Ask Anything
This week's featured columnist is: ROB
Rob Peterson
Issue date: 1/25/07 Section: Showcase
Dear Ask Anything,
What is a peanut gallery and why shouldn't it comment?
- P. Nut Butter
To find the definition of a peanut gallery, I went onto World Wide Words(www.worldwidewords.org).
From what I gathered on the site, a peanut gallery is a group of people who sit in the farthest (and usually cheapest) seats of a theater, stadium, etc. The seats were occupied by lower-class citizens, as these were the only ones they could afford. Since theater was mainly for the upper class in the late 19th century, the lower class would come to these events to stir up trouble, mainly through heckling the stage performers and spilling their umpteenth beer on their upper-class counterparts.
When one of our country's greatest snacks - peanuts - became available at events, the people in the cheap seats would buy a bag and start throwing them at people in the lower rows, or if they were blessed with a Favre-like arm, the actors themselves.
So, when people say "no comments from the peanut gallery," it's because the lower class and the poor in the late 19th century were uneducated and therefore were out of line to comment on an event that was too sophisticated for them - because we all know the upper class of the 1800s who owned slaves and wouldn't let women vote were WAY more intelligent than the lower class.
Dear Ask Anything,
Why isn't there a Channel One on TV?
- Couch Potato
In the late 1940s, the Federal Communications Commission had to divide up which frequencies were going to be used by radio and which by television. As luck would have it, the "Channel One band," which has a range between 44 and 50 megahertz, was given to radio and not to television, according to Yahoo's "Ask" feature (http://ask.yahoo.com).
Is it that simple, though? Of course not, who do you think is writing this article? It just so happens that I know of a lesser-known story that involves Wisconsin's own Joseph McCarthy. When he was on a roll in the 1950s during the Red Scare, he'd find a way to accuse anyone and anything of being a communist. Channel One was no exception.
You see, McCarthy was from the old school. He wasn't a big fan of this new medium called television. So in hopes of getting rid of television programming altogether, he was going to take on each channel one by one and find some way to accuse either the programmers or the channel itself of being associated with the communists.
McCarthy's first target was the Channel One band. He stormed Washington, D.C., claiming the number one was a synonym of solidarity and conformity, and is therefore associated with communism.
He also suggested the frequency of the Channel One band was the same frequency the Soviet government used to broadcast its propaganda. If they could transmit their messages over on American television, McCarthy thought, communists would be everywhere in our country. So in 1952, McCarthy rammed a bill through Congress that banned channel one from television. However, he was censured before he could remove any subsequent channels.
Now, this story hasn't been verified by any kind of source, legitimate or not, but I leave you with this: Joseph McCarthy, communists, and the FCC all have one thing in common - they can't be trusted. Coincidence? You be the judge.
Ask anything is a weekly question and advice
column. Maja Petersen and Rob Peterson are alternating columnists.
What is a peanut gallery and why shouldn't it comment?
- P. Nut Butter
To find the definition of a peanut gallery, I went onto World Wide Words(www.worldwidewords.org).
From what I gathered on the site, a peanut gallery is a group of people who sit in the farthest (and usually cheapest) seats of a theater, stadium, etc. The seats were occupied by lower-class citizens, as these were the only ones they could afford. Since theater was mainly for the upper class in the late 19th century, the lower class would come to these events to stir up trouble, mainly through heckling the stage performers and spilling their umpteenth beer on their upper-class counterparts.
When one of our country's greatest snacks - peanuts - became available at events, the people in the cheap seats would buy a bag and start throwing them at people in the lower rows, or if they were blessed with a Favre-like arm, the actors themselves.
So, when people say "no comments from the peanut gallery," it's because the lower class and the poor in the late 19th century were uneducated and therefore were out of line to comment on an event that was too sophisticated for them - because we all know the upper class of the 1800s who owned slaves and wouldn't let women vote were WAY more intelligent than the lower class.
Dear Ask Anything,
Why isn't there a Channel One on TV?
- Couch Potato
In the late 1940s, the Federal Communications Commission had to divide up which frequencies were going to be used by radio and which by television. As luck would have it, the "Channel One band," which has a range between 44 and 50 megahertz, was given to radio and not to television, according to Yahoo's "Ask" feature (http://ask.yahoo.com).
Is it that simple, though? Of course not, who do you think is writing this article? It just so happens that I know of a lesser-known story that involves Wisconsin's own Joseph McCarthy. When he was on a roll in the 1950s during the Red Scare, he'd find a way to accuse anyone and anything of being a communist. Channel One was no exception.
You see, McCarthy was from the old school. He wasn't a big fan of this new medium called television. So in hopes of getting rid of television programming altogether, he was going to take on each channel one by one and find some way to accuse either the programmers or the channel itself of being associated with the communists.
McCarthy's first target was the Channel One band. He stormed Washington, D.C., claiming the number one was a synonym of solidarity and conformity, and is therefore associated with communism.
He also suggested the frequency of the Channel One band was the same frequency the Soviet government used to broadcast its propaganda. If they could transmit their messages over on American television, McCarthy thought, communists would be everywhere in our country. So in 1952, McCarthy rammed a bill through Congress that banned channel one from television. However, he was censured before he could remove any subsequent channels.
Now, this story hasn't been verified by any kind of source, legitimate or not, but I leave you with this: Joseph McCarthy, communists, and the FCC all have one thing in common - they can't be trusted. Coincidence? You be the judge.
Ask anything is a weekly question and advice
column. Maja Petersen and Rob Peterson are alternating columnists.
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