Typewriter of the moment: An old one, manual or electric (yours?)

A manual, Royal typewriter (Photo by mikeymckay)

It’s enough to make an old typewriter guy drive to Arizona, for more than the air (with a stop in Albuquerque at the Owl Cafe for an Owl burger, of course).

Polymath reporter Bill Geist from CBS News reported this piece for Sunday Morning, in February, featuring Mesa Typewriter Exchange in Arizona, and more:

Where is that movie on typewriters?  “The Typewriter in the 21st Century.”  Geist was poaching on their material a bit, wasn’t he?

Bring on the movie!

More:

• Typewriter is still king at this 100-year-old Pasadena firm (latimesblogs.latimes.com)

Typewriter of the moment: Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite at his office typewriter:

Walter Cronkite at his typewriter, in his office - from The Typewriter blog

Pipe rack to his left, on the shelf above; full set of the Encyclopedia Britannica to his right (probably a 1960s set); A lot of books, some dealing with space exploration, among his favorite topics; models of the X-15 and early versions of the Space Shuttle; award from the Boy Scouts to his right, where he can see it easily.

When was this photo taken?  1970s?  Earlier?  Maybe someone who follows Dixie Cups could date the cup to Cronkite’s left.

This is probably the same office, redecorated, and stripped down to move – and with a different typewriter (a Smith-Corona electric?):

Caption from the San Francisco Chronicle website: "In this March 6, 1981 file photo, Walter Cronkite talks on the phone at his office, prior to his final newscast as CBS anchorman in New York City. Behind him is a framed Mickey Mouse cartoon and his Emmy award. Famed CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, known as the 'most trusted man in America' has died, Friday, July 17, 2009. He was 92."

Still U.S. flags on the Moon?

One of the most dramatic categories of evidence that the U.S. landed men on the Moon is the detritus and other stuff they left behind.  Now we have satellites orbiting the Moon that can send back images of the landing sites with an amazing amount of detail.

Around the 4th of July somebody usually wonders how those flags left behind, are doing.

CBS News reporter Jim Axelrod asked around; you can see his report at YouTube (CBS disallows embedding of these reports, so you’ll need to click the image a couple of times to go to the YouTube site for CBS):

(720 views of this report when I posted this; come on, news hounds, flag fliers and Moon and history buffs, you can boost that total.)

Schieffer: Education is our first line of defense – CBS News Video

Bob Schieffer plugs education and worries about last week’s NAEP report on what students know about history:

Schieffer is right:  Teachers deserve better pay, and that’s probably the quickest and best solution to get our kids up to snuff on history.

And history is our first line of defense.  Minutemen at Lexington and Concord knew why they were fighting, and fought to victory as a result.  Don’t our kids deserve as good an education today?

[I'm posting this on Wednesday -- the YouTube version had only 54 views when I did.  Spread the word, will you?]