Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Bonus Episode: The Advertising Nuisance

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My hatred of advertising brought about my study of it. What I could never anticipate was the shared hatred that every now and again in history flares up and prompts so very many to complain, if not to act against it. Here is one such collection of complaint and solution from over a century ago in this Bonus Episode: The Advertising Nuisance.

These essays were published in the November, 1893 edition of a London periodical called The New Review, originally published by Archibald Grove, and found in that year's compiled book (found online here).

(Jim here. I do apologize for the episode being a day late. I completely underestimated how long it would take to record. Ugh. Victorian writing. Ugh.)

Wednesday, August 9, 2023

Episode 228: My Eight-Legged Monkey Dance

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We brag about living in a "free" country. Private industry, however, has too often more freedom to suppress speech than we do to exercise it, at least on "their" platforms. I vaguely allude to this in today's Episode 228: My Eight-Legged Monkey Dance.

In this episode, I read from: John M. Barry's 2018 book, The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. Again, it's a good read. Lots of gory details about what made that flu outbreak special. I also read from a Nature magazine article about President Obama curtailing research in the US. Just for fun, at the links I'll direct you to another article I didn't read on the show, but which I feel, monkey-dance-wise, gives you some perspective on …the current problem.

I play: a few bits of Professor Adrian Gibbs being interviewed in December of 2009 by one of The Naked Scientists at the BBC. I also play snippets of reporter Keren Landman and On The Media host Brooke Gladstone spewing forth opinion with which I strongly disagree. Musically, KMFDM backed then-Mayor Bernie Sanders observing a problem with media concentration; and I close today with Julie & Rolf and The Campfire Gang doing "Over The Rainbow".

Addendum: Once again, perspecatious observer L33tminion caught my error, caused by letting my emotions overwhelm the direction of the show. Check out his quite proper admonition in the comments.