clientes com distúrbios e atrasos na fala

The latest instalment of This American Life had a particular resonant first act that really lingered and prodded in ways that I was not quite expecting.  Composer and musician Jerome Ellis became a joyful rule-breaker for a captivated audience and gave with his performance piece a real object lesson on the reasonable accommodation of time and pacing that most of us don’t spare a thought for lest we’re able to indulge our impatience and cast aspersions on others for being too slow.
Introduced by way of a Brazilian law that provides a half-price relief for mobile subscribers who are diagnosed with a speech impediment—a severe stutter like Ellis has, the state government tried to make allowances for the normalised and preferred fluency that none of us has by degrees. While I don’t exactly stammer and don’t pretend to come from the same place experientially, I felt I could relate by getting annoyed when one supplies (or tries to) the elusive word too quickly or finishes my sentences for me—and I know it’s just meant as a kindness whether in English or in my non-native German when I struggle, which is usually—and then not knowing if it’s worth the effort to finish one’s thought and growing by degrees a bit more taciturn. Our temporal expectations can be impositions just like any other but also an opportunity for exchange.

7x7

ppe: for the cost of one kit of battle rattle riot gear, one could fully outfit over fifty care staff

world leaders have floated the use of sanctions on officials close to president trump to help protect america’s ethnic minorities: applying the tone of reporting on foreign wars and civil unrest to the US

by-line: questioning the wisdom of New York Times’ editorial policy, via Super Punch

history will be kind to these painstaking recreations of these corrupt criminals responsible for the end of democracy: 2020 Battle for the White House commemorative chess set

harlem renaissance: the US Post Office issues stamps celebrating four important literary figures

history will judge the complicit: Fresh Air’s Dave Davies interviews historian and Atlantic correspondent Anne Applebaum on imperiled democracy

white collar jobs: Facebook will destroy society

i loved that waiter—jean luc!

Enjoying a quite delightful concluding post-script to a podcast miniseries on I, CLAVDIVS recently, there was an interesting panel discussion about what artefact of culture one might be willing to impose on others to reveal either a shared-experience or a telling shibboleth that landed on the idea of swapping familiarity with television commercials. The below Pure Moods really struck a chord, as did memories of another vintage ad for Stovetop Stuffing suggested independently by another fine show and could probably merit a podcast on its own. What are some of your strongest advertising reminiscences? Re-watching have you found that you misremembered them?

béton brut

Beginning with an overture on aesthetic differences immortalised in in the 007 franchise, 99% Invisible (both in written form and as a podcast) presents an excellent and comprehensive look at the landmarks of Brutalist architecture.
Aside from the distinct pleasure of revisiting a selection of these sometimes reviled yet unrivalled masterpieces of formalism that often courted condemnation as fallout shelters, urban blight or Soviet-era slab with a guided tour—sadly prompted by the premature loss of two architects synonymous with the vernacular—rather than the utopian and optimistic impulse the construction medium brought. Much more to explore at the link above.

ham radio

On this day in 1925 during a congress in Paris held by a consortium of national organisations representing hobbyists and enthusiasts, the International Amateur Radio Union was formed. Its mission, continuing to the present, is to safeguard a frequency spectrum reserved for the purposes of non-commercial exchange, experimentation, training, recreation and contests and competitions, including radio direction finding, a type of geocaching, and speed telegraphy using Morse-code—“ham” originally a gently pejorative term for operators with poor sending accuracy, being somewhat ham-fisted.

circus maximus

Two podcasters of note, John Hodgman and Elliot Kalan, are hosting an absolutely delightful mini-series revisiting the 1976 prestige television adaptation of the Robert Graves work of historical fiction I, Claudius.
Though harshly panned by critics on its first airing, it enjoyed cult-status and a dedicated viewership both in the UK and in America where it was syndicated by the Public Broadcasting System in 1978 and features an extraordinary cast of actors including Sir Derek Jacobi, Dame Siân Phillips (the Bene Gesserit reverend mother of Dune and voice actor for all the Disney princesses for their UK releases) as Livia, John Hurt, Sir Patrick Stewart, John Rhys-Davies, Brian Blessed, Patsy Byrne (Nursie in Blackadder) and Patricia Quinn, the Lady Stephens (Magenta from The Rocky Horror Picture Show)—just to name a few. Watch along as they recap each chapter with special guests, beginning with the pilot A Touch of Murder/Family Affairs—an extended episode counted as one.

armchair quarterback

Though it is sometimes difficult to confront one’s own shortcomings and gladiatorial instincts that we hope to dress-up as and therefore translate to political engagement, there’s a danger in political hobbyism and its self-curatorial overreach that compels one to share and to share passionately with expertise and insight but then fails many of us when it comes to follow-through.
The social media, network news takedown that Hidden Brain accompanies us on is harsh but fair and we ought to aspire to dislodge this trend that dilutes political engagement (surely by design) into something akin to collecting crafts, recipes and destinations, the allotment thereof cultivating our own image. Those efforts are important too and real labour but also proves taxing and leaves many of us too exhausted to act on our platforms. We find ourselves tantalized with the apex of politics to the neglect of the nadir—those issues that we can impact (also obfuscated and shoved off as dull or irrelevant by those who would wield power rather than be spectators) and multiply the impact of our individual votes and restores democracy by dint of participation.

don’t crash the pips

On the day in 1924 and broadcast on a daily basis since, the BBC first introduced the Greenwich Time Signal (previously) to play in and precisely mark the top of the hour.
First generated by breaking an electric circuit with the swinging pendulum of mechanical clock tolling the official time at the Royal Observatory before graduating to an electronic clock and eventually atomic calibration and production in house since 1990. The signal accounts for leap seconds by including a seventh tone, usually inserted just before the stroke of midnight. Due to inherent time lag in digital broadcasting (buffering), the signal is slipping in terms of accuracy when it comes to synchronization.

whyy

Still catching up on my back-catalogue of podcasts from over the holidays, this new-to-me feature might be old news but I found it pretty keen that the radio interview show par excellence Fresh Air has made its forty-five years of archived material, some twenty-two thousand segments available and searchable by topic and by guest. Sort of like the Wikipedia feature that allows one to create a textbook or travel-guide, the website not only hosts the audio and transcripts of all the programmes, it also allows one to create a custom playlist for oneself or to share with others.

turkey lurkey

Catching up on some post-Thanksgiving podcast listening, we were delighted to learn of the existence of priceless collaboration between Susan J Vitucci and Henry Krieger in their silly and engaging operetta Love’s Fowl that recounts the continuing adventures of Henny Penny, also known as Chicken Little or by her stage diva name, La Pulcina Piccola—but through the filter of opera buffa, with an impressive, classically informed score and libretto sung in Italian, featured in a poultry-themed left-overs episode of This American Life.
Our hero has graduated from her initial hysterical though determined mission (despite leaping to the wrong conclusion, her perseverance is what saved her life whereas her companions all dawdled and became Foxy Loxy’s meal—those without scruples always ready and willing to take advantage of panic and confusion) to warn the King that the sky is falling to face some of the more vexing but equally universal challenges of fairy stories and folklore (the familiar, initial trope is classified as Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 20c but together, we run the entire gamut), a cumulative story like the original premise it begins with, repetitious in some way but always advancing, including swashing-buckling on the high seas, statecraft and romantic liaisons.

maclunkey

From the Hollywood script writers’ podcast Story Break (previously here and here) who’ve imagined and pitched such properties as Jar-Jar: A Star Wars Story, we’re treated to their signature treatment of another subtitle re-mastering of the franchise and how such a directorial decision could have larger implications—including not in the least the opportunity (nay, duty) to explore what the change signifies. In the original edition of Star Wars: A New Hope, a pivotal, expository scene Greedo, a bounty-hunter from the planet Rodia commissioned by Jabba the Hutt, encounters his target, smuggler Hans Solo, at the cantina of Mos Eisley (“a wretched hive of scum and villany”) and girds himself to deliver Solo to Jabba dead or alive.
Originally, Solo is depicted as killing Greedo, a decision which the director later recants, fearing it portrays one of the Rebellion’s unwilling heroes as cold-blooded and alters footage to reform Solo’s moral ambiguity by initially in 1997 having Greedo fire his blaster first and then in another special edition, portraying both firing simultaneously in 2004, in 2012 owing that the original portrayal was canon and then just within the past week debuted another edit to mark the occasion of its intellectual heirs’ premiere of its streaming service, this time with the exchanged subtitled except on Greedo’s last words before dying which audiences transcribe as either the title or possibly a Huttese phrase “ma klounkee.” Those last words still a mystery one fun tangent that the storyboarding session explored early on was that the Bounty Hunter’s Tale was a Star Wars-Groundhog Day mash-up and Greedo was caught in a Force temporal loop—the only escape being to finally kill Han Solo and we’ll go through an infinite number of variations, the same day repeated over and over again, accompanied by the musical stylings of Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes. Do check out the whole episode at the link above and find out where they ultimately took this idea.

positive externalities

Though we are familiar with the concept of sin-taxes and the notion of factoring in social cost into the price regime of consumption by means of a carbon-tax which has a diverse cast of proponents (and conversely incentives to make the more expensive choices for the sake of greater society), we had never heard of a Pigovian subsidy broadly applied as the name of this corrective measure.
Conceived nearly a century ago by Cambridge economics professor Arthur Cecil Pigou (*1877 – †1959), its first incarnation was a proposal to reveal and offset the hidden costs of alcohol on civil societies by levying taxes that would help fund law enforcement, first responders and insurance underwriters who have had to foot the extra bill of accident and absenteeism from intoxication. People then and now are reluctant to find correlation outside of their immediate horizons, and Pigou tried couching the argument in more concrete terms, social benefits and ills being notoriously hard to measure in a field that lobbies in numbers, citing unregulated industry for creating the deadly smog that beset London with direct costs built-in for inaction in terms of health and sustainability. Do give the entire podcast a listen and learn more about a real-world experiment whose time has finally come around.

champerty & maintenance

A recent edition of NPR’s Planet Money explored the injection of third-party investors in the courtroom and how in asymmetrical civil cases, backing in the form of extra funds might allow a disadvantaged plaintiff to pursue justice on more equal footing.
While in most jurisdictions, lawyers are allowed take cases on commission, outsiders with no standing are not permitted to meddle monetarily—a doctrine that dates back to medieval Europe meant to discourage frivolous and vexatious litigation by excluding disinterested parties. Whereas maintenance refers to the encouragement to get litigious, champerty (from the Old French champart for the feudal lord’s share of the harvest) is by extension the return on investment one would receive from backing the discovery and trial. Nobles often squabbled at the margins of their holdings and lent their support to rather baseless lawsuits to torment one other when open warfare was inadvisable. Relief and remedy was sought on the basis of detinue sur trover. What do you think? Is the concept outdated? Despite how at first glance, it seems rather antithetical to justice, as the legal system is presently configured, there are a lot of barriers to entry and an uneven field for most to negotiate. Do give the entire podcast a listen and consider subscribing. In jurisprudence, the term though not the concept and practice has been mostly superseded by laws on abusing the legal system and malicious prosecution.

germany calling

On this day in 1939, at the behest of the Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Nazi Germany first broadcast its English language programme, signing on with “Germany calling! Here are the Reichssender Hamburg, station Bremen.”
The usual format for the show included news segments and jazz music performed by an in studio ensemble—which was otherwise banned domestically—presented by a host of announcers known collectively as Lord Haw-Haw, all speaking with an affected aristocratic accent (the BBC dubbed the US pro-Nazi broadcaster, see also, Fred W. Kaltenbach—known for his homey, hayseed “Letters to Iowa”—Lord Hee-Haw). As noxious as the message was, rife with exaggeration, the show had a dedicated listenership in the UK, Canada, America and Australia owing to that it was the only news source from behind the front and occasionally read notices from prisoners-of-war to relatives back home. The programme ended on 30 April 1945 when British troops took Hamburg, Horst Pinschewer, a German refugee who took the name Geoffrey Perry when he enlisted in the army, making the next regularly scheduled broadcast to announce the British takeover.

thanatopsis

The always excellent podcast Hidden Brain boldly tackles a subject that is usually avoided or talked around in polite company if not suppressed to the point of being a social taboo: death.
Approaching the topic via the broad and non-empirical idea that fear of death drives every decision we make and informs and limits our agency with some evidence-based psychological experiments, we see that although we think we are avoiding the matter of our own mortality and legacy in not articulating it, we’re always practising terror management in one form or another, and couched as we all are in the comforts of convention, we remain unaware of these instigations until confronted with its unforgiving finality. Necessary and human as the anxiety is, we cede more power to a nebulous and unnamed fear that serves to reinforce the judgments and opinions it covertly influences. Ibidem the same source as above, we are treated to another podcast—from Vox magazine—that correlates well with the theme of memento mori but this time musically. Four close and dark notes from a Gregorian mass intoned at funerals—Dies Iræ, Reckoning, the Day of Wrath—still resounds and is hiding everywhere in popular culture. The same tones cue us (perhaps steel us) to something grim approaching and is sampled in scores of film and television soundscapes. Cultural hegemony being what it is, I wonder how universal these impulses and signifiers are.

susan spotless says every litter bit hurts

Not to discount or dismiss the role of consumer-choice and the positive impact of reduction and reuse—and recycling programmes that are honest-brokers and not more greenwashing out-of-hand, but the manufacturing industry behind throw-away society has managed to deflect attention from itself and conveniently shift the onus and the guilt of pollution and over-consumption from themselves—saving their bottom-line, to the public.
Thoughline shows how industry launched a major re-education campaign to convince the public there was little need for thrift and re-use and to accept the single-use paradigm, seemingly enraged and enervated when the state of Vermont enacted legislation that outlawed the sale disposable glass-bottles, since they were ending up in pastures and the broken shards were dangerous for livestock gazing there. Fully aware of the down-stream effects of their actions and to sustain their profligacy as long as possible, food and beverage makers turned to the Ad Council to craft public sentiment with mascots (to include first that insufferable scolding child above, Lassie the television canine, and later Iron Eyes Cody, “the Crying Indian”) and public service announcements that make the disposable not just more palatable but patriotic (see also here, here and here). Their efforts have been pretty successful and tenacious, people internalising the message that our own greed, laziness and carelessness are the biggest contributors to the climate crisis and not industry or governments too cowed or complicit to regulate them. Listen to more episodes at the link above and subscribe for more disabusing origin stories.

morning sedition

Having debuted on the radio in November 1979, the opening theme for NPR’s Morning Edition by BJ Leiderman has become something sacrosanct and dear to listeners, like the prohibition against crashing the pips or how German state broadcasters tried to update the eight o’clock news music but quickly changed it back a few years ago, so we found it more than a bit off-putting that they changed it from the prosaic classic to something that sounds like an alarm designed by a committee of self-styled sleep hygienists to be a less jarring wake-up call. What do you think? Both versions are below for comparison—with additional lyrics from Conan O’Brien.

talky tina

Having first encountered the strange and robust marketplace in haunted dolls through the excellent podcast Oh No Ross & Carrie, I enjoyed this follow-up and expansion on the topic—via Messy Nessy Chic.
One is course paying for the menacing narrative and the tragic backstory to account for these cursed, possessed artefacts and most auctions are conducted with a strict no return policy and sold “as is.” Though we yet mourn for weird, niche eBay, allowing the sale of such items signals a departure from the company’s restriction on the trafficking in souls and the sale of metaphysical services, such as casting spells. Learn more about this strange phenomena and antecedents at the links above.

voight-kampff test

Sort of in the same way utopia signifies no place, the concept of empathy—derived from the Ancient Greek for compassion via the German term Einfühlung (feeling into) and now in modern Greek εμπάθεια indicates malice, there are appreciable facets and nuances to the capacity to put oneself in another’s shoes.
Failure to understand how what’s become in the course of a generation an article of faith is a new way of framing our beliefs and values is susceptible to misuse, obfuscation and delusion—especially considering the received-narrative and our obligation as social beings—can quickly turn the better parts of empathy to tribalism, much like child-rearing admits the imbalance of helicopter parenting, Tiger Moms or neglect, and leave individuals more entrenched and dedicated to right the wrongs visited on those like them.  Without the need to repair or restore to short-hand or signalling, engage in a profound exploration of the topic below.

this is … npr

Among many other grand and tragic moments that share this anniversary, our faithful chronicler Dr Caligari informs, that on this day in 1970 , by an act of the US Congress—following the passage of the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act, which also provided for a Public Broadcasting Service to cover the TV airwaves too—the National Public Radio network was established, the mandate signed into law by Lyndon Baines Johnson.