 Hello there, it's Thursday at noon. I know it is Do you remember our arrangement Thursdays at noon on CFUV Are you ready to get started? What do you have in mind? What I want to do now is called first-person plural You make it sound excessively attractive That's what I have in mind Clutrain manifesto an analysis of the nature of the internet with an eye to how successful businesses Can be conducted in cyberspace begins quote people of earth a powerful global conversation has begun Through the internet people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed As a direct result markets are getting smarter and getting smarter faster than most companies These markets are conversations Their members communicate in language that is natural open honest direct funny and often shocking Whether explaining or complaining Joking or serious the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked close quote Predictions about the future of the internet of that Claims range from less and less people-to-people connection will happen on the internet And it will become a worldwide web of appliances Talking to each other for example smart refrigerators emailing repair shops when they need more free on to Someday our very brains will be wired into the net an instant person-to-person communication to anywhere on the globe will be possible as E-commerce companies have seen their stocks plummet after the heyday of the late 1990s Many news services have discussed the supposed demise of the internet In spite of the fact that it doesn't appear to be a get rich quick Avenue The internet continues to be part of many people's everyday lives and the number of people with access and interest is definitely growing But is it one big conversation? Certainly it has traditionally been a text-based world and communication is at the cornerstone of this text The term global conversation suggests a kind of unity that might be misleading Conversation implies exchange It doesn't take long to see that exchanges happen on the internet Talk in chat rooms talk via email talk posted on bulletin boards talk on web logs and online diaries Talk in news groups talk on instant messaging services and increasingly these exchanges are audio and video based Rather than simply text based In her book you just don't understand women and men in conversation linguist Deborah Tannen distinguished between report talk and rap or talk Report talk occurs in public and is more akin to public speaking than to conversation As speakers provide information about themselves without providing personal or private information Report talk is more private and revealing requiring a certain level of trust Both report talk and report talk exist on the internet In fact, it is quite surprising at times how truly revealing the conversation gets And what is essentially a huge public space The French historical philosopher Michel Foucault Observe that making a public confession has become an inherent part of western culture We are quite comfortable with both demanding and providing Confessions in a number of social situations Quote the confession became one of the west's most highly valued techniques for producing truth We have since become a singularly confessing society The confession has spread its effects far and wide It plays a part in justice medicine education family relationships And love relations in the most ordinary affairs of everyday life and in the most solemn rights One confesses one's crimes one's sins one's thoughts and desires One's illnesses and troubles One goes about telling with the greatest precision whatever is most difficult to tell One confesses in public and in private to one's parents One's educators One's doctor to those one loves One admits to oneself in pleasure and in pain Things that would be impossible to tell to anyone else the things people write books about One confesses or is forced to confess Western man has become a confessing animal close quote The confession is not necessarily what one might think of as conversation The power relationship between the confessor and the listener is not always reciprocal Even the listener is more powerful than the confessor demanding the confession and providing the means of absolution Upon hearing the confession As in religious medical and legal settings Or the listener is less powerful than the confessor Often simply a passive vessel through which the message of the confession passes Such as the reader of a public diary who may offer comment But generally is restricted to the topic chosen by the confessor And is meant to provide the supportive role of listening rather than that of an equal exchange A better balance can be seen in tannin's discussion of gossip and lamenting and talk between women Specifically she discusses rituals involving grieving Quote when the greek women gather to share limits Each one's expression of grief reminds the others of their own suffering And they intensify each other's feelings Indeed both caravelli and anthropologist joel quipers who have studied a similar lament tradition in bali Note that women judge each other's skill in this folk art By their ability to move others to involve them in the experience of grieving Expressing the pain they feel in losing loved ones bonds the women to each other And their bonding is a sav against the wound of loss close quote Tannen drew a parallel between these folk rituals And the ways in which north american and other european women employ troubles talk This ritual strikes an interesting contrast to foco's confessing animal Confession involves a top-down power relationship Which devalues the personal experience of the confessor by subjecting it to the gaze of philosophy medicine or religion Or devalues the personal experience of the listener by subjugating it to the agenda of the confessor The purpose of telling the story is to remove it from the self and to find a rationalizing influence over the baser aspects of experience Lamenting involves a shared power relationship, which values personal experience while making it central to social experience The purpose of telling the story is to connect to others and to encourage them to connect to their own feelings of loss In confession the narrator finds absolution In lamentation the narrator finds community Both confessions and lamentations occur on the net and are a large part of the cyber experience for many users Both of these experiences on the internet support the clue train manifesto's position That the internet is a global conversation that the basic building block of the internet is conversation But to suggest that such conversations constitute the major use of the internet Is belied by the fact that the top 50 websites in terms of page visits are not conversational at all They are much more oriented to performance. They are not Confessional performances, but rather advertisements for the very things that one finds in other media The mass media are not meant to be exchanges or conversations They are meant to sell actively to a passive audience There is an illusion of choice and interactivity, but it is a multiple choice test With options limited to those things that promote the sale The clue train manifesto Is suggesting that this kind of mass media will ultimately fail on the internet Because of the perceived smartness of the market But one wonders if the masses aren't already so familiar with the ritual of this kind of passive acceptance of information That they will not even think to resist it However critiques of mass media and attempts at providing alternatives are growing Independent is a term used to denote materials other than those generated by a core of four or five media companies That control a great deal of content on the net those who create such material are called independence Independence are not only becoming more plentiful on the internet They are beginning to find ways to find each other and support each other Many see hope for a global conversation emerging in these independence The development of audio and visual technologies that are cheaper and more readily accessible Is supporting these independent efforts Internet radio for example Has exploded with thousands of hobbyists worldwide who provide some sort of programming Often spoken word and often interactive in some form But this growth is not unfettered Governments with pressure from these core companies Are struggling to control content through royalty payments and levies Questions of intellectual property have become complicated and murky Certainly things are not settled down and it remains to be seen what the internet of the future will be This week we spoke with Vancouver TJ's Sean Kennedy and James O'Brien About the ins and outs of running their internet radio station Called red radio as we explore whether the internet is one big conversation You're listening to first person plural on cfuv Victoria's public radio 101.9 fm 104.3 cable And on the internet cfub.uvig.ca Giving sociology an edge What do you find advantageous about internet radio versus terrestrial radio? Uh apply for example, didn't you pursue co-op radio for instance cfro in vancouver or have you thought about doing both? Well the plan yeah, it's about control vancouver, but it's uh Swung too far the other way uh rain radio started out It's just like a free medium for people to express their thoughts for people on the street And we never thought it would be incredibly huge. We never expected You know to wind up and wired and spin and world and stuff It was kind of a gag that started four years ago, and uh it just took off so When you ask I think that they might have a problem with uh some of our content just a hunch But that's real radio. Well interesting comparison and a lot of ways. Yeah, they're similar But in a lot of ways too, they're kind of apples and oranges because yeah technically we are broadcasting We're just using different medium, but we have no governing body whatsoever and that is the strength of internet radio Yeah, it's kind of nice where Sean Kennedy shows should not be played to the kindergarten class I'm the first guy in line with that there and it's a it's a viable medium And I think it's a great alternative to what people are currently experiencing with media and they're very frustrated It's television attitudes towards our model our model our business model more successful within the coming years is because Survivor and all this on television Uh, it's becoming more and more apparent that honesty is going to be pornography of the 21st century And that's where people want they want something real They want something tangible something that's not totally prefabricated form fitted polished and then packaged they want something that's real You've mentioned that your programming is geared toward providing people with a form in which to express their ideas I've taken a look at your website You seem to have about two hours a day of spoken word programming versus about 22 of uh pre-recorded music And you say on your site that you're interested in acquiring more Talk what would you call them talk jockies? I suppose tjs right? What are your plans for programming in the future? Is this part of it? Definitely, definitely. We we uh, love the talk shows. They're very very popular and uh, almost even more so than the music More people tune in very picky about the the stuff that does go on the station That's be very high quality Uh, and we would be interested in we do have a set of we do have certain moral standard guidelines You know schizo in the seven straights showing up wanting to do a show What is your relationship with so can you mention them briefly? Do all the artists with music on your station just sign off on the royalties? Or is there some other legal loophole that protects you from having to answer to so can for everything you do? Well, I have a love hate relationship with so can mostly hate mostly hate at this moment But uh before uh, they started well, they've been trying to hammer on us with the tariff 22 for a while since uh I believe 1996 But on the other hand so stuff you can put on the radio on internet radio in canada or even radio It's all trained to do whatever you just a lot of people know i've been uh, tariff 22 Or the style of radio that i'm doing which is a hobby style radio We've got things in place like you mentioned the artists giving us full permission to read their music Yeah, there's no illegal music whatsoever on rand radio everything we have here as a matter of fact Attacting and looking out for the best interest for these artists are absolutely rabid to have the exposure that rand radio gives them Uh links up on their pages to rand radio. It's just like uh generally we talk to the artist the artists say it's cool I really don't understand why so can's even involved if we've contacted each and every artist and we have written permission from them What's the big deal hands off? We've got things in place so we can take it to a point where so can't can't even get involved country that that might happen Right, but we don't want to leave uh leave the country in terms of our broadcast Yeah, even if it turns into a bunch of guys driving around a van broadcasting pirate That's what it's going to turn into but it won't stop sick that we broadcast Uh, they're very industrial music ebm synth pop and these are Or any television in the synth pop world like kmf dm and things like that. They get exposure through movie soundtracks Uh ministry whatnot has had exposure through movie soundtracks You get other bands out there who are equally of good equality of spf 1000 and whatnot who are amazing bands put out Uh, unbelievable quality music yet. They cannot get radio play because of the style of music they play How is running an internet radio station in canada different from running one in the united states People can listen to internet radio from just about any place that there's a phone line But you have to run it from somewhere you have to broadcast from somewhere and invariably geographical considerations come into play Uh following what's been going on in the states to a great extent In the artist but we have uh from because we've got mirrors all over the we're setting up Re-broadcast stations for us all over the world which is how tariff 22 and carp in the states is going after So if we move that then it's it's irrelevant really we could move the originated broadcast to europe The best way to put it it would be to say that rand radio is not so much a station as is a community and the community is global Therefore rand radio is global So it really doesn't matter where In particular laws of particular countries move rand radio will be able to go sideways and go to any country They need to in order to keep the quality of broadcast up. Yeah, hence how the whole internet works It's kind of ridiculous trying to govern the internet when it's the worldwide phenomenon. Yeah, they can give it the good college try though I saw an interview on the globe in mail in july In which one of you was talking about your no revenue No plans to get any Business model and I thought you might be willing to share some of your secrets with us It's clear just by going to your site that you have enormous pipeline at your disposal And I thought you might have come up with some secret way to assure sustainability. Yeah, you bet any tips on that Oh, you betcha be honest the the only secret there is uh, we started out small We provided a good quality product, which was the shows and uh people liked it Um, we were more offered to bandwidth because there are so many hungry people out there looking for entertainment That's not part of the infotainment industry. That's not part of the core political That is what mgm what time Warner would all these companies have become people are sick of that And uh people are not wanting to sit back and watch friends all the time There's a whole another culture of people that want something that's real and tangible Has been catering to that culture and that's why we've been growing We've been growing and providing the bandwidth because the market is giving it to us because they are that hungry The reason why rent radio started and came on as strong as it is is because we did not like the current media If you hate the media become the media as it's very very apparent from the site from the feedback from the global response There for that and every single episode every single day rent radio gets stronger Stunned before it is a community everyone who listens everyone who contributes art Don't we purely for accolades? We simply stand back and we go wow this and we're honest about it And when you when you have that degree of honesty when things are not scripted when it's not you know Can I get this icon and cornflower blue when it's not that feel it over the airwaves? They can feel it in real life and it's really motion and that is what makes rent radio strong Is that it is unscripted and that it is unregulated? That's why we were able to grow at the rate We have been because the demand is there and people are not stupid. They recognize You've talked a little bit about the community that sprung up around this What kind of community building have you done? I've seen some of the listener picks on the site Do you have other things scheduled events face-to-face meetings that enable you to get in touch with your listener base and Bring it all together a little better from not too often Because of the need people are spread out all over the world like australia in the states There are listener parties though They're set up listener parties and we do have a section in the forum for that for people to get together And meet and they also uh people get together to listen to the shows that we broadcast So there is there is a community effort, but it's sort of rent radio extends more than just the radio station It's actually kind of staggering how much work we do for free when you when you really sit back and think about it That's all our free time. Yeah, so it's uh, imagine it holy crap But yeah, there's a lot we do so Receptive to be honest with you we cannot keep up with demand with people over the years that really get shut down pretty quick because Of our content that would be my fault. Yeah, Hagerty holds true that yeah, we've got four years We were here before the dot-com boom. We were here after the dot-com crash How do you see the project expanding in the future? Where do you plan to go from here? You've mentioned branching out into video into um internet television What are the media might you pursue do you think whatever media shows up if we get 3d rendering technology? We'll do 3d rendering if we can do video. We'll do video if we can do omnimax. We'll do omnimax We'll do it all what deals of what we do right now. Yeah, uh, we we wouldn't we wouldn't want to change ourselves to fit Into somebody else's box Who came up with the name rant radio Oh, well just before the station started up one life good at talking He talks all day long wanted to run a radio station. I was going to do a pirate before over the air That's too expensive and too easy to get caught People should hear you more people Yeah, rather than just freaking out on the people in the in the saveway lineup Maybe you should do it into a microphone. Oh, okay. That's okay. This is back in 99 yeah when there was domains available Yeah, I supposed to now when you know no domain domains available. Yeah, everything's pretty much been been nailed down Uh, I get some weird kind of karma thing how it all sort of worked out, but uh, just all came together There was no if there was the ranch in a Sean Kennedy ranch and on you will have some area content How things sound i'm a very visual thinker that floats around in my head, you know It's kind of like i'm the Keith Richards and and uh, james is the studio So I can like puke into a microphone and james can make it sound amazing Which is kind of currently plotting to kill james. You know i'm so long that it's kind of second nature now Like it sound like we're on the radio 24 seven. Hi, how's it going? Very good. How are you? We're good. Thanks, you know Well, I found out most of what I wanted to know if you have anything you'd like to add Now would be a good time Yeah, we're currently looking for people to build us genetically engineered two-headed cats and giant robots That's part of our biggest bigger business model. They told the guys in a wired magazine about that because they gave us a Great interview awesome guys from uh, if you do a search for pump up the bandwidth on the wired site You'll you'll find it But they never put it in the interview, but they're great guys They said what's your business plan for the future and we said we're going to take over the earth with Genetically engineered two-headed cats and giant robots and they don't spin that too Yeah, we don't they enjoyed that So if you printed that that because they have the guts to print that it upsets us too because it's a perfectly good business model Even the guys from wired after they stopped laughing. They said it was the best goddamn business model they heard gear It's so why not? Yeah, you know really because there's a market for giant robots. I really think so james are brian and shon kennedy. Thank you for being with me today Well, thank you very much girl first person plural This week we're talking about the internet and the clue train manifestos assertion That cyberspace is one big conversation Musicians talk way of saying that they're sort of in sync with the world when they're writing Good music But i'm having a hard time thinking of the internet as one big conversation But I kind of like the idea What do you mean by one big conversation? well Well, I guess it isn't really me that said it It's uh the clue train people I think what they were trying to get at was the social nature Of the internet anytime. There's a conversation going anytime language is involved. It's inherently social We don't we're not born knowing language And because we're not born knowing language At least one other human being had to enter our lives to teach it to us So if we're using language even when we're talking to ourselves We're doing a social act And of course language comes with culture and We wouldn't know what each other meant if we didn't have a common culture The problem I have with this whole great idea is that the internet is chock full Of ways of shutting you up What do you mean? Well for one thing there are lots and lots of people who are Wanting to make lots and lots of money And they would like to dominate the internet We've seen this stuff with internet radio in the last year with the united states library of congress coming through and making a decision That essentially Though not directly Killed quite a few radio Outlets on the internet at least in the united states. Yes But we also have the so can stuff going on here in canada That has the potential to do very similar damage And while so can is A nicer organization in my mind then the recording industry of america What's r.a.a. stand for again? I don't recall. I just refer to it as the oligopoly. Yes. It saves time There's got to be another a in there the recording industry of america association of america perhaps Associate. Oh, yeah recording industry association of america. There we go anyway So can is a little bit more democratic than r.i.a. a r.i.a. a is basically A club that you have to have a lot of money to belong to And it's meant to make more money for you after you join it um, so can actually Spread some money around a little bit more having said that though it still Seems antithetical to this big conversation That we're all supposed to be having on the net Yeah, it does tend to put a damper on everyone's fun Yeah, I kind of have a love hate relationship With the internet on the one hand I think that it truly could be a democratic place And on the other hand Every time I see democracy at work. It seems like you run into just a lot of idiocy I've often wondered How one stops democracy from becoming rolled by the stupid if you'll excuse the reference I've often wondered what the best way to deal with the lowest common denominator problem is And I guess the best way to deal with it is to point out that There are lots of other ideals besides democracy that need to be balanced off against democracy See I think that democracy may be the sum of all those ideals instead of Being balanced off of it. I think that The united states at least and to a certain extent canada have kind of forgotten what democracy means and they've reduced it down to majority rules or Everybody gets a piece of the pie And neither one of those is It's true in the united states Well, not just that witness The 2000 presidential election. Yeah, witness the most uneven distribution of income and wealth on earth after the brazilians Yes, there was somebody who beat us Beat them We're in canada now Won't they find us here It seems like especially with internet radio you see this though Certainly with a bunch of different websites as well a whole bunch of people who want to play The oligopoly music and Are just so so upset that now that the ruling has come through they have to pay money to play And then you have a whole bunch of people who are doing What on the surface seems pretty radical You know, they're negotiating contracts with Different independent artists and they're promoting independent artists and independent websites and so forth And it seems like they're fighting it But then they start creating this kind of it's sort of like what the baffler calls deviance incorporated It basically becomes there's only one way to be deviant There's only one way to show your distaste And it just turns into Just one more way to conform Just fetishness Yeah, it's kind of like when we were talking about makeover And how punk rockers have this tendency to all look alike because you have to figure out What image it is that you've got to portray to show that you don't want to be portraying an image Which seems paradoxical and indeed hopeless on the face of it. Yes So it's just I don't know. It's just sort of craziness and I feel kind of caught in the middle. I'm not necessarily wanting to reject all things corporate I certainly don't want to reject the idea that maybe I'd like to make a living at this But on the other hand, I'm very uncomfortable with a lot of the corporatism that goes on in the net. Well Well It's like getting bullied from both sides really. It's like being bullied by the popular kids on one into the school ground and being bullied by the cool Thugs on the other side of the school ground who are in fact just as much A cultural stereotype as the first group. Yeah, who are essentially More close to that first group than they would ever be able or willing to admit To me, no opposition. Yes To me the come the conversation That we should be having ought to be an open Book it ought to be something that a lot of people a lot of different people can come to the table And you know, I hear the I hear people talk about Oh, the internet is so wonderful because it's global. Well, it ain't global There's quite a few people on this planet who don't even have access To a telephone much less a computer with the internet. I don't think that's global and I think that It's a privilege. It's a nice little privilege that I'm happy to have But it's a privilege and I don't fool myself into believing That just because I'm on the internet it means that a lot of other people get to be on the internet, too There are quite a few people on this planet Who don't even know that the internet exists Similarly for television telephones radio go on down the list. You'd be surprised what they don't have in most of the world Yes, telecommunications is a very Wealth oriented thing even if you're pretty poor while you have it You know, we like to think of ourselves as Really scraping by because we don't make money and we use five dollar tape recorders and you know older Computers, etc, etc But the fact of the matter is this is still a very privileged territory that we're in There are times when I really love the internet because it seems to be a place Where people meet each other. I've met people. I know People who I have never seen And I actually feel closer to them than I do to a lot of people that I see on a daily basis Because we share emails together. We read each other's web logs. We talk about Things that are really important to us and I like that aspect of the web But I have to tell you that I have had a hard time finding the web As a friendly place and I think one of the reasons that it isn't that friendly is because I'm not a little boy I I think that there is a whole lot on the net That is just little boys playing king of the hill and doing pissing contests Now don't get me wrong. I think there are a lot of nice guys on the net I think there are guys out there who Are doing some really sweet things I think there are guys out there who are doing some really tough things But I think there are also a whole bunch of guys on the net who are just Bullying away They're playing deviance incorporated and they think they're little tough guys and they like Picking on the rest of us And frankly, I'm too old for that I don't really like playing that game anymore And you can't tell When you first start Who the good guys are and who the bad guys are Because a lot of them say the same things that we say A lot of them talk about the oligopoly a lot of them talk about resistance A lot of them talk about culture jamming a lot of them talk about all sorts of good things And then you get involved with it and it turns out what they really want to do Is just another little pissing contest and frankly I I sometimes think of the net as a fallow net. I really do That's a word that you and I invented independently this afternoon But it is I mean, it's just this little power game that goes on. Don't you think? I was absolutely knocked out when I first realized the scope of the internet and this was long before Browsers were at their current opulent state. It was around 94 when I first started to get really intrigued by it And it was almost all text based on them Pictures were few and far between you had to have the right browser to view them and sound Just wasn't available And my thought was oh my goodness The media is finally democratized or something like it The media was more democratized anyway No longer do we have to submit magazine articles to a member of my favorite group the media oligopoly And get their approval to have them published and circulated. I was absolutely blown away. I thought it was The millennium six years later by the time the millennium didn't fact come around I began to I had realized that people with computers have nothing to say It's really scary. Isn't it? It really is. I mean nothing I mean content free and I Could not come up with an explanation for it I really don't understand what's going on But the norm in cyberspace is for the noisiest most content devoid loser to take over every discussion and it's either spams it's either spamming or idiocy, I swear it is and Or flame wars. Yeah, and that's all it's for that's all it's for as far as I can tell There are people in this world who apparently find it necessary to disagree with everything And these people have all the time and energy in the world. I don't know who's finding them and I don't care All I know is that they poison everything else And I used to be Very much an anarchist when it came to the media. I felt Everyone should be able to contribute to it And I suppose I still am I think that everyone should have their 15 minutes of fame or at least their 15 minutes on the podium But I'm past the point where I personally want to listen to most of it Because most of it is either going to be the same seven sentences over and over or it's going to be Complete schizo babble. It's going to be people getting up and just talking at random the way they apparently type at random on the internet and I remember being very disappointed by that I realized the internet wasn't democratic. I realized that most people do not have a computer Yeah, and most people have a computer. Well, no, that isn't true anymore A lot of people do have access to the internet And I wouldn't I'm not sure that most people have computers do not I am sure of this You've got to dig a lot of dirt to get to the diamonds Yeah, that's that's exactly it. There are some diamonds out there But it's tough to find them. It really is And for the life of me, I don't know why I don't know why people wouldn't take more care with their content But instead the contest seems to be about who can type the most words And I absolutely couldn't believe it I actually Well, I should I should skip to the end on this. We're running short on time. I've been asked Many times whether I think Uncontrolled media all of the internet or controlled media a lot the media oligopoly Is what I prefer whether I prefer to use the academic language referee journals or Actually, I don't know the academic language. What's the companion term? Uh, I don't think there is a companion term. Everything in academia is referee journals I guess popular publications might be the antonym of that. I guess there's bulletin boards, I suppose But that's not really a good analog But the point is do I want somebody doing the editing or do I just want anyone to be able to come and stick something up? And in 1994, I would have said the ladder without question. Let's get the control out of there entirely But I I greatly overestimated the intelligence of the american public and apparently the public in the rest of the world as well And I hate to say English speaking world. Anyway, we don't hang out much and then internet be on english I pay some attention to the french internet, but that's the extent of it Two languages was quite enough for me and I was just very disappointed in what the standards Came out to be but anyway the answer to the big question which is referee or non referee journals is both If you have only one kind A certain number of terrible things are going to happen If you have both then you have some kind of balance And you need a warning label right at the beginning not a warning label of whether it's refereed or not But you know warnings stupid material on this site Or something like that. I swear I'd love to invent like a stupidity filter I mean you can just I think that's from dober scott adams talks about a bozo filter in one of his books that'll Take emails that are of limited or no value and consign them to the dust men before he even has a chance To look at them. Oh what a beautiful invention that would be Yeah, and they have spam bloggers to a certain extent now Well full of that I was I thought that most people quote most people close quote when the internet first came into my life We're going to follow the same standards that I did that is don't put anything on the internet that isn't at least near publication quality You don't have to have somebody proofread it for you But don't put it on the net if you wouldn't want somebody to read To judge you by this if you wouldn't want somebody to look at this and say okay This is his peak work Well, my opinion my Policy despite following the categorical imperative that's something for you con fans in the audience Is such a minority policy that I'm beginning to think I'm the only person in the world that feels this way as usual Yes, the norm is so much for people just to type as fast as they can And get as many words out as possible with no Concern over content at all That I've lost a lot of faith in it. I've noticed a corollary opposite problem going on and on And that is people have stopped reading email too. I cannot tell you the number of emails I get returned to me with some sort of reply That essentially indicates that they have read one line the first line of the email And nothing else and it makes me wonder if if people just haven't stopped reading it because it's also stupid That you can't get through the static either direction You can't get through the static by listening or reading and you can't get through the static by writing Because what happens is is that nobody wants to read more than a two-line email It just it seems like there's too much static floating around now Well, we don't want to end this on too pessimistic note. It's still possible that democratization Can't be good as well. I just Don't see how the media oligopoly can be the solution But I'll say this as well People have always said and done stupid things and it may be that the only thing the internet has changed Is that it has allowed them to archive every damn one of them Yeah, that's a scary thought First person plural your source for soothing sounds of sociological sagacious lists The police state is using its phallocentric organ the corporate media to control ordinary people like you and You have been listening to first person plural on cfu v 101.9 fm in victoria british columbia simulcast it on 104.3 cable and cfu v dot uv ic dot ca First person plural is produced weekly by dr. Patty thomas and carl wilkerson Music for first person plural is composed performed and produced by carl wilkerson For more information about first person plural or patty thomas and carl wilkerson visit our website culturalconstructioncompany.com