Obama on Kennedy got more applause than 'normal'

I mentioned in an earlier post an observation, first reported in my book Our Masters’ Voices, about there being a standard or ‘normal’ burst of applause that, in many different settings and across several different cultures, lasts for about 8 seconds. Less than 7 seconds and it sounds feeble; more than 9 seconds and it sounds more enthusiastic than usual.

The most powerful piece of cross-cultural evidence came from a group of Iranian students who had collected some tapes of speeches by Ayotollah Khomeni after the Shah had been deposed. Applause had been banned as a 'decadent Western practice' and replaced by chanting ("Death to the Americans..." "Down with imerialists..." etc.) .

The students reported that the chanting occurred immediately after Khomeni had used exactly the same rhetorical techniques as the ones that trigger applause in the West and, even more interestingly, regularly faded out after 8 plus or minus 1 second.

The last time I remember the congregation applauding a eulogy was after Lord Spencer finished speaking at the funeral of his sister, Princess Diana.

But it happened again on Saturday after President Obama’s eulogy at the funeral of Edward Kennedy, where the clapping went on for 35 seconds or just over four times longer than a standard burst of applause.

In this clip, you can check out for yourself what 'longer than normal' sounds like to you:

Tabloid tirade about Ted Kennedy from the Daily Mail

When it comes to no-holds barred, moralistic and holier than thou journalism, the Daily Mail takes some beating.

If you saw the clip from Vice-president Biden’s moving tribute to Edward Kennedy I posted the other day and/or President Obama’s eulogy at yesterday’s funeral, don’t be taken in for a moment by such blinkered and biassed die-hard Democats.

The Mail Online will put you right, as you can see from their tasteful headline:

'Ted Kennedy: The Senator of Sleeze who was a drunk sexual bully ... and left a young woman to die'

Click HERE for the truth according to the Daily Mail – and to hell with the grief of the bereaved Kennedy family, friends and colleagues, not to mention what millions of other Americans might be feeling.

POSTSCRIPT: A FEW HOURS AFTER POSTING THE ABOVE:

My thanks to Charles Crawford (whose blog also has some interesting posts on the same subject) for drawing my attention to THIS fascinating piece about Kennedy's televised speech after Chappaquiddick. Having read and watched all the links from it, I have to admit that the Daily Mail article does have a point - and it's not very often I've ever done that!

But it may help to explain something about the speeches by both Biden and Obama that had somewhat puzzled me, namely their sheer length, with about 10 minutes from the Vice-President and nearer 15 minutes from the President at the funeral.

In the case of Biden, I'd put it down to his well-known verbosity, but I was very surprised to see Obama making quite such an extended meal of it.

Maybe, when there are some very negative facts about the deceased that you know and everyone else knows that you're not mentioning, one solution is to go on and on about the virtues of the deceased at great length - on the off chance that there'll be enough of them for the good memories to offset the bad and, perhaps even, achieve some kind of redemption.

PowerPoint on BBC Radio Scotland

I'm about to be interviewed about PowerPoint on the BBC Radio Scotland Business Show.

You should be able to listen again on BBC iPlayer HERE - about 11 minutes in after end of the news and discussion of Scottish pub business.

This particular feature was prompted by two recent posts on the BBC website:

• Problems with Power Point
• PowerPoint Highs and Lows

PREVIOUS POSTS ON POWERPOINT INCLUDE:
• PowerPoint program on BBC Radio 4
• BBC Television News slideshow quiz
• How NOT to use PowerPoint
• If Bill Gates doesn’t read bullet points from PowerPoint slides …
• An imaginative innovation in a PowerPoint presentation
• PowerPoint presentation continues to dominate BBC News – courtesy Robert Peston (again)
• Slidomania contaminates another BBC channel
• There’s nothing wrong with PowerPoint – until there’s an audience
• BBC Television News: produced by of for morons?
• PowerPoint comes to church

And there's much more on visual aids in my books!

Joe Biden's moving tribute to Edward Kennedy

Of the all the tributes to Edward Kennedy I've heard over the past couple of days, the one that stood out for me came from Vice-president Joe Biden (full text HERE and full video HERE).

A bit long, maybe, but there were moments of genuine sincerity that could perhaps only have been said by someone who’d lost a wife and child in a road accident and knew from his own experience the importance of support from friends and relations when you’re struggling to come to terms with such trauma.

Interestingly, two of the most quoted passages from Biden’s speech came from the following short sequence – one was a simple piece of imagery - “he was kind of like an anchor” - and the other a reasserted contrast “it was never about him. It was always about you. It was never about him.”

There were other neat rhetorical flourishes as well, such as the opening three-part list in which the third item contrasted with the first two, another neat contrast and the anecdotes about Kennedy phoning him every day and arranging for doctors from Massachusetts to turn up out of the blue and about what Kennedy’s wife had said to him near the end (another contrast)

But, as I've so often said and written in the past, seeing a speaker exhibiting such technical skill in no way diminishes either the sincerity or the positive impact conveyed by his message.

BIDEN:

I literally would not be standing here were it not for Teddy Kennedy,
(1) not figuratively,
(2) this is not hyperbole
(3) but literally.



He was there -- he stood with me when my wife and daughter were killed in an accident. He was on the phone with me literally every day in the hospital, my two children were attempting, and, God willing, God thankfully survived very serious injuries.

I'd turn around and there would be some specialist from Massachusetts, a doc I never even asked for, literally sitting in the room with me.

(A) You know, it's not just me that he affected like that.
(B) It's hundreds upon hundreds of people.

I was talking to Vicki this morning and she said - she said,

(A) “He was ready to go, Joe,
(B) “but we were not ready to let him go."

He's left a great void in our public life and a hole in the hearts of millions of Americans and hundreds of us who were affected by his personal touch throughout our lives.

People like me, who came to rely on him.

He was kind of like an anchor.

And unlike many important people in my 38 years I've had the privilege of knowing, the unique thing about Teddy was

(A) it was never about him.
(B) It was always about you.
(A) It was never about him.




RELATED POSTS:
• The enduring challenge and importance of funeral orations
• Gordon Brown's model example of how to express condolences

(And, on the rhetorical techniques mentioned here, type 'rhetoric' into the search box at the top of the page for similar examples from Barack Obama and other famous speakers).

The Banksy exhibition at Bristol Museum

Having announced the Banksy exhibition at Bristol Museum on the blog at the beginning of June, I'm now feeling guilty that I didn't go earlier, not just because I'd have liked to have gone again, but also because I'd have been strongly recommending everyone else to go too.

The show ends in a few days time, but you can get a flavour of it by typing 'Banksy' into YouTube, where quite a lot of it can now be seen.

There are also links to other videos towards the end of the one below, which includes some of the exhibits I was most taken with, like the picture of a river with water running out of it because it had been hung at an angle, the gleaner who had left the painting to sit on the frame for a smoke and the fish fingers swimming around in a goldfish bowl.

What doesn't come across in the videos I've watched so far was a clever piece of marketing for Bristol Museum. Apart from the rooms dedicated to Banksy's work, the artist had also deposited other items at unpredictable points around the rest of the museum. To see them, you had to go around looking for where they'd been hidden in all the permanent collections, and I'm sure that many people will, like me, return when the exhibition is over and the queues have subsided to take a closer look at (what I learnt today) is a very fine museum.

If you're curious to know more about Banksy, you can look HERE. There's also a rview of the exhibition in the Daily Telegraph, and the Mail on Sunday even claims to have uncovered his real identity.

We also managed to get in without queuing at all and did so in a manner that I think Banksy would have approved of. However, as a tribute to his success at secrecy, I have no intention of revealing how we did it.

Einstein 'chalk & talk' competition

Twitter strikes again: without it, I might never have heard about this terrific way of modifying the picture of Einstein that was featured in the first of my posts on 'chalk & talk' a few days ago - so thanks again to Olivia Mitchell for tweeting it.

It suggests a competition for the best entry on the blackboard.

All you have to do is to click on 'modifying the picture' above, write whatever you like on the blackboard and email your version of the picture to me before 10th September.

PRIZE: The best entry will receive a free signed copy of Lend Me Your Ears: All You Need to Know about Making Speeches and Presentations OR Speech-making and Presentation Made Easy - in both of which there's more on the relative merits of 'chalk & talk', PowerPoint and other types of visual aid.

Meanwhile, you can mug up on related issues from these earlier posts:

PREVIOUS POSTS ON CHALK & TALK
• PowerPoint and the demise of Chalk & Talk: (1) The beginning of the end
• PowerPoint and the demise of Chalk & Talk: (2) The lost art
• PowerPoint and the demise of Chalk & Talk: (3) Glimmers of hope

PREVIOUS POST ON OBJECTS AS VISUAL AIDS
• Objects as visual aids: Obama & Archbishop Sentamu in action

PREVIOUS POSTS ON POWERPOINT INCLUDE
• PowerPoint program on BBC Radio 4
• BBC Television News slideshow quiz
• How NOT to use PowerPoint
• If Bill Gates doesn’t read bullet points from PowerPoint slides …
• An imaginative innovation in a PowerPoint presentation
• PowerPoint presentation continues to dominate BBC News – courtesy Robert Peston (again)
• Slidomania contaminates another BBC channel
• There’s nothing wrong with PowerPoint – until there’s an audience
• BBC Television News: produced by of for morons?
• PowerPoint comes to church

On the death of Edward Kennedy: “the dream shall never die”

Speeches by all three of the Kennedy brothers are to be found in the top 100 American speeches listed on the website American Rhetoric.

For me, one of the most memorable ones by Edward Kennedy was delivered shortly after I had started studying political speeches in 1980: his address to the Democratic National Convention, now ranked at 76th in the top 100.

To mark his death, here are the final few sentences, which, somewhat unusually, end with a 4 part list that has been much quoted since:

And someday, long after this convention, long after the signs come down and the crowds stop cheering, and the bands stop playing, may it be said of our campaign that we kept the faith.

May it be said of our Party in 1980 that we found our faith again.

And may it be said of us, both in dark passages and in bright days, in the words of Tennyson that my brothers quoted and loved, and that have special meaning for me now:

I am a part of all that I have met

To [Tho] much is taken, much abides

That which we are, we are --

One equal temper of heroic hearts

Strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end.

For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.

Later post on Biden's tribute.

MORE ON 3 PART LISTS & OTHER RHETORICAL TECHNIQUES
• Why lists of three: mystery, magic or reason?
• Lists of 3 and other rhetorical devices in Obama’s victory speech
• Tom Peters: high on rhetoric but low on content?
• When the young Paddy Ashdown surprised himself by the power of his own rhetoric
• David Cameron’s attack on the budget used some well-crafted rhetoric
• Rhetoric wins applause for questioners on BBC Question Time

P.S. FOR OTHERS SCEPTICAL ABOUT OR NEW TO TWITTER:
In the 'Pros' listed the other day, I included the fact that announcing new blog posts on Twitter can increase the number of visitors to the blog.

It also turns out that there's a more indirect way of this happening via Twitter. Since the death of Edward Kennedy, a lot of people have been typing 'thedreamshallneverdie' into Twitter search - as a result of which, some have found and visited this page.