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wombat_sochoSo at least one of my friends down home thinks I ought to do a Wikipedia page on WGTB, the college radio station partially responsible for my catholic tastes in music.I told him in my reply to his comment that this would be a bad idea for a couple of reasons.
One of which is that even after two decades-plus of doing without the station, I want to kneecap the stupid bastards who ran the station for letting their (radical, left-wing) politics get in the way of the music. The other reason is pretty simple - I just don't know enough about it. There are a couple of articles on the web and a segment of NPR's All Things Considered that talk about the show and dwell more on the politics than the music. Which, frankly, pisses me off, because I listened to the station strictly on account of the music and could have cared less what Communist drivel these assholes were preaching...in fact, I didn't even realize what was going on until I tuned in fairly early in the evening (10, 11 PM, something like that) and heard them announcing a benefit for a local abortion provider. "Oh, crap," I says to myself, "this is not going to end well." Which, of course, it didn't, and not too much later WGTB was sold to the new kids at the University of DC for a buck. (Years later I would come across accounts of coal companies selling land to buyers essentially for nothing but a promise to assume environmental cleanup liabilities of the shut down mines therein, and would nod, recognizing the type of transaction as completely familiar.)
I have to wonder, though - does it always have to be like this? A number of people I know who like alternative music, whether it be electronica, hardcore, glam rock or whatever, don't have the alternative politics to go with the music. So why is it most of the radio stations playing this stuff seem to be half in love with easeful death-cults like Communism, or at least into anti-capitalist, anti-Establishment politics of one strain or another? Obviously they don't always go together. I'm perfectly willing to buy into the notion that I and my fellow libertarian/conservative fans of alternative music are the exceptions here, but the congruence of fringey politics and music not shaped to fit the tastes of the Top 40 stations never made sense to me, and I'd love to hear somebody explain it to me. No, really.
Now that I have that out of my system...no music and not much AD mail in the mailbox today, but Overstock.com sent me an e-mail to let me know that my new Carbon is on the way. Did a brief lunch with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
phoenixalpha, who made me aware of some Convergence drama that will probably wind up affecting me at AD as well. After that, the afternoon lasted for years. I did manage to finish two of the three homework pieces, and ported one of them into Blackboard once I got to class and remembered what my login was. For more information, get thee hence to the Blogger joint because that's where I blog about the technology class stuff. After class, drove to the Cub, did some desultory shopping (meats, yogurt, frozen pizza, flour) and came home. I think I'll go to bed now and deal with the rest of the APAzine in the morning.
One of which is that even after two decades-plus of doing without the station, I want to kneecap the stupid bastards who ran the station for letting their (radical, left-wing) politics get in the way of the music. The other reason is pretty simple - I just don't know enough about it. There are a couple of articles on the web and a segment of NPR's All Things Considered that talk about the show and dwell more on the politics than the music. Which, frankly, pisses me off, because I listened to the station strictly on account of the music and could have cared less what Communist drivel these assholes were preaching...in fact, I didn't even realize what was going on until I tuned in fairly early in the evening (10, 11 PM, something like that) and heard them announcing a benefit for a local abortion provider. "Oh, crap," I says to myself, "this is not going to end well." Which, of course, it didn't, and not too much later WGTB was sold to the new kids at the University of DC for a buck. (Years later I would come across accounts of coal companies selling land to buyers essentially for nothing but a promise to assume environmental cleanup liabilities of the shut down mines therein, and would nod, recognizing the type of transaction as completely familiar.)
I have to wonder, though - does it always have to be like this? A number of people I know who like alternative music, whether it be electronica, hardcore, glam rock or whatever, don't have the alternative politics to go with the music. So why is it most of the radio stations playing this stuff seem to be half in love with easeful death-cults like Communism, or at least into anti-capitalist, anti-Establishment politics of one strain or another? Obviously they don't always go together. I'm perfectly willing to buy into the notion that I and my fellow libertarian/conservative fans of alternative music are the exceptions here, but the congruence of fringey politics and music not shaped to fit the tastes of the Top 40 stations never made sense to me, and I'd love to hear somebody explain it to me. No, really.
Now that I have that out of my system...no music and not much AD mail in the mailbox today, but Overstock.com sent me an e-mail to let me know that my new Carbon is on the way. Did a brief lunch with
phoenixalpha, who made me aware of some Convergence drama that will probably wind up affecting me at AD as well. After that, the afternoon lasted for years. I did manage to finish two of the three homework pieces, and ported one of them into Blackboard once I got to class and remembered what my login was. For more information, get thee hence to the Blogger joint because that's where I blog about the technology class stuff. After class, drove to the Cub, did some desultory shopping (meats, yogurt, frozen pizza, flour) and came home. I think I'll go to bed now and deal with the rest of the APAzine in the morning.
