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Commentary: Here Today, Icon Tomorrow

By Rawlins Gilliland, KERA 90.1 Commentator

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-488115.mp3

Commentary: Here Today, Icon Tomorrow

Dallas, TX –

Recently, here in Dallas, one of the most influential people who ever lived, died; Jack Kilby, the inventor of the microchip. Bill Gates said that here was a man who truly changed the world. Yet few of us would have recognized him in a photo lineup. On that day that Jack Kilby died, pop culture devotees were saturated with news about another local, Jessica Simpson, and her marriage to husband Nick Lachey. Nick Lachey has never even had a top 10 record. But for a moment, he was bigger than Jack Kilby. Because Jessica Simpson Jis more intriguing to the average American than Sandra Day O'Conner.

The All-American nature is to be more intoxicated by fame's transient players. It is our guiltiest pleasure. But, even for those with more than their 15 minutes, fame has always been 'fleeting'. What flees with it, if we dismiss it out-of-hand, is a complete sense of collective cultural context. Without both a working knowledge of history, and, yes, an awareness of popular culture, one has circumspect points of comparison, making us seem and sound shallow.

I'm frequently amused when talking to someone much younger than I. When I allude to something that predates their birth, they many times 'pull rank' saying, "Well, I wouldn't know. I wasn't born then." Or, "How would I know that. I wasn't alive." To which I reply, "I wasn't alive when Lincoln was shot either, but I not only know that it happened: I know who did it!" Touch .

Last week, at a fundraiser, a fresh-faced publicist was raving about South Africa's beauty, adding, he cried daily, seeing the poverty. "You know, the blacks were repressed by white rulers for a very long time," he earnestly shared. I thought I'd toss the name Nelson Mandela in the air and see if anyone saluted. Trust me; no one did.

This reference void explains how the news media ignores relevant touchstones when reporting on sensational but highly perishable, time-sensitive events. Anyone who truly believed that O.J. Simpson's was the 20th's "Trial of the Century," as was said ad nauseum, was by definition, ignorant. Undoubtedly, that was the Scopes since 80 years later, it's still an ongoing debate. Frankly, Simpson's wasn't even the murder trial of the century. Read about architect Stanford White's, 1906, shot in Madison Square Garden, which he designed. Consider Dr. Sam Shepherd, accused of murdering his wife Marilyn. Or the actual winner, the racially tinged 1935 Charles Lindberg baby kidnapping-murder trial of Bruno Hauptmann: where the nation's absolute heroic royalty has his only child, a son, stolen and killed.

But heh, OJ won the Heisman Trophy!

Never mind Jack Kilby's legacy. While he lived, it was apparently just fine with him. He led a quiet and undramatic life except of course when he was presented the Nobel Prize. His fame was not "of the moment", but of the millennia. Because of him, I can write at home and transmit this piece to an editor. Meanwhile, I read this morning that Jennifer Anniston is said to be, at this moment in time, the most recognizable face in the world.

That's what "FRIENDS" are for.

Rawlins Gilliland is a writer from Dallas.

If you have opinions or rebuttals about this commentary, call (214) 740-9338 or email us.