Pepper Spray and the Power of Imagery

I was driving by the "Occupy Denver" folks recently near the state capitol. 20 people at most, looking worse for the wear, sitting around without a sign or message in sight. A blight on an otherwise beautiful location in Denver.

So how does a movement with no motion stay in the news?

Imagery. Has anyone NOT seen the protesters pepper sprayed in California. A surreal set of videos and pictures as a campus police office calmly walked back and forth like he was fumigating a garden.

The incident was followed by satiric images like this one posted all across Social Media.

So a movement that isn't moving anywhere, with no discernible focus stays in the news, like the folks I saw sitting along Broadway in Denver.

So what do we learn from all this? The power of imagery. Pictures are worth a thousand words, video even more. One can of pepper spray sustains a movement with no perceived motion.

Visual inertia: The perception of something not moving, to be doing just the opposite.

Brian Olson

Conversation Starters Public Relations

In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army
 
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lt. Col. McCrae died of pneumonia while on active duty in 1918. No poem or story better captures the spirit and importance of this day.

Wings over the Rockies to honor Tuskegee Airmen

Before we had a Black-American President, before the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's there were the Tuskegee Airmen. A highly decorated group of pilots in World War II.

There were/are a lot of decorated pilots in WWII. But this group is special. They were black, putting their lives on the line for liberties they were denied back home. The names they were called back then are no longer fit for any conversation. Their story cannot be told enough. They cannot be honored enough.

I urge you to visit their website. Often. In WWII, the military was segregated. Soldiers of color were often assigned to menial duties in labor battalions or other support positions. Then came the great experiment. President Roosevelt, anticipating we would enter the war knew there would be a huge demand for pilots. So civilian pilot training programs were set up all over the country including the Tuskegee Institute, a black college founded in Alabama in 1881 by Booker T. Washington. Tuskegee graduated its first pilot in 1940. More followed, eventually becoming the 332nd fighter Group.

The rest as they say, is history. For a generation thrice-removed from WWII, you have to understand the incredible racism and discrimination that existed then. But despite enormous opposition and bigotry, not the least of which was the thought that blacks weren't capable of flying in combat, the Tuskegee Airmen flying as the 332nd Fighter Group went on to become one of the most decorated units in the war.

According to the National Museum of the Air Force, "When the war in Europe ended, the 332nd Fighter Group had shot down 112 enemy aircraft and destroyed another 150 on the ground. Also, they knocked out more than 600 railroad cars, and sank one destroyer and 40 boats and barges. Their losses included approximately 150 killed in combat or in accidents. During the war, Tuskegee had trained 992 pilots and sent 450 overseas. By any measure, the Tuskegee experiment was a resounding success."

Saturday November 19, Wings over the Rockies Air and Space Museum honors these extraordinary pilots and human beings at their Spreading Wings Gala. As a side-note, Colorado is home to the greatest number of surviving members of the 332nd.

The Tuskegee Airmen are also the subject of the upcoming major motion picture "Red Tails" starring Cuba Gooding Jr. who will be in attendance at the gala. Yet another reason to attend! 

Gala truly describes the annual Spreading Wings Event. Here are highlights from last year's gala honoring Apollo 17 Astronaut Gene Cernan, the last human to walk on the moon.


You can be part of a true historical moment by attending the gala. I hope to see you on the 19th.


Brian Olson
Owner/Consultant
Conversation Starters Public Relations