Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Episode 169: Eliminate (Well, De-emphasize) the Negative

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What happened to that forgotten way of looking at the world? It seems by changing the language through repetition, nuance was transformed into a more easily challenged binary… and quashed. Hence, Episode 169: Eliminate (Well, De-emphasize) the Negative.

In this episode, I read from: Victor Pickard's book The Battle for Media Democracy; and Charles Siepmann's 1946 book Radio's Second Chance. There's still a lot of good stuff in both these books that I hope one day to address.

I play: Mudlark doing "fine ointment"; and Podington Bear doing "In My Head". KMFDM backs Clark Gable in the intro, and we close with Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters doing "Accentuate the Positive", a tune written in 1944.

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Episode 168: Accentuate the Positive

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Every now and again, I find myself stumbling upon a forgotten way of looking at the world, one so useful—and in hindsight obvious—that I have to wonder what happened to it. That's the first half of the story in this Episode 168: Accentuate the Positive.

In this episode, I read from: Charles Siepmann's book Radio's Second Chance; Victor Pickard's book The Battle For Media Democracy (which was also the source for all of the other quotes from journalists and FCC letter writers); and Upton Sinclair's seminal 1920 book on journalism The Brass Check [NB: the Sinclair book links to a PDF].

Musically, I keep it light with Full Load of King doing "Envelope Infrared Part I". KMFDM's "Attak" backs Clark Gable in the intro, and I close with Mistle Thrush's "It's All Like Today".