Henry’s posted a show suggestion roundup. It’s been a while since the last one, and we’re going to start getting these roundups out once a week.
What now? What should we thinking about when we produce shows? We know about the new flareup of violence in Israel and Palestine; tell us what’s going on in your neighborhood, in your profession, the stuff that nobody’s writing about yet.
As always, leave show suggestions as comments in the thread below. As always, take a look at Katherine’s short guide to suggesting shows.
This thread is closed. To post a suggestion, head over to July Suggest a Show.
You asked. My neighborhood. My profession. What’s going on?
The goverment tells us the economy is doing well. Everyone I know who owns a small business is struggling. As a retailer, I know a lot of other local retailers. Rents have skyrocketed and sales continue to diminish. The greed of landlords, the indifference of internet and chain store buying (the demand to acquire products for less than they really cost to make) and the tight budgets of consumers are driving small businesses out of business.
I own a yarn store/knitting community center. You did a show last summer on the passion of knitting. For most, it is a passion. In the last few years, it has also been fashionable. Many who took up knitting will not stay with the craft. There is a cycle like this about every 20 years. So, now the industry is waning a bit. Meanwhile, many new shops opened. Many knitters will lament the loss of their local yarn store once it is gone. But while it is dying, they will continue to buy online, bypass the retailer and try to get products directly from producers, and look for deals at chain stores. Once they can’t get the technical support of the local yarn store they will feel the loss, but they will likely continue to have the disconnect between their buying habits and the death of the local business.
How am I combating this? With some traditional and some non-traditional business practices. The first is to diversify – get outside the walls of the store by creating products and services that can be sold to a broader audience. I will continue to maintain my niche as the supporter of smalll farmers and yarn artisans. But the big idea is this: sell half – more later – of the business to the knitting community that it supports. We’re going Co-op. Once the State approves the shares, we will be selling them for $100 each.
Besides embedding my customer base into the business, I will be also be teaching them what it takes to run a business – marketing, staff management, facilities maintenance, accounting, inventory management, event planning, communications. No holds barred. They will learn everything I know about the joys and frustrations of keeping a business alive.
Of course, I am also garnering human resources from this approach. Shareholders will elect a board of directors and people will be asked to participate in different areas. And by doing all of this, I remove a vulnerability of the community: reliance upon me. There are people who come to my shop regularly and connect with one another in vital ways. This needs to be preserved for them, regardless of my life circumstances. As I dilute my interest, I become less central to the existence of the whole thing.
Will this work? I don’t know. But I have to try. Its my own little experiment in servant leadership, business ownership without greed and a philosophy about what a sustainable economy really looks like. I’m the first in my industry to approach yarn store ownership this way. The industry mag (Yarn Market News) did a piece on my shop recently. While that’s a bit exciting, it could also be the beginning of a most public failure. Ah, but life isn’t lived without failures!
Local, community and municipal wifi.
Philadelphia is building a citywide network, and there is a debate, (typically between local folks who want to build their own networks and companies that build them but don’t have a public service bent) whether local governments should be building them in the first place.
Here’s a good link:
http://muniwireless.com/promos/goodfight/
There have been previous shows on moderately challenging literary characters (e.g. Beckett) and there was recently a program on contemporary poets on the slightly conservative side, but to this point there hasn’t been a discussion regarding the true avant-garde of poetry. I think this would be a truly fascinating program — and a look at a world not many people know about. As far as guest ideas, Charles Bernstein would be good (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bernstein) — a very funny, engaging guy. Also, Stephanie Young would be appropriate. She’s a poet, and also edited the recently released anthology /Bay Poetics/ (Faux Press). Oh, and Ron Silliman, who operates the (probably) most important poetry/poetics blog out there (http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com). Another good out would be Kenneth Goldsmith, who re-typed an entire issue of the New York Times to create one of his books. He’s also the proprietor of ubu.com, which was mentioned on the Beckett program. There’s really just so much radical, conceptually interesting work going on, much of it centered around blogs, online poetry chapbooks, etc., etc. It’s an exciting time to be alive and reading and writing.
Let’s solve Identity Theft and stop wringing our hands about how it can’t be fixed!
The more I hear about Identity Theft, the more I think we’re not applying any logical thinking about it! And most every week, there’s a new story: A couple of weeks ago, millions of Veterans’ social security numbers stolen from a laptop: This week, restrictions on our ability to clamp down on release of our data was blocked by selfish business interest.
How many stories have I heard over the last several years – hand-wringing about how defenseless we are and how dire the consequences if our identity is stolen.
But as I think about these stories – mostly the same story told over and over by the hand-wringers – the more it has become clear to me that no intelligence has been applied to this problem.
What I propose is a story about Identity Theft – not another of the same we’ve all heard – but something new! Something by thinkers who can actually strategize about how to problem can be solved – not just another story to make us anxious about our helplessness!
Bring in some computer security people and policy makers to discuss how to radically change the whole credit scheme that allows Identity Theft to happen so easily!
Some ideas:
If it is increasingly easy to get our Social Security Number and birth date, make those bits of data no more useful than our name! Think of the Social Security Number as nothing more than a numeric value for our name –one that can’t be misspelled – same for our birth date. But don’t give any access to data based on simply knowing that information! Just require the same amount of verification from us that we actually want our credit information released to a legitimate requestor that we do when we order anything over the internet! I can’t even read the New York Times for free without verifying my identity and giving my permission! Why not require the same amount of consent from me before a credit source releases any information about me? Make knowledge of my Social Security Number meaningless! Publish it in the phone book along with my address! Who cares?
Maybe this isn’t the answer, but just continuing along, year after year, with these terrible stories of what happens when a miscreant somehow gets this information and steals all our assets, is just wrong! Companies want easy access to our credit information to open accounts we might not even want. That’s selfish! Give us citizens some security over our data and take this terrible insecurity and anxiety away!
Thanks for your great show!
Best wishes,
Smokey Forester
smokey@smokey.com
I’d like to see a story that systematically looks at the state of veterans’ benefits under the Bush Administration. There has been some news coverage, but nothing very exhaustive, and with Haditha and other stories coming out of Iraq about soldiers snapping under the pressure, it seems pertinent to discuss whether they’re getting the mental and physical health support that they need.
Some stories to start you off:
Hartford Courant, May 14 2006
Army Times, Jan 26 2006
I would love for Chris to do a show about the work of Philip Pullman, especially one that focuses on his magnificient trilogy, “His Dark Materials.”
http://www.philip-pullman.com/
How about looking at what Michael Edwards of the Ford Foundation has been promoting for the past few years, the idea of love and reason based on the “love that does justice” and how by putting ideology and religion aside and focus on “love” as a means for detemining action we can build a strong civil society based on basic justice, human decency and hope. Seems topical in these times of fading ideologies, religious fundamentalism and political disaffection. Micheal’s books Civil Society and Future Positive are well worth reading and he himself would make a great speaker/guest I’m sure.
For more info see “Love, reason and the future of civil society”
http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-vision_reflections/love_3149.jsp
and http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/AuthorBiography.aspx?AuthorId=99
To compete on the cutting edge of technology these days, to be truly agile, you operate on just the essentials with a skeleton crew. You rely on infrastructure and third-party services to handle the vast majority of your business needs. We see companies like Craigslist and eBay working this way. But there are tech companies out there that go a step farther. The Mac software company Delicious Library here in Seattle has a special arrangement with the local coffee shop to use that as their “office”. The red hot web / design company “37 signals” brags about having 7 employees spread out across 7 time zones.
Greg Olsen refers to this trend as “Going Bedouin”. Getting rid of the office altogether, going completely mobile. Is this the trend for all of us? If so, what does it mean for the future of the American workplace. Will we all have to gather around the virtual water cooler in Second Life?
http://www.charterstreet.com/2006/02/going_bedouin.html
http://www.sauria.com/blog/misc/1502
I hate baby boomers. I would like to hear a show that has guests that aren’t baby boomers talking about the legacy that baby boomers have left this country. I am the daughter of two boomer parents and now that I have two small children of my own I am really concerned about the health of our country in the next thirty years. We have huge issues regarding health care, the deficit, our food supply, public education, trade deficits, the job market and so on. Boomers have been in power for the past 15 to 20 years and I don’t see how our country has improved, other than in the personal wealth of those same boomers.
I hear this line all the time: “Gen X’ers are the first generation to do worse than their parents economically.” If doing worse means not having a 4000 sq ft house, three vehicles, two divorces, and a yearly cruise than I’m glad. I don’t want more than my parents have, they have EVERYTHING. I just want enough.
Maybe I’m just a cynical ranting Gen Xer but I think there are plenty of people who are sick of rampant individualism and consumerism that is so prominent with the boomers.
I like the OS idea but I find
in general, BLOGGERS are the worst conversationalists
this is a medium for those who like the “sound” of their own voice
Is the art of conversation dying….right HERE?
Hurray! Hurray! for ROS for squarely taking on the issue of election fraud in Ohio. I hope tomorrow you will delve more deeply into the menace of the paperless DRE Diebold voting machines. These have proprietary softwarre that no one can verify. The central tabulators can be hacked from outsdie lines. If Diebold and the other republican activist owned election system corporations wanted to elect Vladimir Putin in ’08, they probabaly could as things stand.
I’ve found that learning music as a 40-something is a thrill. I’ve been playing sax for a little over a year, and am casting about for similarly untalented friends to noodle around with.
But it’s a rush. And I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking this. I’ve noticed a magazine dedicated to recreational music, emphasizing adults: http://www.makingmusicmag.com/
I’d like to hear a show about adult musical beginners.
Can you do something about the media’s willingness to splash photos of a dead Zarqawi all over the place when we aren’t allowed to print phots of the draped coffins of our soldiers. If someone printed photos of our dead what would we accuse them of?
Beyond the double-standard questions, I am also concerned about the pornography of it. I don’t want my six year old daughter to see the newspaper anymore.
NASA is making the next shuttle launch despite reservations from some of their officials. Is it time to retire the shuttle? If so, what might replace it?
One completely out of the box idea is a space elevator, like the one being planned by a company in the Pacific Northwest called Liftport. They want to run a cable from somewhere in the Pacific Ocean out 62,000 miles into orbit, which will cut the cost of carrying cargo into space from $10,000 / lb. to $400 / lb. Imagine the possibilities…
Not sure if this would be one show or two, but there’s some interesting thoughts floating around out there on the future of space exploration / expansion.
Recently there was a show about world music, rap, etc. It was good, sort of a different vein for OS. So in this same vein, How about..
A show that discusses vacations. It is summer and the majority of America’s head out on their vacations. Why in America do we only take 7 to 10 days of vacation when in most parts of the world it is called a “holiday” and it generally lasts for 3 to 4 weeks? It is not even a vacation – it is almost work to cram in relaxation in 5 to 7 days time, when the rest of the world really does stop for several weeks. Also, I spent many years working in the travel industry and I was amazed at the stress levels that people would endure to plan these vacations. It was work – not pleasure – how unfortunate. People always say “I need a few days off to just get unwind from my vacation” – Yes, no doubt – because we don’t even enjoy it. Who amongst us really finds Disneyland relaxing? So what are you doing for vacation this summer? Another angle is the people who do not even have the benefit of paid days off, and don’t take days off – the working poor.
Just a thought for a show.
Would love to hear a show on how Jordan plays their role in the middle of all this khaos. It is a nation with no real resources (i.e. oil) – it is left to absorb refugees from both Palestine and now Iraq (they are bursting at the seams). It is friends with America and everyone knows that if you want to go to Iraq and you are America you first go to Amman and then work your way into Iraq. I find it simply amazing how the King balances all the many demands of the region, political and religious – and also works quite well with President Bush and the American Govt. How fascinating it would be to hear more about their position and how they balance it all. How does Jordan do it?
P.S. my husband is Jordanian and was a personal body guard to the late King Hussain. Very fascinating.
I beg you again to consider a show on Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials� (HDM) trilogy. I just looked over Katherine’s short guide to suggesting shows and saw your request for a “hook� about a suggestion’s timeliness. In the case of HDM, you will find plenty of content to related to contemporary scientists’ study of dark matter and energy and parallel worlds. I think there are even a couple of “The Science of . . . “ books about HDM already. Another hook might be the potential extinction of polar bears and Pullman’s “panzerbjorne.� There are a million and one hooks in HDM. But I think all that will be secondary to the discussion of Pullman’s extraordinary characters and masterful storytelling. Friends, please have a look.
Pullman even contributed an essay to a recent book about perennial Lydon favorite Richard Dawkins (Richard Dawkins : How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think). My mouth (and brain) is watering at the thought of Dawkins and Pullman having a dialogue on Open Source.
China’s economic rise has led it to seek out natural resources and trade ties around the developing world, from Central Asia to South America to Africa. Some are warning of a new “Great Game” of resource competition, and others are afraid that China’s willingness to partner with authoritarian regimes might lead to the emergence of a “Beijing Consensus” to challenge the “Washington Consensus” that favors open, liberal democracy. It might be a challenge for a US-based radio show, but could ROS take an in-depth look at one of those regions (Africa, S. America, or C. Asia; any one would be interesting) and see how China’s presence is playing out there? What’s the effect been for local/national politics, business, development? Is China bringing something new with it, or is this just resource exploitation and mercantilism all over again?
Melinda’s suggestion and comments about vacations are interesting, as i rush around trying to get ready for our family’s trip to France – chaos reigns! Of course, the popular (in Britain), eloquent and very radio-friendly Alain de Botton has published a book called the “Art of Travel” a few year back which explored all these aspects and looked at philosophers and great writers of the past and their views of travel. It is highly readable, entertaining and educational. Mr De Botton is a regular on TV and radio over on this side of the Atlantic and would make an excellent guest on this very topic. It wasa a great book when i read it on holiday when it came out.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375725342/sr=8-1/qid=1151148033/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-5230566-0347118?ie=UTF8
I have not been able to listen regularly for quite a while, so you might have already looked at this in one way or another, but if not:
I ran across a bit on Daily Kos about a video game being developed based on the “Left Behind” book series. The game is purported to pit good Christians against everyone else, including Christians that don’t adhere to a fundamentalist version of the faith. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/23/101737/654
Since the game has not yet been released, some of the concerns are somewhat speculative, but going directly to the game’s web site, one can see the foundation for the plot described by the game’s developers: “The storyline in the game begins just after the Rapture has occurred – when all adult Christians, all infants, and many children were instantly swept home to Heaven and off the Earth by God. The remaining population – those who were left behind – are then poised to make a decision at some point. They cannot remain neutral. Their choice is to either join the AntiChrist – which is an imposturous one world government seeking peace for all of mankind, or they may join the Tribulation Force – which seeks to expose the truth and defend themselves against the forces of the AntiChrist.” The “AntiChrist” force is named “Global Community Peacekeepers”.
http://www.leftbehindgames.com/
http://www.leftbehindgames.com/pages/faq.htm
I find this frighteningly fascinating from a couple different angles:
-How do fundamentalist Christians reconcile their worship of “the Prince of Peace” with the message that seeking peace for all mankind is an AntiChrist agenda?
-How do they compare and contrast this message with the Islamic fundamentalist pursuit of jihad?
-The web-site indicates that one of their primary marketing strategies will be through churches – particulaly mega-churches. Which churches plan to help market the game and which reject the message and will decline?
-Of the fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist Christian leaders who reject this message, what are they planning to do to mitigate the damage this game will do to their faith, and particularly, to young Christians who are likely to play the game?
-How are other religious leaders responding? How are political leaders responding – particularly those who have been vocal about the amorality of video games, Hollywood, and popular culture?
Its the kind of topic I’d love to hear examined through the Open Source approach.
Thanks
I’m fascinated by the recent news about how people have fewer and fewer confidants and human connections (bowling even more alone). Perhaps the Internet is partly to blame. This would be a great show.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/06/23/national/a104739D61.DTL
This idea came to me when you did your World Cup show – obviously football (soccer) probably has interesting social resonances in just about all the nations that are at the World Cup but I did think you should have picked England as one of your case studies. But then the more I thought about it, the more I thought that the rise of English nationalism could be a show in its own right. There are lots of interesting jumping-in points – the fact that we (I am a Brit) play football/soccer not as a national team, which would be a UK team, but as the sub-nations: England, Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland . Could you imagine a Californian Olympic team? Ok – they would probably still win everything…
Scottish nationalism is reasonably well known, Welsh nationalism to a lesser degree as well – but English nationalism is in many ways a new phenomenon. For many centuries, as any Scot will tell you, the English haven’t been overly sensitive about seperating England and the UK – “English” and “British” have become synonymous to many English people (much to the annoyance of our Celtic fellow-British citizens). When England won the world cup in 1966 the stadium was full of Union Jacks, now it is full of the Crosses of St. George. There is a lot of talk in the UK about how football over the last decade has helped reclaim the flag (the Union Jack) from the far right, but I only think that is half true – really a new flag has been adopted as a popular symbol – the Cross of St. George – and the odd few hooligans aside it is becoming identified with a newer, inclusive, multicultural England.
Opensource has been very good at covering Europe and European politics – but when we think about European countries potentially facing break-up we almost always think about the Balkans. But could the rise of an easier-to-be-proud-of English at help the Scottish nationalists in hastening the end of the United Kingdom?
I haven’t thought to much about guests – but one who springs to mind immediately would be Billy Bragg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bragg): singer-songer writer, proud old-style lefty and Englishman, astute social commentator and singer of Woody Guthrie songs. He would be perfect to offset some suitably intellectual professor and could probably sing you some songs as well.
Sorry – keyboard gremlins – that should read: “But could the rise of an easier-to-be-proud-of English nationalism help the Scottish nationalists…” Why can’t we edit our comments?
Smokey Forester on identity theft:
>Make knowledge of my Social Security Number meaningless!
>Publish it in the phone book along with my address! Who cares?
Hear, hear! Too much processing is allowed on the basis of numbers alone, without live verification from a human being. I rarely charge over $200 on my credit card, so if I book a $1500 plane trip, Mastercard calls my cell phone within 10 minutes to verify the purchase. Shouldn’t the same precaution be taken before opening a new charge account?
And if we can’t have “privacy”, then let’s at least have accuracy. Give me a mechanism to track all my personal information everywhere it is stored, and to correct errors quickly and effortlessly. Take the pain out of fixing identity theft, and then it won’t be such a big deal when it occurs.
Here are two suggestions for follow-up shows on the election fraud/integrity series.
1) Your first two shows suggested that the 2004 elections died the death of a thousand cuts in vote suppression and voter intimidation. But I think the stab to the heart of the 2004 electoral process was electonic fraud. According to the U.S. census bureau 3.4 million voters said they voted in 2004 than were actually counted. Where did those votes go? The partisan election system corporations such as Diebold and ES&S are the black hole of honest voting.
In this show you could explore how it was done and what is being proposed and put into place to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Guests would include Leon County Supervisor of elections, Ion Sancho who is now under attack by the republican party state machine from Jeb on down for publically and scientifically proving that the Diebold electronic voting system can be hacked. At his request, Finnish professor and renounded computer expert, Harri Harsti, demonstrated that someone inside the supervisors’s office coud alter the outcome of the election and erase any trace of the meddling in the Diebold system. I think you could get professor Harsti on the line as well to explain how he proved this. To quote the Miami Herald (March 7, 2006),” real heroes catch hell.” The true patriots at blackboxvoting.org have been the first in the fight to protect our basic rights to free and fair elections under the Bush regime. An outstanding guest from blackbox would be registered republican Jim Wilson who went to jail protesting election fraud in San Diego county. He apparantly even has some of the computer code the bad guys used to fool election supervisors in 2004, and many other tales to tell. It would be interresting to bring on California state senator Debra Bowen who just won the primary for seceary of state by a wide margin as a staunch defender, leader for voters’ rights and election inegrity. She co-sponsored the state bill to ensure a paper trail for each vote cast. Debra will give Diebold the boot as a security risk when she is elected. Jennifer Brennan is running for secretary of state in Ohio to takne over the job of the Bush/Cheney election rigging henchman, Ken Blackwell, who is runnig for governor and possibly from the evil one himself.
2) I think a show in October adressing the issue of whether clean, accoutable elections are still possible in this nation would be in store. A recap of all the election rigging and vote suppression schemes (and someone to cast doubt on their existence form the right, of course, or one of these clowns from salon.com), what has been done to counter and stop these practices, and what chane we have of the will of the people actually being recognized on election day in November. I think Robert Kennedy, Jr. would be a fantastic guest. Professor Mark Crispin Miller would be another get guest for his vast knowledge of the facts and deep interpretation of the peril election fraud represents to our democrcy and so-called free society (hardly touched in his previous appearance). Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman who have written extensively about the scam election in Ohio 2004 would be formidable guests. Of course you’d need some republican fire-breather or weasel to defend the other side such as it is or the illusion of it. Hey, why not ask Karl Rove on the show, or Dick Cheney? Daniel Mellman? That would be amusing. You might think about inviting proponents and opponents of HR 550, the best election reform bill that still need twenty-some congessperson to sign to pass the House. It has become, heartwarmingly, bi-partisan now. Common Cause is behind it, and you might invite one of their top people. And a terasure trove of election integrity news and alanlysis can be found on VoteTrust.com for both research and further guest possibilities.
If this is wounding like three shows now, why not?
You see how rich and deep the material and potential guests and areas of discussion are.
In the end, it is up to the Bush/extremist politico machine to prove that election fraud outrage to the American people and God did not occur on a widescale basis in 2004 and not the other way around!
Peace and God Bless!
I’ve suggested this before, and I’ll do it again. A show about Freud, psychoanalysis, and psychotherapy in general, their status in this current age of neuroscience, as well as the difficulties in delivering psychotherapy in our healthcare system today. And have Adam Phillips as a guest. He is, or was, a British psychoanalyst, and uses psychoanalytic ideas as a platform for his terrific essays. John Banville called him “an Emerson of our time,” which might spark Chris’s interest.