road is a significant historic transportation resource, linking some of the most ethnically and historically diverse communities in the Los Angeles basin.

1940s Rose Queen at Ribbon Cutting Dedicated on December 30, 1940, the Arroyo Seco Parkway was the first freeway in the West. Limited access and the prohibition of cross-traffic provided driving safety and convenience, and marked the road as a thoroughly modern invention. Alternatively termed an engineering marvel and the big ditch, the facility became the prototype of the Los Angeles Freeway system.

Like other Los Angeles area freeways, the road was at its design capacity before it was even built. Consequently, the planned emergency shoulder was converted into a travel lane during construction. The new lane was surfaced with asphalt, providing the road’s characteristic two-toned pavement. Intermittent “safety bays” were added in 1949 to compensate for the lack of shoulders.

First Computer Ever !

chris2x — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 23:46:48 +0000

My personal understanding of the history of computer’s was rewritten with this artcicle

Many encyclopedias and other reference works state that the first large-scale automatic digital computer was the Harvard Mark 1, which was developed by Howard H. Aiken (and team) in America between 1939 and 1944. However, in the aftermath of World War II it was discovered that a program controlled computer called the Z3 had been completed in Germany in 1941, which means that the Z3 pre-dated the Harvard Mark I.

The Z3′s architect was a German engineer called Konrad Zuse, who developed his first machine, the Z1, in his parents’ living room in Berlin in 1938. Although based on relays, the Z3 was very sophisticated for its time; for example, it utilized the binary number system and could perform floating-point arithmetic.

Chicago Fire

chris2x — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 04:47:08 +0000

On this day in history the great Chicago fire started. It may not have been started by Mrs O’Leary’s cow as legend states. But we do know that a couple of hundred people were killed and 90,000 people lost their homes.

What I did not know was that on the same day the largest forrest fire in U.S. history broke out.

Peshtigo Fire,. Oct. 8, 1871, in which 1,182 people were killed by a wildfire that ultimately consumed more that 1 million acres (400,000 hectares) of forest. Peshtigoat the time an important lumbering centerand several villages were destroyed. Because the disaster occurred in a remote area and on the same night as the Great Chicago Fire, it is little remembered.