I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Edgar Allen Poe

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
- H. L. Mencken

Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
-Bertrand Russell

What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
-James Branch Cabell

January 23, 2014 - 1:37 p.m.

ET Phone Home

My phone has not been turned in. I left it on my desk Tuesday when school closed and it wasn't there on Wednesday when it opened. Obviously whoever cleaned the room stole it. Nobody else was here.

As you can see I'm still not a happy camper. I think I'm just going to have to live with being unhappy for a while. There's pretty much nothing going right for me now. I'm happy a few hours a week when I'm out hearing music but that's about it. I always feel better when I write too. Maybe I'll start blogging twice a day. The problem is I don't want it to be a constant stream of "Woe is me."

As I didn't have my phone and don't have an alarm I overslept this morning. I knew it as soon as I woke up. I woke up later than I planned on leaving and took an inordinate amount of time to get ready. I got to class 15 minute late and didn't get a chance to eat breakfast. On the bright side I wanted to eat breakfast. My fever broke last night. I'm still not right but I'm much better.

I still don't have the textbook for my finite math class. I have no idea what I'm supposed to be teaching and can't assign homework. The school knows this and has done nothing. I might have to mug a student for his book. This is worse than last semester when I had an older edition of the book. This time I have nothing. I had a copy but somebody stole it. The admin said, "It wasn't stolen." It was mine. Somebody took it and I don't have it anymore. Isn't that pretty much the definition of stealing?

As more and more things go wrong I get more and more irritable. I have issues with WFUV. Other people were critical on the question of the day group and I couldn't resist chiming in. I said this:

But it's become my weekend station. After QotD I switch to WQXR, WFUV is almost exactly what WNEW and KROCK were back in 1989 when I abandoned them for WFUV. I I just liked the classic rock they played better than the classic rock WFUV? plays now. Where's Led Zep, Floyd, and ELP? WFUV was amazing then. They played not just the fast folk stars but local artists playing for tips on the East Village. I discovered the wonderful world of Cape Breton fiddling. I learned that I loved irish music. Ces�ria �vora from Cape Verde would come to the station and Madeleine Peyroux would back her up. The only criteria seemed to br that the music be good. The station could make somebody's career. Now if there career hasn't been made they aren't played. I gave the station a copy of Lake Street Dive's CD back in 2010 but that's before they made it big so it wasn't played.
Part of what gets me upset is that I've made a large emotional investment in the station. I fell in love with it back in 1989. I have volunteered countless hours, more than anyone other than perhaps Brian. Now I do that for a station that only plays what I like on the weekends. But there is nothing better out there. Volunteering there is one of the few things I really look forward to. I don't want to give that up. It's like being in a long term relationship where you have drifted apart. And of course my social anxiety has started to kick in. I wonder if I stopped getting comped to Falcon Ridge and Clearwater ibecause I am critical. I worry about writing that too. But I'm in a what the hell mood.

So back to radio. It is ALWAYS on the decline. It gets better in sudden jumps, like the freeform FM revolution of the 60s. Then it slowly deteriorates under pressure for mass acceptance. This is made worse by the declining radio audience cause by so much competition for listening time. Niche radio can can't find a home on broadcast radio. It's too expensive to run. It ends up on satellite and webcasts where the fixed costs are smaller. So in 1989 FUV went public. Within a year it was fully transformed from a college station to a public one with a more limited format. City Folk spread from four hours a day to being on all day during the week. But it was a very broad definition of folk. The music was incredibly varied.. But slowly it started losing music at the boundaries, Irish, bluegrass, and world. When they started playing classic rock is when it jumped the shark in my mind. So now the City Folk format is only heard during John Platt' and Bob Sherman's shows. That's all of four hours a week; what used to fill four hours a day back in 1989 and 16 hours a day at the peak.

I have to prepare for my Precalculus class now. I can't even use the good printer because it's broken. Oh and the admin isn't here so I can't even discuss getting my textbook. OK enough griping. Next entry nothing negative. Well except for my bitching about the problems buying my new phone. You know there will be some.


I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.





Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018



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Horvendile January 23, 2014
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