Thursday
Pretty quiet day on the work front.

NPR/PRI
Both hours of Talk of the Nation dealt with President Bush’s speech to the United Nations Security Council. They also got analysis and reactions from various political, diplomatic and military officials.

All Things Considered: FCC Reviews Broadcast Outlet Ownership
All Things Considered: New “Newspaper” Format
All Things Considered: Corruption at the U.S.-Mexico Border

Stray Toasters

  • Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue was playing as background music for something on NPR this morning. There’s just “something” about that song. A good “something,” that is. If you’re not familiar with it, go buy a copy or download it or request it from your local jazz station. Disney didn’t do a bad job of presenting it as a vignette in Fantasia 2000, either.
  • Douglas Adams extolled the virtues of Whiter Shade of Pale in The Salmon of Doubt, the collection of his last works. I was listening to random mp3s today at work and two versions of it (Procul Harem and Annie Lennox) played… one song apart. This is another good song. Same imperative applies here as it did with Rhapsody: Listen to it! (I recommend the original version, by Procul Harem, for beginners).
  • A caller on Talk of the Nation made a comment about President Bush’s speech and how, while it was good, it didn’t “move” her as much as Martin Sheen’s post September 11th speech on “The West Wing” did. I believe that Neal Conan made a comment to the effect of “….well, Martin Sheen gets all the good lines.”
  • They played clips of the President’s speech on TotN. One of the clips that they played was of him talking about Iraq possibly having “weapons of mass destruction,” as opposed to “conventional weapons.” (SIDENOTE: Aren’t “conventional weapons” weapons of “mass destruction,” too? I know what they mean by this, but I still find it amusing. ) Anyway… It seems that the Shrub has a *wee* bit of a problem pronouncing the word “nuclear.” It comes out sounding like “new-cue-lar”. Julia and I laughed every time he said it. Neal Conan added something here, too: It seems that President Jimmy Carter had the same speech impediment. Why is this funny? Jimmy Carter is/was a nuclear engineer.
  • More musical oleo: Don Henley’s song Dirty Laundry has been getting a lot of play on one of the local stations. It’s amazing how that song so accurately reflects so much of what’s become of the news lately.
  • There was a test of the “Emergency Alert System” on the radio today. The new alert sounds similar to a dial-up modem attempting to make a connection. I remember the old “Emergency Broadcast System,” which was a simple dual-tone beep. I wonder if it was that way because television stations used a similar tone at the end of their broadcast day (while the test pattern was on the screen)? I’ll have to look into that.

Okay… that’s enough randomness for tonight.

: If you are around a radio from 12:00 – 13:00, you might be interested in listening to tomorrow’s (today’s) Talk of the Nation – Science Friday.

Friday, September 13, 2002
Join Talk of the Nation: Science Friday for a roundup of recent science news, including the latest in cloning and West Nile virus. And we’ll discuss whether scientific information should be censored to protect national security.

Will we ever be driving cars with fuel cells? Join host Ira Flatow in the show’s second hour for a look at the promise and reality of using hydrogen as a fuel source.

And, that’s a wrap. Tune in tomorrow for more.

Peace.