Radio Presenter Quotes

An extraterrestrial being, newly arrived on Earth - scrutinizing what we mainly present to our children in television, radio, movies, newspapers, magazines, the comics, and many books - might easily conclude that we are intent on teaching them murder, rape, cruelty, superstition, credulity, and consumerism. We keep at it, and through constant repetition many of them finally get it.

And I want to play hide-and-seek and give you my clothes and tell you I like your shoes and sit on the steps while you take a bath and massage your neck and kiss your feet and hold your hand and go for a meal and not mind when you eat my food and meet you at Rudy's and talk about the day and type up your letters and carry your boxes and laugh at your paranoia and give you tapes you don't listen to and watch great films and watch terrible films and complain about the radio and take pictures of you when you're sleeping and get up to fetch you coffee and bagels and Danish and go to Florent and drink coffee at midnight and have you steal my cigarettes and never be able to find a match and tell you about the tv programme I saw the night before and take you to the eye hospital and not laugh at your jokes and want you in the morning but let you sleep for a while and kiss your back and stroke your skin and tell you how much I love your hair your eyes your lips your neck your breasts your arse your and sit on the steps smoking till your neighbour comes home and sit on the steps smoking till you come home and worry when you're late and be amazed when you're early and give you sunflowers and go to your party and dance till I'm black and be sorry when I'm wrong and happy when you forgive me and look at your photos and wish I'd known you forever and hear your voice in my ear and feel your skin on my skin and get scared when you're angry and your eye has gone red and the other eye blue and your hair to the left and your face oriental and tell you you're gorgeous and hug you when you're anxious and hold you when you hurt and want you when I smell you and offend you when I touch you and whimper when I'm next to you and whimper when I'm not and dribble on your breast and smother you in the night and get cold when you take the blanket and hot when you don't and melt when you smile and dissolve when you laugh and not understand why you think I'm rejecting you when I'm not rejecting you and wonder how you could think I'd ever reject you and wonder who you are but accept you anyway and tell you about the tree angel enchanted forest boy who flew across the ocean because he loved you and write poems for you and wonder why you don't believe me and have a feeling so deep I can't find words for it and want to buy you a kitten I'd get jealous of because it would get more attention than me and keep you in bed when you have to go and cry like a baby when you finally do and get rid of the roaches and buy you presents you don't want and take them away again and ask you to marry me and you say no again but keep on asking because though you think I don't mean it I do always have from the first time I asked you and wander the city thinking it's empty without you and want what you want and think I'm losing myself but know I'm safe with you and tell you the worst of me and try to give you the best of me because you don't deserve any less and answer your questions when I'd rather not and tell you the truth when I really don't want to and try to be honest because I know you prefer it and think it's all over but hang on in for just ten more minutes before you throw me out of your life and forget who I am and try to get closer to you because it's beautiful learning to know you and well worth the effort and speak German to you badly and Hebrew to you worse and make love with you at three in the morning and somehow somehow somehow communicate some of the overwhelming undying overpowering unconditional all-encompassing heart-enriching mind-expanding on-going never-ending love I have for you.

A small and sinister snow seems to be coming down relentlessly at present. The radio says it is eventually going to be sleet and rain, but I don't think so; I think it is just going to go on and on, coming down, until the whole world...etc. It has that look.

It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one's self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen-year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-and-orange-juice and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford and their echoes sing "How High the Moon" on the car radio. (You see I still have the scenes, but I no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could ever improvise the dialogue.) The other one, a twenty-three-year-old, bothers me more. She was always a good deal of trouble, and I suspect she will reappear when I least want to see her, skirts too long, shy to the point of aggravation, always the injured party, full of recriminations and little hurts and stories I do not want to hear again, at once saddening me and angering me with her vulnerability and ignorance, an apparition all the more insistent for being so long banished. It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you.

I decided to make spaghetti for lunch again. Not that I was the least bit hungry. But I couldn't just go on sitting on the sofa, waiting for the phone to ring. I had to move my body, to begin working toward some goal. I put water in a pot, turned on the gas, and until it boiled I would make tomato sauce while listening to an FM broadcast. The radio was playing an unaccompanied violin sonata by Bach. The performance itself was excellent, but there was something annoying about it. I didn't know whether this was the fault of the violinist or of my own present state of mind, but I turned off the music and went on cooking in silence. I heated the olive oil, put garlic in the pan, and added minced onions. When these began to brown, I added the tomatoes that I had chopped and strained. It was good to be cutting things and frying things like this. It gave me a sense of accomplishment that I could feel in my hands. I liked the sounds and the smells.

When the middle classes get passionate about politics, they're arguing about their treats—their tax breaks and their investments. When the poor get passionate about politics, they're fighting for their lives. Politics will always mean more to the poor. Always. That's why we strike and march, and despair when our young say they won't vote. That's why the poor are seen as more vital, more animalistic. No classical music for us—no walking around National Trust properties or buying reclaimed flooring. We don't have nostalgia. We don't do yesterday. We can't bear it. We don't want to be reminded of our past, because it was awful: dying in means, and slums, without literacy, or the vote. Without dignity. It was all so desperate then. That's why the present and the future is for the poor—that's the place in time for us: surviving now, hoping for better later. We live now—for our instant, hot, fast treats, to pep us up: sugar, a cigarette, a new fast song on the radio. You must never, never forget when you talk to someone poor, that it takes ten times the effort to get anywhere from a bad post code. It's a miracle when someone from a bad post code gets anywhere, son. A miracle they do anything at all.

Wisdom can be gathered on your downtime. Wisdom that can change the very course of your life will come from the people you are around, the books you read, and the things you listen to or watch on radio or television. Of course, bad information is gathered in your downtime too. Bad information that can change the very course of your life will come from the people you are around, the books you read, and the things you listen to or watch on radio or television. One of wisdom's greatest benefits, is accurate discernment- the learned ability to immediately tell right from wrong. Good from evil. Acceptable from unacceptable. Time well spent from time wasted. The right decision from the wrong decision. And many times this is simply a matter of having the correct perspective. One way to define wisdom is THE ABILITY TO SEE, INTO THE FUTURE, THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR CHOICES IN THE PRESENT. That ability can give you a completely different perspective on what the future might look like... with a degree of intelligence and a hint of wisdom, most people can tell the difference between good and bad. However, it takes a truly wise person to discern the oh-so-thin line between good and best. And that line...[gives you the] perspective that allows you to see clearly the long-term consequences of your choices.

If I were the Devil . . . I mean, if I were the Prince of Darkness, I would of course, want to engulf the whole earth in darkness. I would have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree, so I should set about however necessary to take over the United States. I would begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: “Do as you please.” “Do as you please.” To the young, I would whisper, “The Bible is a myth.” I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what is bad is good, and what is good is “square”. In the ears of the young marrieds, I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be extreme in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct. And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to say after me: “Our Father, which art in Washington” . . . If I were the devil, I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull an uninteresting. I’d threaten T.V. with dirtier movies and vice versa. And then, if I were the devil, I’d get organized. I’d infiltrate unions and urge more loafing and less work, because idle hands usually work for me. I’d peddle narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. And I’d tranquilize the rest with pills. If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine yound intellects but neglect to discipline emotions . . . let those run wild. I would designate an athiest to front for me before the highest courts in the land and I would get preachers to say “she’s right.” With flattery and promises of power, I could get the courts to rule what I construe as against God and in favor of pornography, and thus, I would evict God from the courthouse, and then from the school house, and then from the houses of Congress and then, in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and I would deify science because that way men would become smart enough to create super weapons but not wise enough to control them. If I were Satan, I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg, and the symbol of Christmas, a bottle. If I were the devil, I would take from those who have and I would give to those who wanted, until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. And then, my police state would force everybody back to work. Then, I could separate families, putting children in uniform, women in coal mines, and objectors in slave camps. In other words, if I were Satan, I’d just keep on doing what he’s doing. (Speech was broadcast by ABC Radio commentator Paul Harvey on April 3, 1965)

Dante was standing near the Ponte Vecchio, a bridge that crosses the Arno River in Florence. It was just before 1300… Dante saw Beatrice standing on the bridge. He was a young man, she even younger, and that vision contained the whole of eternity for him. Dante did not speak to her and saw her very little. And then Beatrice died, carried off by plague. Dante was stricken with the loss of his vision. She was the connection between his soul and Heaven itself, and from it the Divine Comedy was born. Six hundred fifty years later, during World War II, the Americans were chasing the German army up the Italian peninsula. The Germans were blowing up everything of aid to the progression of the American army, including the bridges across the Arno River. But no one wanted to blow up the Ponte Vecchio, because Beatrice had stood on it and Dante had written about her. So the German commandant made radio contact with the Americans and, in plain language, said they would leave the Ponte Vecchio intact if the Americans would promise not to use it. The promise was held. The bridge was not blown up, and not one American soldier or piece of equipment went across it. We’re such hard bitten people that we need hard bitten proof of things, and this is the most hard bitten fact I know to present to you. The bridge was spared, in a modern, ruthless war, because Beatrice had stood upon it.

The viewer of television, the listener to radio, the reader of magazines, is presented with a whole complex of elements—all the way from ingenious rhetoric to carefully selected data and statistics—to make it easy for him to “make up his own mind” with the minimum of difficulty and effort. But the packaging is often done so effectively that the viewer, listener, or reader does not make up his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a packaged opinion into his mind, somewhat like inserting a cassette into a cassette player. He then pushes a button and “plays back” the opinion whenever it seems appropriate to do so. He has performed acceptably without having had to think.

Honor the past, celebrate the present, embrace the future.

The feeding of the Muse then, which we have spent most of our time on here, seem to me to be the continual running after loves, the checking of these loves against one's present and future needs, the moving on from simple textures to more complex ones, from naive ones to more informed ones, from nonintellectual to intellectual ones. Nothing is ever lost. If you have moved over vast territories and dared to love silly things, you will have learned even from the most primitive items collected and out aside in your life. From an ever-roaming curiosity in all the arts, from bad radio to good theatre, from nursery rhyme to symphony, from jungle compound to Kafka's Castle, there is basic excellence to be winnowed out, truths found, kept, savored, and used on some later day. To be a child of one's time is to do all these things.

Three or four days later he was still thinking about seal flipper pie. Remembered the two raw eggs Petal gave him. That he invested with pathetic meaning. 'Petal,' said Quoyle to Wavey, 'hated to cook. Hardly ever did.' Thought of the times he had fixed dinner for her, set put his stupid candles, folded the napkins as though they were important, waited and finally ate alone, the radio on for company. And later dined with the children, shoveling in canned spaghetti, scraping baby food off small chins. 'Once she gave me two eggs. Raw eggs for a present.' He had made an omelet of them, hand-fed her as thought she were a nestling bird. And saved the shells in a paper cup on top of the kitchen cabinet. Where they still must be.

Almost every Bible conference majors on today’s Church being like the Ephesian Church. We are told that, despite our sin and carnality, we are seated with Him. Alas, what a lie! We are Ephesians all right; but, as the Ephesian Church in the Revelation, we have ‘‘left our first love!’’ We appease sin—but do not oppose it. To such a cold, carnal, critical, care-cowed Church, this lax, loose, lustful, licentious age will never capitulate. Let us stop looking for scapegoats. The fault in declining morality is not radio or television. The whole blame for the present international degeneration and corruption lies at the door of the Church!

The parliament no longer is an 'assembly of wise men chosen as individual personalities by privileged strata, who sought to convince each other through arguments in public discussion on the assumption that the subsequent decision reached by the majority would be what was true and right for the national welfare.' Instead it has become the 'public rostrum on which, before the entire nation (which through radio an television participates in a specific fashion in this sphere of publicity), the government and the parties carrying it present and justify to the nation their political program, while the opposition attacks this program with the same opennes and develops its alternatives.

In the American way of life pleasure involves comfort, convenience, and sexual stimulation. Pleasure, so defined, has little to do with the past and views the future as no more than a repetition of a hedonistically driven present. This market morality stigmatizes others as objects for personal pleasure or bodily stimulation. The reduction of individuals to objects of pleasure is especially evident in the culture industries--television, radio, video, music. Like all Americans, African Americans are influenced greatly by the images of comfort. These images contribute to the predominance of the market-inspired way of life over all others and thereby edge out nonmarket values--love, care, service to others--handed down by preceding generations. The predominance of this way of life among those living in poverty-ridden conditions, with a limited capacity to ward of self-contempt and self-hatred, results in the possible triumph of the nihilistic threat in black America.

Resonance is a real 'here today' phenomena that just hasn't been looked at very carefully, and that is because of the (nonsense) that physicists have been putting out about 'energy' for decades. Electronic resonance has been used in radio tuners since their inception, while in the field of electric power resonance is avoided like the plague." "My system is not 'of the future' but here on this earth with all of the world's present problems." McKie said his real-world solid-state electronic system could be understood today, if physicists were not teaching that it cannot be achieved. "...When physicists decide to 'come clean' and say that they don't know it all, we'll all be a lot closer to the gleaming world that you are describing.

In 1987, under President Ronald Reagan, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) abolished the Fairness Doctrine. In place since 1949, it had stipulated equal airtime for differing points of view. In this environment where media outlets felt less compelled to present balanced political debate, AM radio stations in particular started to switch to a lucrative form of programming best exemplified by Rush Limbaugh—right-wing talk radio. For hours on end, Limbaugh, and others who followed his lead, would present their view of the world without rebuttal, fact-checking, or any of the other standards in place at most journalistic outlets. Often their commentary included bashing any media coverage that conflicted with the talk-radio narrative.

We live in a world of ghosts. We are all half present for most of our day. I constantly catch myself walking while looking at an iPhone. When I drive to work in the morning, I find myself lost in thought or needing the noise of the radio or an audiobook. We sit in a room of people that we love, while we all live in a half-present, hypnotized state of social media consciousness.

America has no now. We're reluctant to acknowledge the present. It's too embarrassing. Instead, we reach into the past. Our culture is composed of sequels, reruns, remakes, revivals, reissues, re-releases, recreations, reenactments, adaptations, anniversaries, memorabilia, oldies radio, and nostalgia record collections. World War II has been refought so many times, the Germans and Japanese are now drawing residuals.

In a crisis, the inevitable suffering that life entails can rapidly make a mockery of the idea that happiness is the proper pursuit of the individual. On the radio show, I suggested, instead, that a deeper meaning was required. I noted that the nature of such meaning was constantly re-presented in the great stories of the past, and that it had more to do with developing character in the face of suffering than with happiness.

The viewer of television, the listener to radio, the reader of magazines, is presented with a whole complex of elements—all the way from ingenious rhetoric to carefully selected data and statistics—to make it easy for him to “make up his own mind” with the minimum of difficulty and effort. But the packaging is often done so effectively that the viewer, listener, or reader does not make up his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a packaged opinion into his mind, somewhat like inserting a cassette into a cassette player. He then pushes a button and “plays back” the opinion whenever it seems appropriate to do so. He has performed acceptably without having had to think.

We always long for Saturdays when our books come. Just like little children receiving a present. Ordinary people simply don’t know what books mean to us, shut up here. Reading, learning, and the radio are our amusements. Yours, Anne

Mindful eating nourishes awareness in us. We needn’t be afraid of not having the TV, radio, newspaper, or a complicated conversation while we eat. It is wonderful just to be completely present with our food and those eating with us.

He didn’t want to think about the implications of this mysterious ability to see events that occurred in places where he wasn’t physically present. What did they call it on those late night radio shows back in the twenty-first century? Oh yes, remote viewing.

There's one big difference between the poor and the rich,' Kite says, taking a drag from his cigarette. We are in a pub, at lunch-time. John Kite is always, unless stated otherwise, smoking a fag, in a pub, at lunch-time. 'The rich aren't evil, as so many of my brothers would tell you. I've known rich people -- I have played on their yachts -- and they are not unkind, or malign, and they do not hate the poor, as many would tell you. And they are not stupid -- or at least, not any more than the poor are. Much as I find amusing the idea of a ruling class of honking toffs, unable to put their socks on without Nanny helping them, it is not true. They build banks, and broker deals, and formulate policy, all with perfect competency. 'No -- the big difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich are blithe. They believe nothing can ever really be so bad, They are born with the lovely, velvety coating of blitheness -- like lanugo, on a baby -- and it is never rubbed off by a bill that can't be paid; a child that can't be educated; a home that must be left for a hostel, when the rent becomes too much. 'Their lives are the same for generations. There is no social upheaval that will really affect them. If you're comfortably middle-class, what's the worst a government policy could do? Ever? Tax you at 90 per cent and leave your bins, unemptied, on the pavement. But you and everyone you know will continue to drink wine -- but maybe cheaper -- go on holiday -- but somewhere nearer -- and pay off your mortgage -- although maybe later. 'Consider, now, then, the poor. What's the worst a government policy can do to them? It can cancel their operation, with no recourse to private care. It can run down their school -- with no escape route to a prep. It can have you out of your house and into a B&B by the end of the year. When the middle-classes get passionate about politics, they're arguing about their treats -- their tax breaks and their investments. When the poor get passionate about politics, they're fighting for their lives. 'Politics will always mean more to the poor. Always. That's why we strike and march, and despair when our young say they won't vote. That's why the poor are seen as more vital, and animalistic. No classical music for us -- no walking around National Trust properties, or buying reclaimed flooring. We don't have nostalgia. We don't do yesterday. We can't bear it. We don't want to be reminded of our past, because it was awful; dying in mines, and slums, without literacy, or the vote. Without dignity. It was all so desperate, then. That's why the present and the future is for the poor -- that's the place in time for us: surviving now, hoping for better, later. We live now -- for our instant, hot, fast treats, to prep us up: sugar, a cigarette, a new fast song on the radio. 'You must never, never forget, when you talk to someone poor, that it takes ten times the effort to get anywhere from a bad postcode, It's a miracle when someone from a bad postcode gets anywhere, son. A miracle they do anything at all.

She’s also the one who brings five library books with her every Saturday. We long for Saturdays because that means books. We’re like a bunch of little kids with a present. Ordinary people don’t know how much books can mean to someone who’s cooped up. Our only diversions are reading, studying and listening to the radio.

Hitler had been in power for six months. Duck Soup, said Harpo, was his most difficult movie, and the only one in which he worried about his performance. Not because of the director or the script. “The trouble was Adolph Hitler.” American radio was broadcasting Hitler’s speeches, and “twice we suspended shooting to listen to him scream.

Daniel had known Zephyr since she was seven. He used to sit in the living room while she and Trixie performed the cheerleading moves they'd made up during an afternoon of play or lip-synched to the radio, or presented tumbling routines. He could practically still hear them doing a hand-clapping game: "The spades go eeny-meeny pop zoombini.

Bannon didn’t promote internal debate, provide policy rationale, or deliver PowerPoint presentations; instead, he was the equivalent of Trump’s personal talk radio. Trump could turn him on at any moment, and it pleased him that Bannon’s pronouncements and views would consistently be fully formed and ever available, a bracing, unified-field narrative

Meanwhile, sitting in the lounge talking, listening to the radio broadcasts, we learned the pay-off. The world had not changed...Love of country flourished, while love of humanity withered; worship of God was present, and following of Christ was absent. This was the victory we had won. This was the world men had bought with their blood. This was peace.

Politics will always mean more to the poor. Always. That's why we strike and march, and despair when our young say they won't vote. That's why the poor are seen as more vital, and animalistic. No classical music for us - no walking around National Trust properties or buying reclaimed flooring. We don't have nostalgia. We don't do yesterday. We can't bear it. We don't want to be reminded of our past, because it was awful: dying in mines and slums without literacy or the vote. Without dignity. It was all so desperate then. That's why the present and the future is for the poor - that's the place in time for us: surviving now, hoping for better later. We live now - for our own instant hot, fast treats, to pep us up: sugar, a cigarette, a new fast song on the radio.

Social connections were also transformed beyond recognition. The invention of radio and television led to the rise of the mass media and a corresponding decline in direct human interactions with a merely social function. Evening meetings between neighbors, pub gatherings, harvest festivals, rituals, and celebrations—they were progressively replaced by consumption of what the media presented.

(…) it may be seriously questioned whether the advent of modern communications media has much enhanced our understanding of the world in which we live.(…) Perhaps we know more about the world than we used to, and insofar as knowledge is prerequisite to understanding, that is all to the good. But knowledge is not as much a prerequisite to understanding as is commonly supposed. We do not have to know everything about something in order to understand it; too many facts are often as much of an obstacle to understanding as too few. There is a sense in which we moderns are inundated with facts to the detriment of understanding. (…) One of the reasons for this situation is that the very media we have mentioned are so designed as to make thinking seem unnecessary (though this is only an appearance). The packaging of intellectual positions and views is one of the most active enterprises of some of the best minds of our day. The viewer of television, the listener to radio, the reader of magazines, is presented with a whole complex of elements—all the way from ingenious rhetoric to carefully selected data and statistics—to make it easy for him to “make up his own mind” with the minimum of difficulty and effort. But the packaging is often done so effectively that the viewer, listener, or reader does not make up his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a packaged opinion into his mind, somewhat like inserting a cassette into a cassette player. He then pushes a button and “plays back” the opinion whenever it seems appropriate to do so. He has performer acceptably without having had to think.

Once a country accepts censorship of the press and of speech, then nothing can be won without violence. Therefore, so long as you have free speech, protect it. This is the life-and-death issue in this country: do not give up the freedom of the press—of newspapers, books, magazines, television, radios, movies, and every other form of presenting ideas. So long as that's free, a peaceful intellectual turn is possible.

They had come all at once, scientists being pack animals. Their leader was a nice man named Carlos, who had started dating Cecil, the presenter of the local radio station, after a near-death experience a few years before involving a brutal attack from a tiny civilization living under lane 5 of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. It was an ordinary enough way to begin a relationship, as these things go.

On an air-cooled engine like this, extreme overheating can cause a “seizure”. This machine has had one...in fact, three of them. I took this machine into a shop because I thought it wasn’t important enough to justify getting into myself, having to learn all the complicated details. The shop was a different scene from the ones I remembered. The mechanics, who had once all seemed like ancient veterans, now looked like children. A radio was going full blast and they were clowning around and talking and seemed not to notice me. They sat down to do a job and they performed it like chimpanzees. Nothing personal in it. The radio was a clue. You can’t really think hard about what you’re doing and listen to the radio at the same time. But the biggest clue seemed to be their expressions. They were hard to explain. Good-natured, friendly, easygoing—and uninvolved. They were like spectators. I found the cause of the seizures a few weeks later, waiting to happen again. It was a little twenty-five-cent pin in the internal oil-delivery system that had been sheared and was preventing oil from reaching the head at high speeds. On this trip I think we should notice it, explore it a little, to see if in that strange separation of what man is from what man does we may have some clues as to what the hell has gone wrong in this twentieth century. I don’t want to hurry it. That itself is a poisonous twentieth-century attitude. When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things. I just want to get at it slowly, but carefully and thoroughly, with the same attitude I remember was present just before I found that sheared pin. It was that attitude that found it, nothing else.

„Hitler´s dictatorship“, he said, „differed in one fundamental point from all its predecessors in history. It was the first dictatorship in the present period of modern technical developement, a dicttorship which made complete use of all technical means for the domination of its own country. Through technical devices like the radio and the loud-speaker, eighty million people were deprived of independent thought. It was thereby possible to subject them to the will of one man....Earlier dictators needed highly qualified assistants even at the lowest level – men who could think and act independently. The totalirian system in the period of modern technical development can dispense with such men; thanks to modern methods of communication, i tis possible to mechanize the lower leadership. As a result of this there has arisen the new type of uncritical recipient of orders.“ (Albert Speer)

An extraterrestrial being, newly arrived on Earth—scrutinizing what we mainly present to our children in television, radio, movies, newspapers, magazines, the comics, and many books—might easily conclude that we are intent on teaching them murder, rape, cruelty, superstition, credulity, and consumerism. We keep at it, and through constant repetition many of them finally get it. What kind of society could we create if, instead, we drummed into them science and a sense of hope?

To haste as a cause of confusion must be added distraction. Normally, except for those who work in the early hours of the morning, or who live up a long country lane, it is almost impossible to avoid being disturbed by incidental noises of traffic, industry, schools, and the wireless, or by the telephone, or by callers. Few people can immediately switch their minds from one complicated subject to another, and presently switch back again, without losing something in the process. Most business men and journalists claim that they are accustomed to noise and can ‘work through anything’. But this does not mean that they are not affected by noise: part of the brain must be employed in sorting out the noises and discounting them. The intense concentration achieved when one writes in complete silence, security and leisure, with the mental senses cognizant of every possible aspect of the theme as it develops—this was always rare and is now rarer than ever. Modern conditions of living encourage habitual distraction and, though there are still opportunities for comparative quiet, most people feel that they are not really alive unless they are in close touch with their fellow men—and close touch involves constant disturbance. Hart Crane, a leading American poet of the Nineteen-Twenties, decided that he could not write his best except with a radio or victrola playing jazz at him and street-noises coming up through the open window. He considered that distraction was the chief principle of modern living; he cultivated it, distractedly, and committed suicide in his early thirties.

The ever-reliable Bill Thompson filled the gap with a new character, Wallace Wimple. Wallace gave new meaning to the word “wimp,” for this was the nickname pinned on him by Fibber McGee. Wimple was terrified of his “big old wife,” the ferocious, often-discussed but never-present “Sweetie Face.” Also in 1941 came Gale Gordon as Mayor LaTrivia, who would arrive at the McGee house, start an argument, and become so tongue-tied that he’d blow his top. A year later, all these characters disappeared: Gordon went into the Coast Guard, and when Thompson joined the Navy, four characters went with him. With LaTrivia, Boomer, Depopoulous, Wimple, the Old Timer, and Gildersleeve all on the “recently departed” list, Fibber found a new devil’s advocate in the town doctor. Arthur Q. Bryan, who had played the voice of Elmer Fudd in the Warner Brothers cartoons, became Doc Gamble, continuing the verbal brickbats begun by Gildersleeve. Their squabbles could begin over a disputed doctor bill—McGee always disputed doctor bills—or erupt out of nowhere about anything at all.

So I went inside and told my mum I was going to Aled’s, and she said that was fine because she still needed to catch up on The Great British Bake Off and could I please not be too loud when I came in, and then I grabbed my keys from the bowl near the door and Aled’s birthday card and present from the kitchen table and put some shoes on and I took one last look at myself in the landing mirror. My makeup was pretty crap and my hair had started to fall out of its topknot, but I didn’t really care that much. What were we gonna do, get more drunk in Aled’s lounge?

In September 1941, a set of hearings was convened by a U.S. Senate Subcommittee on War Propaganda, chaired by Idaho Democrat Senator D. Worth Clark. The hearings were designed to address a resolution sponsored by two hard-nosed isolationist senators, Republican Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota and Democrat Bennett Champ Clark of Missouri, calling for “an investigation of any propaganda disseminated by motion pictures and radio or any other activity of the motion picture industry to influence public opinion in the direction of participation of the United States in the present European war.

She thought he cared too much. Sometimes Dolores could see that her son felt what other people were feeling. He was sympathetic, she knew that. But Silas managed to make his feelings about others into another kind of absence. You’d laugh, Silas would laugh. You’d cry, he’d start crying. It was like he was tuning in to a radio station. It took a moment for the distant signal to lock in, but once it did, he’d be right in sync with you. Only when he got angry, or hurt, did the signal fail and he’d become very present indeed, and very annoyed to have his calm broken. Then it was nothing but static.

If you’re familiar with meditation, this process might sound familiar. Nearly every meditation tradition involves directing your attention—to your breath or a mantra, for example. When your attention wanders—to your grocery list or a song you heard on the radio—your only “task” is to realize what is happening and redirect your attention to your focus. Pursuing your creative calling is the same. By regularly practicing, you will realize when you go off track so you can bring your attention back to realizing your dream. The creative call is always present no matter how faint or how far off the path you wander.

The genesis of my interest in being a writer can be traced to fourth grade when we listened to a radio production of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and I asked the teacher if I could rewrite it for our class to present. Nothing like going head-to-head with the Bard, right? I can still visualise the pages I filled creating this first "great" literary endeavor. Encouraged by teachers (and one doting grandmother), I went on to write reams of yearbook copy in high school and college and, then, to teach high school English. My "real" writing career didn't begin until I turned from education to the full-time pursuit of storytelling.

We almost began a perfect conversation, F. said as he turned on the six o'clock news. He turned the radio very loud and began to shout wildly against the voice of the commentator, who was reciting a list of disasters. Sail on, sail on, O Ship of State, auto accidents, births, Berlin, cures for cancer! Listen, my friend, listen to the present, the right now, it's all around us, painted like a target, red, white, and blue. Sail into the target like a dart, a fluke bull's eye in a dirty pub. Empty your memory and listen to the fire around you. Don't forget your memory, let it exist somewhere precious in all the colors that it needs but somewhere else, hoist your memory on the Ship of State like a pirate's sail, and aim yourself at the tinkly present. Do you know how to do this? Do you know how to see the akropolis like the Indians did who never even had one? Fuck a saint, that's how, find a little saint and fuck her over and over in some pleasant part of heaven, get right into her plastic altar, dwell in her silver medal, fuck her until she tinkles like a souvenir music box, until the memorial lights go on for free, find a little saintly faker like Teresa or Catherine Tekakwitha or Lesbia, whom prick never knew but who lay around all day in a chocolate poem, find one of these quaint impossible cunts and fuck her for your life, coming all over the sky, fuck her on the moon with a steel hourglass up your hole, get tangled in her airy robes, suck her nothing juices, lap, lap, lap, a dog in the ether, then climb down to this fat earth and slouch around the fat earth in your stone shoes, get clobbered by a runaway target, take the senseless blows again and again, a right to the mind, piledriver on the heart, kick in the scrotum, help! help! it's my time, my second, my splinter of the shit glory tree, police, fire men! look at the traffic of happiness and crime, it's burning in crayon like the akropolis rose! And so on.

who could blame them if they said "the hell with the rest of the world." Let somebody else buy the bonds. Let somebody else build or repair foreign dams, or design foreign buildings that won't shake apart in earthquakes." When the railways of France, and Germany, and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both of 'em are still broke. I can name to you 5,000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name to me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake. Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They'll come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they're entitled to thumb their noses at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of these. But there are many smug, self-righteous Canadians. And finally, the American Red Cross was told at its 48th Annual meeting in New Orleans this morning that it was broke. This year's disasters -- with the year less than half-over -- has taken it all. And nobody, but nobody, has helped. -  Gordon Sinclair via Radio Broadcast June 5, 1973 from Ontario, Canada

Sometimes I forgot that Mimi was dead. Like, one morning, I woke up to the smell of coffee and thought, Mimi’s already in the kitchen. And one afternoon I was in a card store and suddenly thought, almost in a panic, Mimi’s birthday is only a week away and I don’t have a card or a present for her. Each time, the awful truth would then blaze its way back into my brain. Other times, I wouldn’t be thinking about Mimi at all, and her memory would come crashing back to me. Those times were the most inconvenient, because I wanted to forget, not remember. Once, I was listening to the radio, and a song was playing and there was a line in it about a gentle person or a gentle life or something like that, and it brought Mimi to mind right away.

Had your spacecraft flown by the Earth a hundred million years ago, in the age of the dinosaurs when there were no humans and no technology, you would still have seen oxygen and ozone, the chlorophyll pigment, and far too much methane. At present, though, your instruments are finding signs not just of life, but of high technology—something that couldn’t possibly have been detected even a hundred years ago: You are detecting a particular kind of radio wave emanating from Earth. Radio waves don’t necessarily signify life and intelligence. Many natural processes generate them. You’ve already found radio emissions from other, apparently uninhabited worlds—generated by electrons trapped in the strong magnetic fields of planets, by chaotic motions at the shock front that separates these magnetic fields from the interplanetary magnetic field, and by lightning.

Book authors are in high demand for speaking engagements and appearances; they are the new ‘celebrity’ and celebrities gain access. Authors not only make money from royalties or book advances but from their keynotes, presentations and strategically branded product lines. This includes entrepreneurial ideas for you to extend yourself beyond just writing and prepares you to add speaking and consulting to your revenue stream. You have to begin to look outside book sales and towards the speaking market. There are radio, interviews, news, television, small channel television keynotes, lectures, seminars and workshops. These types of events have the possibility to be much more lucrative than just selling books. In essence, the book builds and brands you in the public eye. It gives you credibility and the opportunity to be more than you are. It enables you to now be a voice, a teacher, a leader, an expert - after all, you wrote the book on it!

We almost began a perfect conversation, F. said as he turned on the six o'clock news. He turned the radio very loud and began to shout wildly against the voice of the commentator, who was reciting a list of disasters. Sail on, sail on, O Ship of State, auto accidents, births, Berlin, cures for cancer! Listen, my friend, listen to the present, the right now, it's all around us, painted like a target, red, white, and blue. Sail into the target like a dart, a fluke bull's eye in a dirty pub. Empty your memory and listen to the fire around you. Don't forget your memory, let it exist somewhere precious in all the colors that it needs but somewhere else, hoist your memory on the Ship of State like a pirate's sail, and aim yourself at the tinkly present. Do you know how to do this? Do you know how to see the akropolis like the Indians did who never even had one? Fuck a saint, that's how, find a little saint and fuck her over and over in some pleasant part of heaven, get right into her plastic altar, dwell in her silver medal, fuck her until she tinkles like a souvenir music box, until the memorial lights go on for free, find a little saintly faker like Teresa or Catherine Tekakwitha or Lesbia, whom prick never knew but who lay around all day in a chocolate poem, find one of these quaint impossible cunts and fuck her for your life, coming all over the sky, fuck her on the moon with a steel hourglass up your hole, get tangled in her airy robes, suck her nothing juices, lap, lap, lap, a dog in the ether, then climb down to this fat earth and slouch around the fat earth in your stone shoes, get clobbered by a runaway target, take the senseless blows again and again, a right to the mind, piledriver on the heart, kick in the scrotum, help! help! it's my time, my second, my splinter of the shit glory tree, police, fire men! look at the traffic of happiness and crime, it's burning in crayon like the akropolis rose! And so on.

Reality is everything that exists. That sounds straightforward, doesn’t it? Actually, it isn’t. There are various problems. What about dinosaurs, which once existed but exist no longer? What about stars, which are so far away that, by the time their light reaches us and we can see them, they may have fizzled out? We’ll come to dinosaurs and stars in a moment. But in any case, how do we know things exist, even in the present? Well, our five senses — sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste — do a pretty good job of convincing us that many things are real: rocks and camels, newly mown grass and freshly ground coffee, sandpaper and velvet, waterfalls and doorbells, sugar and salt. But are we only going to call something ‘real’ if we can detect it directly with one of our five senses? What about a distant galaxy, too far away to be seen with the naked eye? What about a bacterium, too small to be seen without a powerful microscope? Must we say that these do not exist because we can’t see them? No. Obviously we can enhance our senses through the use of special instruments: telescopes for the galaxy, microscopes for bacteria. Because we understand telescopes and microscopes, and how they work, we can use them to extend the reach of our senses — in this case, the sense of sight — and what they enable us to see convinces us that galaxies and bacteria exist. How about radio waves? Do they exist? Our eyes can’t detect them, nor can our ears, but again special instruments — television sets, for example — convert them into signals that we can see and hear. So, although we can’t see or hear radio waves, we know they are a part of reality. As with telescopes and microscopes, we understand how radios and televisions work. So they help our senses to build a picture of what exists: the real world — reality. Radio telescopes (and X-ray telescopes) show us stars and galaxies through what seem like different eyes: another way to expand our view of reality.

He laughs and turns up the music so that I can hear it in the back. The speakers blast out: ‘Streets like a jungle, so call the police.’ ‘Call the police,’ I smile, ‘fuck the police’ nodding my head to the beat. The guard turns it up even more. ‘Yeah, fuck the police for stitching me up and presenting their dodgy evidence,’ I think to myself. Fuck them for getting me put away for seven instead of the four or five I should have got. A new song comes on and I’m merrily tapping my feet while the guard sings along up front to The Clash. ‘Fighting the nation. Police and thieves in the street, oh yeah…Oh yeah! Scaring the nation with their guns and ammunition. Police and thieves in the street. Oh yeah. Fighting the nation with their guns and ammunition’. Ha ha. The DJ on the radio is on my side. The Securicor men are on my side. And I’m heading back to civilisation and as many drugs as I can get my hands on. Everything’s going my way. There must be a song about that, too.

Qualities such as honesty, determination, and a cheerful acceptance of stress, which can all be identified through probing questionnaires and interviews, may be more important to the company in the long run than one's college grade-point average or years of "related experience." Every business is only as good as the people it brings into the organization. The corporate trainer should feel his job is the most important in the company, because it is. Exalt seniority-publicly, shamelessly, and with enough fanfare to raise goosebumps on the flesh of the most cynical spectator. And, after the ceremony, there should be some sort of permanent display so that employees passing by are continuously reminded of their own achievements and the achievements of others. The manager must freely share his expertise-not only about company procedures and products and services but also with regard to the supervisory skills he has worked so hard to acquire. If his attitude is, "Let them go out and get their own MBAs," the personnel under his authority will never have the full benefit of his experience. Without it, they will perform at a lower standard than is possible, jeopardizing the manager's own success. Should a CEO proclaim that there is no higher calling than being an employee of his organization? Perhaps not-for fear of being misunderstood-but it's certainly all right to think it. In fact, a CEO who does not feel this way should look for another company to manage-one that actually does contribute toward a better life for all. Every corporate leader should communicate to his workforce that its efforts are important and that employees should be very proud of what they do-for the company, for themselves, and, literally, for the world. If any employee is embarrassed to tell his friends what he does for a living, there has been a failure of leadership at his workplace. Loyalty is not demanded; it is created. Why can't a CEO put out his own suggested reading list to reinforce the corporate vision and core values? An attractive display at every employee lounge of books to be freely borrowed, or purchased, will generate interest and participation. Of course, the program has to be purely voluntary, but many employees will wish to be conversant with the material others are talking about. The books will be another point of contact between individuals, who might find themselves conversing on topics other than the weekend football games. By simply distributing the list and displaying the books prominently, the CEO will set into motion a chain of events that can greatly benefit the workplace. For a very cost-effective investment, management will have yet another way to strengthen the corporate message. The very existence of many companies hangs not on the decisions of their visionary CEOs and energetic managers but on the behavior of its receptionists, retail clerks, delivery drivers, and service personnel. The manager must put himself and his people through progressively challenging courage-building experiences. He must make these a mandatory group experience, and he must lead the way. People who have confronted the fear of public speaking, and have learned to master it, find that their new confidence manifests itself in every other facet of the professional and personal lives. Managers who hold weekly meetings in which everyone takes on progressively more difficult speaking or presentation assignments will see personalities revolutionized before their eyes. Command from a forward position, which means from the thick of it. No soldier will ever be inspired to advance into a hail of bullets by orders phoned in on the radio from the safety of a remote command post; he is inspired to follow the officer in front of him. It is much more effective to get your personnel to follow you than to push them forward from behind a desk. The more important the mission, the more important it is to be at the front.

That, surely, gives us a picture of a great deal that is happening at the present time. This is one of the problems confronting the Christian Church today. This ‘affluent society’ in which we are living is drugging people and making them feel that all is well with them. They have better wages, better houses, better cars, every gadget desirable in the home; life is satisfactory and all seems to be well; and because of that people have ceased to think and to face the real problems. They are content with this superficial ease and satisfaction, and that militates against a true and a radical understanding of their actual condition. And, of course, this is aggravated at the present time by many other agencies. There is the pleasure mania, and television and radio bringing their influence right into the home. All these things persuade man that all is well; they give him temporary feelings of happiness; and so he assumes that all is well and stops thinking. The result is that he does not realise his true position and then face it.

Pastor Max Lucado of San Antonio, Texas, said in an editorial for the Washington Post in February 2016 that he was “chagrined” by Trump’s antics. He ridiculed a war hero. He made a mockery of a reporter’s menstrual cycle. He made fun of a disabled reporter. He referred to a former first lady, Barbara Bush, as “mommy” and belittled Jeb Bush for bringing her on the campaign trail. He routinely calls people “stupid” and “dummy.” One writer catalogued 64 occasions that he called someone “loser.” These were not off-line, backstage, overheard, not-to-be-repeated comments. They were publicly and intentionally tweeted, recorded and presented.18 Lucado went on to question how Christians could support a man doing these things as a candidate for president, much less as someone who repeatedly attempted to capture evangelical audiences by portraying himself as similarly committed to Christian values. He continued, “If a public personality calls on Christ one day and calls someone a ‘bimbo’ the next, is something not awry? And to do so, not once, but repeatedly, unrepentantly and unapologetically? We stand against bullying in schools. Shouldn’t we do the same in presidential politics?” Rolling Stone reported on several evangelical leaders pushing against a Trump nomination, including North Carolina radio host and evangelical Dr. Michael Brown, who wrote an open letter to Jerry Falwell Jr., blasting his endorsement of Donald Trump. Brown wrote, “As an evangelical follower of Jesus, the contrast is between putting nationalism first or the kingdom of God first. From my vantage point, you and other evangelicals seem to have put nationalism first, and that is what deeply concerns me.”19 John Stemberger, president and general counsel for Florida Family Action, lamented to CNN, “The really puzzling thing is that Donald Trump defies every stereotype of a candidate you would typically expect Christians to vote for.” He wondered, “Should evangelical Christians choose to elect a man I believe would be the most immoral and ungodly person ever to be president of the United States?”20 A

The Feeding of the Muse then, which we have spent most of our time on here, seems to me to be the continual running after loves, the checking of these loves against one’s present and future needs, the moving on from simple textures to more complex ones, from naïve ones to more informed ones, from nonintellectual to intellectual ones. Nothing is ever lost. If you have moved over vast territories and dared to love silly things, you will have learned even from the most primitive items collected and put aside in your life. From an ever-roaming curiosity in all the arts, from bad radio to good theatre, from nursery rhyme to symphony, from jungle compound to Kafka’s Castle, there is basic excellence to be winnowed out, truths found, kept, savored, and used on some later day. To be a child of one’s time is to do all these things. Do not, for money, turn away from all the stuff you have collected in a lifetime. Do not, for the vanity of intellectual publications, turn away from what you are—the material within you which makes you individual, and therefore indispensable to others.

If talking pictures could be said to have a father, it was Lee De Forest, a brilliant but erratic inventor of electrical devices of all types. (He had 216 patents.) In 1907, while searching for ways to boost telephone signals, De Forest invented something called the thermionic triode detector. De Forest’s patent described it as “a System for Amplifying Feeble Electric Currents” and it would play a pivotal role in the development of broadcast radio and much else involving the delivery of sound, but the real developments would come from others. De Forest, unfortunately, was forever distracted by business problems. Several companies he founded went bankrupt, twice he was swindled by his backers, and constantly he was in court fighting over money or patents. For these reasons, he didn’t follow through on his invention. Meanwhile, other hopeful inventors demonstrated various sound-and-image systems—Cinematophone, Cameraphone, Synchroscope—but in every case the only really original thing about them was their name. All produced sounds that were faint or muddy, or required impossibly perfect timing on the part of the projectionist. Getting a projector and sound system to run in perfect tandem was basically impossible. Moving pictures were filmed with hand-cranked cameras, which introduced a slight variability in speed that no sound system could adjust to. Projectionists also commonly repaired damaged film by cutting out a few frames and resplicing what remained, which clearly would throw out any recording. Even perfect film sometimes skipped or momentarily stuttered in the projector. All these things confounded synchronization. De Forest came up with the idea of imprinting the sound directly onto the film. That meant that no matter what happened with the film, sound and image would always be perfectly aligned. Failing to find backers in America, he moved to Berlin in the early 1920s and there developed a system that he called Phonofilm. De Forest made his first Phonofilm movie in 1921 and by 1923 he was back in America giving public demonstrations. He filmed Calvin Coolidge making a speech, Eddie Cantor singing, George Bernard Shaw pontificating, and DeWolf Hopper reciting “Casey at the Bat.” By any measure, these were the first talking pictures. However, no Hollywood studio would invest in them. The sound quality still wasn’t ideal, and the recording system couldn’t quite cope with multiple voices and movement of a type necessary for any meaningful dramatic presentation. One invention De Forest couldn’t make use of was his own triode detector tube, because the patents now resided with Western Electric, a subsidiary of AT&T. Western Electric had been using the triode to develop public address systems for conveying speeches to large crowds or announcements to fans at baseball stadiums and the like. But in the 1920s it occurred to some forgotten engineer at the company that the triode detector could be used to project sound in theaters as well. The upshot was that in 1925 Warner Bros. bought the system from Western Electric and dubbed it Vitaphone. By the time of The Jazz Singer, it had already featured in theatrical presentations several times. Indeed, the Roxy on its opening night in March 1927 played a Vitaphone feature of songs from Carmen sung by Giovanni Martinelli. “His voice burst from the screen with splendid synchronization with the movements of his lips,” marveled the critic Mordaunt Hall in the Times. “It rang through the great theatre as if he had himself been on the stage.

But there is also (though much of this is kept from us, to keep us intimidated and without hope) the bubbling of change under the surface of obedience: the growing revulsion against the endless wars (I think of the Russian women in the nineties, demanding their country end its military intervention in Chechnya, as did Americans during the Vietnam war); the insistence of women all over the world that they will no longer tolerate abuse and subordination—we see, for instance, the new international movement against female genital mutilation, and the militancy of welfare mothers against punitive laws. There is civil disobedience against the military machine, protest against police brutality directed especially at people of color. In the United States, we see the educational system, a burgeoning new literature, alternative radio stations, a wealth of documentary films outside the mainstream, even Hollywood itself and sometimes television—compelled to recognize the growing multiracial character of the nation. Yes, we have in this country, dominated by corporate wealth and military power and two antiquated political parties, what a fearful conservative characterized as “a permanent adversarial culture” challenging the present, demanding a new future.

BIANCO- Non mi pare proprio. Lei lo vede, Gesù? NERO- No. Non lo vedo. BIANCO- Però ci parla. NERO- Ogni santo giorno. BIANCO- E lui parla con lei. NERO- Mi ha parlato. Si. BIANCO- Ma lei lo sente? Sente proprio la sua voce? NERO- No, non sento la sua voce. Non sento neanche la mia, se è per questo. A lui però l'ho sentito. BIANCO- Bè, allora Gesù non potrebbe essere soltanto nella sua testa? NERO- Infatti è nella mia testa. BIANCO- Allora non capisco cos'è che sta cercando di dirmi. NERO- Lo so che non capisci, zuccherino. Sta' a sentire. La prima cosa che devi tenere presente è che io, nella testa, non ho manco un pensiero originale. Se non ho dentro la scia del profumo della divinità, allora non mi interessa. BIANCO- La scia del profumo della divinità. NERO- Esatto. Che te ne pare? BIANCO- Non è male. NERO- L'ho sentito alla radio. Da un predicatore nero. Ma il punto è che ci ho anche provato a fare nell'altro modo. E mica a spizzichi e bocconi, eh. Dico proprio benda sugli occhi, briglia sciolta e via a correre in mezzo ai boschi. Oddio. Ci ho provato eccome. Se trovi un cristiano che ci ha provato più di me, mi piacerebbe conoscerlo. Mi piacerebbe davvero. E secondo te che cosa ci ho guadagnato? BIANCO- Non lo so. Che cosa ci ha guadagnato? NERO- La morte in vita. Ecco cosa ci ho guadagnato. BIANCO- La morte in vita. NERO- Esatto. Ero un cadavere ambulante. Così morto che non sapevo manco stendermi nella tomba.

The most common criticism of the spread was that it detached policy debate from the real world, that nobody used language the way that these debaters did, save perhaps for auctioneers. But even adolescents knew this wasn't true, that corporate persons deployed a version of the spread all the time: for they heard the spoken warnings at the end of the increasingly common television commercials for prescription drugs, when risk information was disclosed at a speed designed to make it difficult to comprehend; they heard the list of rules and caveats read rapid-fire at the end of promotions on the radio; they were at least vaguely familiar with the 'fine print' one received from financial institutions and health-insurance companies; the last thing one was supposed to do with these thousands of words was comprehend them. These types of disclosure were designed to conceal; they exposed you to information that, should you challenge the institution in question, would be treated like a 'dropped argument' in a fast round of debate - you have already conceded the validity of the point by failing to address it when it was presented. It's no excuse that you didn't have the time. Even before the twenty-four hour news cycle, Twitter storms, algorithmic trading, spreadsheets, the DDoS attack, Americans were getting 'spread' in their daily lives; meanwhile, their politicians went on speaking slowly, slowly about values utterly disconnected from their policies.

The BBC announcer’s voice changed. “The news,” he said, “has just been received that Japanese aircraft have raided Pearl Harbor, the American naval base in Hawaii. The announcement of the attack was made in a brief statement by President Roosevelt. Naval and military targets on the principal Hawaiian island of Oahu have also been attacked. No further details are yet available.” At first, there was confusion. “I was thoroughly startled,” Harriman said, “and I repeated the words, ‘The Japanese have raided Pearl Harbor.’ ” “No, no,” countered Churchill aide Tommy Thompson. “He said Pearl River.” U.S. ambassador John Winant, also present, glanced toward Churchill. “We looked at one another incredulously,” Winant wrote. Churchill, his depression suddenly lifted, slammed the top of the radio down and leapt to his feet. His on-duty private secretary, John Martin, entered the room, announcing that the Admiralty was on the phone. As Churchill headed for the door, he said, “We shall declare war on Japan.” Winant followed, perturbed. “Good God,” he said, “you can’t declare war on a radio announcement.” (Later Winant wrote, “There is nothing half-hearted or unpositive about Churchill—certainly not when he is on the move.”) Churchill stopped. His voice quiet, he said, “What shall I do?” Winant set off to call Roosevelt to learn more. “And I shall talk with him too,” Churchill said. Once Roosevelt was on the line, Winant told him that he had a friend with him who also wanted to speak. “You will know who it is, as soon as you hear his voice.

Still dark. The Alpine hush is miles deep. The skylight over Holly’s bed is covered with snow, but now that the blizzard’s stopped I’m guessing the stars are out. I’d like to buy her a telescope. Could I send her one? From where? My body’s aching and floaty but my mind’s flicking through the last night and day, like a record collector flicking through a file of LPs. On the clock radio, a ghostly presenter named Antoine Tanguay is working through Nocturne Hour from three till four A.M. Like all the best DJs, Antoine Tanguay says almost nothing. I kiss Holly’s hair, but to my surprise she’s awake: “When did the wind die down?” “An hour ago. Like someone unplugged it.” “You’ve been awake a whole hour?” “My arm’s dead, but I didn’t want to disturb you.” “Idiot.” She lifts her body to tell me to slide out. I loop a long strand of her hair around my thumb and rub it on my lip. “I spoke out of turn last night. About your brother. Sorry.” “You’re forgiven.” She twangs my boxer shorts’ elastic. “Obviously. Maybe I needed to hear it.” I kiss her wound-up hair bundle, then uncoil it. “You wouldn’t have any ciggies left, perchance?” In the velvet dark, I see her smile: A blade of happiness slips between my ribs. “What?” “Use a word like ‘perchance’ in Gravesend, you’d get crucified on the Ebbsfleet roundabout for being a suspected Conservative voter. No cigarettes left, I’m ’fraid. I went out to buy some yesterday, but found a semiattractive stalker, who’d cleverly made himself homeless forty minutes before a whiteout, so I had to come back without any.” I trace her cheekbones. “Semiattractive? Cheeky moo.” She yawns an octave. “Hope we can dig a way out tomorrow.” “I hope we can’t. I like being snowed in with you.” “Yeah well, some of us have these job things. Günter’s expecting a full house. Flirty-flirty tourists want to party-party-party.” I bury my head in the crook of her bare shoulder. “No.” Her hand explores my shoulder blade. “No what?” “No, you can’t go to Le Croc tomorrow. Sorry. First, because now I’m your man, I forbid it.” Her sss-sss is a sort of laugh. “Second?” “Second, if you went, I’d have to gun down every male between twelve and ninety who dared speak to you, plus any lesbians too. That’s seventy-five percent of Le Croc’s clientele. Tomorrow’s headlines would all be BLOODBATH IN THE ALPS AND LAMB THE SLAUGHTERER, and the a vegetarian-pacifist type, I know you wouldn’t want any role in a massacre so you’d better shack up”—I kiss her nose, forehead, and temple—“with me all day.” She presses her ear to my ribs. “Have you heard your heart? It’s like Keith Moon in there. Seriously. Have I got off with a mutant?” The blanket’s slipped off her shoulder: I pull it back. We say nothing for a while. Antoine whispers in his radio studio, wherever it is, and plays John Cage’s In a Landscape. It unscrolls, meanderingly. “If time had a pause button,” I tell Holly Sykes, “I’d press it. Right”—I press a spot between her eyebrows and up a bit—“there. Now.” “But if you did that, the whole universe’d be frozen, even you, so you couldn’t press play to start time again. We’d be stuck forever.” I kiss her on the mouth and blood’s rushing everywhere. She murmurs, “You only value something if you know it’ll end.

Eric Metaxas emerged as a leading voice on Christian masculinity in the Obama era. Metaxas wasn’t new to the world of evangelical publishing, or to evangelical culture more generally. Raised in the Greek Orthodox Church, Metaxas got his start writing children’s books. In 1997 he began working as a writer and editor for Charles Colson’s BreakPoint radio show, and he then worked as a writer for VeggieTales, a children’s video series where anthropomorphic vegetables taught lessons in biblical values and Christian morality. (Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber became household names in 1990s evangelicalism.) Belying his VeggieTales pedigree, Metaxas brought a new sophistication to the literature on evangelical masculinity. As a witty, Yale-educated Manhattanite, Metaxas cut a different profile than many spokesmen of the Christian Right. If Metaxas’s writing wasn’t exactly highbrow, his was higher-brow than most books churned out by Christian presses. More suave in his presentation than the average evangelical firebrand, Metaxas was a rising star in the conservative Christian world of the 2000s. After Colson’s death in 2012 he took over BreakPoint, a program broadcast on 1400 outlets to an audience of eight million. That year he also gave the keynote address at the National Prayer Breakfast, where he relished the opportunity to scold President Obama to his face, castigating those who displayed “phony religiosity” by throwing Bible verses around and claiming to be Christian while denying the exclusivity of the faith and the humanity of the unborn. In 2015 he launched his own nationally syndicated daily radio program, The Eric Metaxas Show.

Positive arguments for the natural possibility of absent qualia have not been as prevalent as arguments for inverted qualia, but they have been made. The most detailed presentation of these arguments is given by Block (1978). These arguments almost always have the same form. They consist in the exhibition of a realization of our functional organization in some unusual medium, combined with an appeal to intuition. It is pointed out, for example, that the organization of our brain might be simulated by the people of China or even mirrored in the economy of Bolivia. If we got every person in China to simulate a neuron (we would need to multiply the population by ten or one hundred, but no matter), and equipped them with radio links to simulate synaptic connections, then the functional organization would be there. But surely, says the argument, this baroque system would not be conscious! There is a certain intuitive force to this argument. Many people have a strong feeling that a system like this is simply the wrong sort of thing to have a conscious experience. Such a “group mind” would seem to be the stuff of a science-fiction tale, rather than the kind of thing that could really exist. But there is only an intuitive force. This certainly falls far short of a knockdown argument. Many have pointed out that while it may be intuitively implausible that such a system should give rise to experience, it is equally intuitively implausible that a brain should give rise to experience! Whoever would have thought that this hunk of gray matter would be the sort of thing that could produce vivid subjective experiences? And yet it does. Of course this does not show that a nation's population could produce a mind, but it is a strong counter to the intuitive argument that it would not. . . . Once we realize how tightly a specification of functional organization constrains the structure of a system, it becomes less implausible that even the population of China could support conscious experience if organized appropriately. If we take our image of the population, speed it up by a factor of a million or so, and shrink it into an area the size of a head, we are left with something that looks a lot like a brain, except that it has homunculi—tiny people—where a brain would have neurons. On the face of it, there is not much reason to suppose that neurons should do any better a job than homunculi in supporting experience.

So why haven’t we been visited? Maybe the probability of life spontaneously appearing is so low that Earth is the only planet in the galaxy—or in the observable universe—on which it happened. Another possibility is that there was a reasonable probability of forming self-reproducing systems, like cells, but that most of these forms of life did not evolve intelligence. We are used to thinking of intelligent life as an inevitable consequence of evolution, but what if it isn’t? The Anthropic Principle should warn us to be wary of such arguments. It is more likely that evolution is a random process, with intelligence as only one of a large number of possible outcomes. It is not even clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value. Bacteria, and other single-cell organisms, may live on if all other life on Earth is wiped out by our actions. Perhaps intelligence was an unlikely development for life on Earth, from the chronology of evolution, as it took a very long time—two and a half billion years—to go from single cells to multi-cellular beings, which are a necessary precursor to intelligence. This is a good fraction of the total time available before the Sun blows up, so it would be consistent with the hypothesis that the probability for life to develop intelligence is low. In this case, we might expect to find many other life forms in the galaxy, but we are unlikely to find intelligent life. Another way in which life could fail to develop to an intelligent stage would be if an asteroid or comet were to collide with the planet. In 1994, we observed the collision of a comet, Shoemaker–Levy, with Jupiter. It produced a series of enormous fireballs. It is thought the collision of a rather smaller body with the Earth, about sixty-six million years ago, was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. A few small early mammals survived, but anything as large as a human would have almost certainly been wiped out. It is difficult to say how often such collisions occur, but a reasonable guess might be every twenty million years, on average. If this figure is correct, it would mean that intelligent life on Earth has developed only because of the lucky chance that there have been no major collisions in the last sixty-six million years. Other planets in the galaxy, on which life has developed, may not have had a long enough collision-free period to evolve intelligent beings. A third possibility is that there is a reasonable probability for life to form and to evolve to intelligent beings, but the system becomes unstable and the intelligent life destroys itself. This would be a very pessimistic conclusion and I very much hope it isn’t true. I prefer a fourth possibility: that there are other forms of intelligent life out there, but that we have been overlooked. In 2015 I was involved in the launch of the Breakthrough Listen Initiatives. Breakthrough Listen uses radio observations to search for intelligent extraterrestrial life, and has state-of-the-art facilities, generous funding and thousands of hours of dedicated radio telescope time. It is the largest ever scientific research programme aimed at finding evidence of civilisations beyond Earth. Breakthrough Message is an international competition to create messages that could be read by an advanced civilisation. But we need to be wary of answering back until we have developed a bit further. Meeting a more advanced civilisation, at our present stage, might be a bit like the original inhabitants of America meeting Columbus—and I don’t think they thought they were better off for it.

The code of the National Association of Broadcasters enunciates as a cardinal principle in American radio the provision of time by stations, without charge, for the presentation of public questions of a controversial nature. At the same time, it advises against the sale of time for the presentation of controversial issues except in the case of political broadcasts during political campaigns. The basic foundation for the prohibition against the sale of time for the presentation of controversial issues is the public duty of broadcasters to present such issues, regardless of the willingness of others to pay for their presentation. If time were sold for that purpose, it would have to be sold to all with the ability to pay, and as a result the advantage in any discussion would rest largely with those having the greater financial means to buy broadcasting time.

There is some feeling nowadays that reading is not as necessary as it once was. Radio and especially television have taken over many of the functions once served by print, just as photography has taken over functions once served by painting and other graphic arts. Admittedly, television serves some of these functions extremely well; the visual communication of news events, for example, has enormous impact. The ability of radio to give us information while we are engaged in doing other things—for instance, driving a car—is remarkable, and a great saving of time. But it may be seriously questioned whether the advent of modern communications media has much enhanced our understanding of the world in which we live. Perhaps we know more about the world than we used to, and insofar as knowledge is prerequisite to understanding, that is all to the good. But knowledge is not as much a prerequisite to understanding as is commonly supposed. We do not have to know everything about something in order to understand it; too many facts are often as much of an obstacle to understanding as too few. There is a sense in which we moderns are inundated with facts to the detriment of understanding. One of the reasons for this situation is that the very media we have mentioned are so designed as to make thinking seem unnecessary (though this is only an appearance). The packaging of intellectual positions and views is one of the most active enterprises of some of the best minds of our day. The viewer of television, the listener to radio, the reader of magazines, is presented with a whole complex of elements—all the way from ingenious rhetoric to carefully selected data and statistics—to make it easy for him to “make up his own mind” with the minimum of difficulty and effort. But the packaging is often done so effectively that the viewer, listener, or reader does not make up his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a packaged opinion into his mind, somewhat like inserting a cassette into a cassette player. He then pushes a button and “plays back” the opinion whenever it seems appropriate to do so. He has performed acceptably without having had to think.

In the first place, the majority never read anything twice. The sure mark of an unliterary man is that he considers ‘I’ve read it already’ to be a conclusive argu- ment against reading a work. We have all known women who remembered a novel so dimly that they had to stand for half an hour in the library skimming through it before they were certain they had once read it. But the moment they became cer- tain, they rejected it immediately. It was for them dead, like a burnt-out match, an old railway ticket, or yesterday’s paper; they had already used it. Those who read great works, on the other hand, will read the same work ten, twenty or thirty times during the course of their life. Secondly, the majority, though they are sometimes frequent readers, do not set much store by reading. They turn to it as a last resource. They abandon it with alacrity as soon as any alternative pastime turns up. It is kept for railway journeys, illnesses, odd moments of enforced solitude, or for the process called ‘reading oneself to sleep’. They sometimes combine it with desultory conversation; often, with listening to the radio. But literary people are always looking for leisure and si- lence in which to read and do so with their whole attention. When they are denied such attentive and undisturbed reading even for a few days they feel impoverished. Thirdly, the first reading of some literary work is often, to the literary, an expe- rience so momentous that only experiences of love, religion, or bereavement can furnish a standard of comparison. Their whole consciousness is changed. They have become what they were not before. But there is no sign of anything like this among the other sort of readers. When they have finished the story or the novel, nothing much, or nothing at all, seems to have happened to them. Finally, and as a natural result of their different behaviour in reading, what they have read is constantly and prominently present to the mind of the few, but not to that of the many. The former mouth over their favourite lines and stanzas in soli- tude. Scenes and characters from books provide them with a sort of iconography by which they interpret or sum up their own experience.

another true Death Valley Days story is presented for your entertainment by the Pacific Coast Borax Company, producers of that famous family of products—20 Mule Team Borax, 20 Mule Team Borax Soap Chips, and Boraxo. Well, Old Ranger, what’s your story about tonight?” Through many changes of format, it remained a hardy perennial, eventually becoming a filmed TV series with Ronald Reagan as host.

Among the prominent continuing characters were Ace’s boss (who had “a child for every occasion”) and Jane’s brother Paul (who hadn’t worked in twelve years “because he’s waiting for the dollar to settle down”). The theme, as always, was Manhattan Serenade. The Aces, with more than a little justification, were billed as “radio’s original comedy couple.” Ace was known as “Goody” to his friends. In appearance he was lanky and professorial. Jane looked nothing like her radio self. Pretty, perhaps striking in her youth, she had creamcolored blond hair and an ever-present, infectious smile. She died Nov. 11, 1974. Ace died March 25, 1982.

no subjective experience is ever generated by the brain, but merely selected by it according to the perspective of the body in space-time, as Bergson so cogently argued over a hundred years ago.49 This selection process is akin to a ‘filtering out’ of conscious experience: like a radio receiver selecting, from among the variety of stations present concurrently in the broadcast signal, that which one wants to listen to, all other stations being filtered out and never reaching the consciousness of the listener.

Each episode was billed as “another great story based on Frederick L. Collins’s copyrighted book, The FBI in Peace and War—Drama! Thrills! Action!” Peace and War was not blessed with Bureau approval: Jerry Devine of This Is Your FBI, on the other hand, was sanctioned. Both FBI shows remained popular, with the unauthorized version, Peace and War, usually a few ratings points ahead. The Bureau was never presented in anything but the most favorable light on either series. Peace and War was virtually an anthology, bound only by acts of crime and by the sometimes-thin FBI involvement. The main characters were usually the criminals, the stories unfolding from their viewpoints. Occasionally the scene shifted to the pursuing FBI, with the busy clatter of teletype machines a near-constant. The FBI was personified as Field Agent Sheppard; his boss was the enigmatic Mr. Andrews. Rackets and swindles were the staples.

Marturano recommended something radical: do only one thing at a time. When you’re on the phone, be on the phone. When you’re in a meeting, be there. Set aside an hour to check your email, and then shut off your computer monitor and focus on the task at hand. Another tip: take short mindfulness breaks throughout the day. She called them “purposeful pauses.” So, for example, instead of fidgeting or tapping your fingers while your computer boots up, try to watch your breath for a few minutes. When driving, turn off the radio and feel your hands on the wheel. Or when walking between meetings, leave your phone in your pocket and just notice the sensations of your legs moving. “If I’m a corporate samurai,” I said, “I’d be a little worried about taking all these pauses that you recommend because I’d be thinking, ‘Well, my rivals aren’t pausing. They’re working all the time.’ ” “Yeah, but that assumes that those pauses aren’t helping you. Those pauses are the ways to make you a more clear thinker and for you to be more focused on what’s important.” This was another attack on my work style. I had long assumed that ceaseless planning was the recipe for effectiveness, but Marturano’s point was that too much mental churning was counterproductive. When you lurch from one thing to the next, constantly scheming, or reacting to incoming fire, the mind gets exhausted. You get sloppy and make bad decisions. I could see how the counterintuitive act of stopping, even for a few seconds, could be a source of strength, not weakness. This was a practical complement to Joseph’s “is this useful?” mantra. It was the opposite of zoning out, it was zoning in. In fact, I looked into it and found there was science to suggest that pausing could be a key ingredient in creativity and innovation. Studies showed that the best way to engineer an epiphany was to work hard, focus, research, and think about a problem—and then let go. Do something else. That didn’t necessarily mean meditate, but do something that relaxes and distracts you; let your unconscious mind go to work, making connections from disparate parts of the brain. This, too, was massively counterintuitive for me. My impulse when presented with a thorny problem was to bulldoze my way through it, to swarm it with thought. But the best solutions often come when you allow yourself to get comfortable with ambiguity. This is why people have aha moments in the shower. It was why Kabat-Zinn had a vision while on retreat. It was why Don Draper from Mad Men, when asked how he comes up with his great slogans, said he spends all day thinking and then goes to the movies. Janice Marturano was on

being interviewed on Radio One and saying that, when on the tour bus, he liked to watch Cruise of the Gods. The presenter hadn’t heard of it and Bowie said, ‘It stars the guy from Marion and Geoff … you know … what’s his name? Umm …’ The presenter not only hadn’t seen Cruise of the Gods, he also had no idea who the guy from Marion and Geoff was. The two of them spent a good minute stumbling unsuccessfully towards my name while I shouted at the radio, ‘It’s me, it’s me!’ My cries went unanswered by the Thin

Deniers have learned to use social media to their advantage. On Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2017, a survivor was interviewed on a BBC radio program. The producers were “shocked” by the “staggering” number of “brazen” Holocaust denial and antisemitic phone calls and social media posts they received. Though they had previously broadcast programs on the Holocaust and had received some antisemitic and denial comments, this response, one producer told me, was “unprecedented…unlike anything we have seen before.” They were so deeply unsettled that they invited me to appear on a subsequent program that addressed Holocaust denial.7 But denial is not something engaged in only by the Far Right. In many segments of the Muslim community, including among European Muslims, there is also an inclination to deny this historical reality. There are schools in Europe where teachers find it difficult to teach about the Holocaust because the students insist that it never happened, and the material the teachers present is dismissed by the students as false.

Modern electronic mass media had been a defining piece of the twentieth-century experience that served an important democratic function—presenting Americans with a shared set of facts. Now those news organs, on TV and radio, were enabling a reversion to the narrower, factional, partisan discourse that had been normal in America’s earlier centuries. The new and newly unregulated technologies allowed us, in a sense, to travel backward in time.

Most of the theaters in Jersey City and the surrounding area have been closed, demolished, renovated or restored, but nothing remained the same. The Stanley Theatre still stands in Journal Square, completely restored as a Jehovah’s Witnesses Assembly Hall. Originally built as a vaudeville and movie theater, having 4,300 seats, it opened on March 22, 1928 as the second largest theater in the United States. With only Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan across the Hudson River being larger, many celebrities attended the gala occasion. The well liked but notorious Mayor Hague was present to cut the ribbon. Famous and not-so-famous headline acts performed here, including the Three Stooges, Jimmy Durante, Tony Bennett and Janis Joplin. It was here at the Stanley Theatre that Frank Sinatra was inspired to become a professional performer. Being part of the audience, he watched Bing Crosby doing a Christmas performance. By the time the show was over, Sinatra had decided on the path he would follow. In 1933 Frank’s mother got him together with a group called the “Three Flashes.” They changed their name to the “Hoboken Four” and won first prize performing on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour show. Frank worked locally until June of 1939, when Harry James hired him for a one-year contract, paying only $75 a week. That December, Sinatra joined Tommy Dorsey’s band as a replacement vocalist for Jack Leonard, and the rest is history!

Sri Yukteswar discovered the mathematical application of a 24,000-year equinoctial cycle to our present age. 4 The cycle is divided into an Ascending Arc and a Descending Arc, each of 12,000 years. Within each Arc fall four Yugas or Ages, called Kali, Dwapara, Treta, and Satya, corresponding to the Greek ideas of Iron, Bronze, Silver, and Golden Ages. My guru determined by various calculations that the last Kali Yuga or Iron Age, of the Ascending Arc, started about a.d. 500. The Iron Age, 1200 years in duration, is a span of materialism; it ended about a.d. 1700. That year ushered in Dwapara Yuga, a 2400-year period of electrical and atomic-energy developments: the age of telegraphy, radio, airplanes, and other space-annihilators. The 3600-year period of Treta Yuga will start in a.d. 4100; the age will be marked by common knowledge of telepathic communications and other time-annihilators. During the 4800 years of Satya Yuga, final age in an Ascending Arc, the intelligence of man will be highly developed; he will work in harmony with the divine plan. A Descending Arc of 12,000 years, starting with a Descending Golden Age of 4800 years, then begins for the world (in a.d. 12,500); man gradually sinks into ignorance. These cycles are the eternal rounds of maya, the contrasts and relativities of the phenomenal universe. 5 Men, one by one, escape from creation’s prison of duality as they awaken to consciousness of their inseverable divine unity with the Creator. Master

After all, Donald Trump has made adultery seem as ordinary as the sun rising every morning. How does that play with the man who claims he is a Christian well before being a Republican? Mike Pence wrote an article while still a conservative Christian radio personality in which he criticized the media for acting like adultery was a very small thing. Instead he argued for the criminalization of adultery.7

There was a certain ’30s silliness to cast off: a growth spurt that seemed to come to all timeless radio comedy around 1942–44. Suddenly Gildersleeve was a polished, smooth entity, a joy to hear. Well represented in this run is Gildy’s romance with Leila Ransom. The listener can hear the children grow up, be present at Marjorie’s wedding, share the birth of her twins. Leroy remains the same throughout: so do the wonderful Birdie and the equally fine Judge Hooker. It has the sound of a happy show before and after Peary’s departure. Listeners can judge that for themselves as well, as the series is solid on tape during the transition period. This listener’s opinion is that the show didn’t lose much. Waterman didn’t sing the solos, and the laugh certainly wasn’t the same (more a chuckle, Waterman later said, a deliberate attempt on his part to stay away from a characteristic that “belonged” to Peary). In all other aspects, the resemblance was remarkable

I remember listening to James Dobson’s Focus on the Family radio broadcast occasionally with my mother as we rode somewhere in the car together. My ears would perk up when the subject of homosexuality came up, which it did often, since this was the mid-1990s, and the “gay rights” movement was gaining steam. Dobson talked a lot about the “causes” of homosexuality—childhood sexual abuse, an emotionally distant father, the absence of affectionate male role models. I remember scrutinizing my past and present experiences. Did I fit these categories? I had never been sexually abused by anyone, let alone my parents. Was I close enough to my dad? I could think of one time I tried to initiate a weekly time for just the two of us to be together, but it flopped. Plus, I never learned to play golf with him, nor did I want to take up deer hunting, as he seemed to hope I would. Did that mean I was suffering from a lack of paternal intimacy? I racked my brain for answers, testing every possible explanatory avenue to understand how I came to have the homoerotic feelings that blazed like a fire in my head every day.

After leaving the dangerous Desoto Solar Farm, I noticed I was having memory problems that were not present before I took the job.

Twitter mentions are the new radio shout-out." (from HighEdWeb presentation in 2015)

Twitter mentions are the new radio shout-out! (from a HighEdWeb social media presentation in 2011)

The Period of Inquiry: This time allows prospective converts to learn about the Catholic Church by attending Mass, spending time with the Lord in an adoration chapel, meeting with a priest or knowledgeable Catholic, or even by listening to Catholic radio or television. Above all else, the catechumen should pray for guidance through the RCIA process in order to develop a personal relationship with God through his son, Jesus Christ. The Order of Catechumens: An inquirer who wishes to become Catholic enters the order of catechumens. In order to do this, he is required to select a sponsor, a practicing Catholic who will guide and support him through the process and will be present when he receives the sacraments of initiation. Catechesis: The catechumen is formally taught the doctrines of the Faith and instructed in how to live the Christian life. This period culminates in

The idea that stuff—stars, books, blue whales—changes the geometry of space and time is a significant shift from Newton’s theory, or anything that came before it. But Einstein’s theory allows even more: it allows for space and time to be curved even when there is nothing present, anywhere or at any time. In fact, space and time can themselves behave in ways that are strikingly similar to electromagnetic radiation, such as light or radio waves. As we will see, this makes defining what it would even mean for there to be “nothing” in the universe extremely subtle.

There is a sense in wich we moderns are inudated with facts to the detriment of understanding. Onde of the reasons for this situation is that the very media we have mentioned are so designed as to make thinking seem unnecessary (though this is only an appearance). The packaging of intellectual positions and views is one of the most active enterprises of some of the best minds of our day. The viewer of television, the listener to radio, the reader of magazines, is presented with a whole complex of elements - all the way from ingenious rhetoric to carefully slected data and statistics - to make it easy for him to "make up his own mind" with the minimum of difficulty and effort. But the packaging is often done so effectively that the viewre, listener, or reader does not make up his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a packaged opinion into his minde, somewhat like inserting a cassette into a cassette player. He then pushes a button and "plays back" the opinion whenever it seems appropriate to do so. He has performed acceptably without having to had to think.

The packaging of intellectual positions and views is one of the most active enterprises of some of the best minds of our day. The viewer of television, the listener to radio, the reader of magazines, is presented with a whole complex of elements—all the way from ingenious rhetoric to carefully selected data and statistics—to make it easy for him to “make up his own mind” with the minimum of difficulty and effort. But the packaging is often done so effectively that the viewer, listener, or reader does not make up his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a packaged opinion into his mind, somewhat like inserting a cassette into a cassette player. He then pushes a button and “plays back” the opinion whenever it seems appropriate to do so. He has performed acceptably without having had to think.

Life is too precious to be spent dwelling on the past. Live in the present and create a brighter future.

Por razones de patriotismo y de lealtad nacional, nunca difundí lo que escuché durante esos dos meses y medio, pero a fin de alertar al Teatro de Operaciones del Atlántico Sur sobre la vulnerabilidad de las transmisiones, elaboré un reporte escrito que hice llegar a la Casa Rosada y que, estimo, nunca fue leído ni tenido en cuenta. Imagino que si yo podía hacerme un pícnic con esas emisiones con apenas un receptor de comunicaciones Yaesu y una radio portátil digital Sony de maletín, la flota enemiga debió de hacer un desastre escuchando este circuito radiotelefónico, que era ideal para interpretar un montón de cosas.

In 1987, members of the Federal Communications Commission appointed by Reagan ended the Fairness Doctrine, which had protected public information since the earliest days of radio, in the 1920s. In order to get a public license, a radio station had to agree to present information honestly and fairly and to balance different points of view. Movement Conservatives demanded an end to the Fairness Doctrine so they could push their ideology of “individualism” and Christianity.[

ADD may be present. Since everybody will answer “yes” to some number of questions, and since we have not established norms for this questionnaire, it should only be used as an informal gauge. 1. Are you left-handed or ambidextrous? 2. Do you have a family history of drug or alcohol abuse, depression, or manic-depressive illness? 3. Are you moody? 4. Were you considered an underachiever in school? Now? 5. Do you have trouble getting started on things? 6. Do you drum your fingers a lot, tap your feet, fidget, or pace? 7. When you read, do you find that you often have to reread a paragraph or an entire page because you are daydreaming? 8. Do you tune out or space out a lot? 9. Do you have a hard time relaxing? 10. Are you excessively impatient? 11. Do you find that you undertake many projects simultaneously so that your life often resembles a juggler who’s got six more balls in the air than he can handle? 12. Are you impulsive? 13. Are you easily distracted? 14. Even if you are easily distracted, do you find that there are times when your power of concentration is laser-beam intense? 15. Do you procrastinate chronically? 16. Do you often get excited by projects and then not follow through? 17. More than most people, do you feel that it is hard for you to make yourself understood? 18. Is your memory so porous that if you go from one room to the next to get something, by the time you get to the next room you’ve sometimes forgotten what you were looking for? 19. Do you smoke cigarettes? 20. Do you drink too much? 21. If you have ever tried cocaine, did you find that it helped you focus and calmed you down, rather than making you high? 22. Do you change the radio station in your car frequently? 23. Do you wear out your TV remote-control switch by changing stations frequently? 24. Do you feel driven, as if an engine inside you won’t slow down? 25. As a kid, were you called words like, “a daydreamer,” “lazy,” “a spaceshot,” “impulsive,” “disruptive,” “lazy,” or just plain “bad”?

Readers' Favorite Book Reviews and Book Awards Review Rating: 5 Stars - Congratulations on your 5-star review! Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite The Magnificence of the 3 by Timeout A Taumua begins by looking at the connections between neuroscience, atomic structure, and biblical narratives. In it, Taumua draws parallels between the trees of knowledge in the Garden of Eden and the neurons in the human brain, speaking on the function of mirror neurons in memory and learning. Taumua discusses the significance of rhythmic radio signals from space as signs of design and the symbolic importance of the numbers three, six, and nine. He presents atomic structure as a metaphor for moral duality, with stable atoms representing balance and unstable atoms reflecting decay. He also talks at length on subjects like the interconnectedness of emotional dynamics, spiritual beliefs, and genetic factors, suggesting that desire acts as a stabilizing force in existence, guiding behavior and promoting community cohesion through practices like forgiveness and the evolution of the Sabbath. There's a huge amount of information to absorb in The Magnificence of the 3 by Timeout A Taumua, which is delivered in a thoughtful mix of scientific study with spiritual analysis. Taumua's writing style is academic, but I found it also to be accessible and was able to understand the representations of identities of the Tree of Knowledge, the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life, and the Ark of the Covenant. It was fitting that Taumua would say, "One does not need a scientific degree to see the similarities of both the trees of knowledge and the trees of earth." As the idea of blind faith loses popularity, writers like Taumua become critically important in filling the vacuum that was once exclusively the domain of churches. Overall, this book is more than a philosophical treatise; it challenges readers to reconsider the links between knowledge, morality, and existence, making it an enlightening read for anyone interested in the fusion of science and spirituality. Very highly recommended.

Today, reports of the day’s events are conveyed to the viewing public by way of alternate universes, The Fox News cable channel conveys its version of reality, while at the other end of the ideological spectrum MSNBC presents its version. They and their many counterparts on radio are more the result of an economic dynamic than a political one. Dispatching journalists into the field to gather information costs money; hiring a glib bloviator is relatively cheap, and inviting opinionated guests to vent on the air is entirely cost-free. It wouldn’t work if it weren’t popular, and audiences, it turns out, are endlessly absorbed by hearing amplified echoes of their own biases. It’s divisive and damaging to the healthy functioning of our political system, but it’s also indisputably inexpensive and, therefore, good business.

Some acronyms have become such accepted words that they are written with lowercase letters, and many people don’t even realize that they are acronyms: scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus), radar (radio detecting and ranging), and laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation).

Presenting is a way of putting a spotlight on an idea that no other medium can ever match— not e-mail, not memos, not even TV or radio.

As I listened to the radio tell her story, it was hard to not think education should look more like this—paint splotches and messy smocks in a cramped studio—and less like large lecture halls with passive students parked in seats for ninety minutes at a time, eyes glued to a slide presentation.

At least once a month (perhaps on a plane flight where you have a wide choice of free magazines), purposely spend a half-hour reading a magazine with a viewpoint completely contrary to your own. Or listen to a television or radio discussion program of that kind. For example, if your orientation is liberal and progressive, then read respectfully and openly National Review or a similar conservative journal. If you are conservative yourself, choose The Nation or one of its liberal cousins. When you come across an opinion or argument that really rattles your cage, ask yourself these questions to test the validity of the belief of yours that it challenges: • Where and when did you adopt your position? • What evidence or logic would you use to support your belief, and is it really more compelling than what you are reading? • Are any facts or arguments being presented that you have not really taken into account before? • Can you appreciate why the argument being presented could be convincing to the person presenting it and to the many readers who find it convincing? • Can you develop any facts or insights that would make you or the author you are reading change position? • Are there any circumstances or situations that would make the position in the magazine more acceptable or understandable? • Are there any ways in which the view you are reading could be reconciled, even partially, with your own?