Oh, What a Day! 26January

Remember how we have talked about BBC's World Service which comes on at midnight on NPR's WNIJ, and everything is so suspiciously USA-centric?  Well, 26January is Australia Day (or for aborigines, "Invasion Day") and it seemed last night on the other side of the International Date Line that Australia was getting full press.

There was an in-depth report on campaigns on cigarette smoking and what works/does not work.  Australia is the first and thus far, only country banning any graphics or promotional printing on the package (plain white wrapper, please!) and one pack now costs AUD$28.  Since we're not talking third-world chump change here, this translates to about USD$30.

Then, there was the Witness program which interviewed a man who had joined the "Aboriginal Tent Embassy" on the lawn in front of Parliament House in 1972, after the Australian government basically took away or denied aborigines of basic citizenship.  Since aborigines were declared aliens in the country, then, four activists decided that as aliens, they should create an embassy, just like other aliens.  It turned out that at that time, there were no restrictions against pitching a tent on the Parliament House lawn unless there were more than 11 of them.  More people joined them and white Australians also lent support.  Then, in July, a law was passed making it illegal to camp out on the Parliament House lawn and overnight, police ruthlessly cleared them out.  Even while they were young at the time, less than 21 years old, only one of the original four activists survives today, highlighting the still abysmal health care conditions which aborigines face, resulting in a life expectancy of only half of that of white Australians.

And, even in sports headlines, the BBC World Service was delighted to tell us that Serena and Venus Williams are excited to face each other in the Australia Tennis Open Women's Finals, after handily defeating a Czech and a fellow American named Coco.

See how much about Australia one can learn lying awake listening to the radio?

On another note, 26January is also the birthday of Bessie Coleman.  There is a Bessie Coleman Drive at O'Hare Airport, and Larry has always accused Carolyn of not being curious enough.  Larry not only did not know who Bessie Coleman was, but he did not even ever notice Bessie Coleman Drive. Google Doodle for the day led to learning that Bessie Coleman was the first American woman aviator of African-American and of Native American (Cherokee!) descent.  Reading about her makes one think most of us are just cruising through life and not contributing enough.  She worked two jobs to make enough money to go to flight school.  As no American flight schools accepted blacks or women, she first learned French and then, went to Paris to learn to fly.  She later opened up a beauty salon to earn money for her own plane.  She hoped to open a flight school for young black aspiring aviators.  Her death is a waste, though, if we don't learn two lessons from it:  A good pilot always checks out his plane first before okaying it for take-off.  And, always wear your seatbelt (or something to keep you protected from falling 2000 ft out of a Curtiss JN-4 (of the Inverted Jenny stamp fame).

That, of course, reminds me of the first book that I read which included the Inverted Jenny stamp, Lawrence Sander's first Archy McNally title, McNally's Secret, now sadly out of print.

Ah Hear Ya, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

With apologies to The Beatles, I have noticed a trend lately among (I am presuming to be) fairly educated and sophisticated people on the radio -- reporters, announcers, anchors, learned experts, and persons in the know.

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Interviewers, especially with a limited amount of time to present a point or a factoid, tend to ask questions which lead to an affirmative answer or agreement. When asked such a question by the anchor, reporters (even those with British accents which we American Anglosnobs tend to associate with the "fairly educated and sophisticated people" --  note of irony of quoting self!) say, "Yeah."  "Yeah, and ... "  "Yeah, that's right."  And, when I hear that, I hear The Beatles singing, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. ... With a love like that, .. you know it can't be bad."  I know, it's total lyric-mangling, but that's what my mind hears right after the reporter, the anchor or the person-in-the-know says, "Yeah."
Why? Why say, "Yeah?"  Does "yes" make the reporter sound too stuffy?  Too educated and sophisticated?  Will "yes" go the way of "whom," obsolete and too cool for words?  Where's the Society for Creative Anachronism when you need it?

What Happens on the Radio at 2:30am?

We keep the radio on all night, tuned into our local NPR station, WNIJ.  Why?  Because starting at midnight ("Six o'clock GMT"), BBC World comes on.

So, when we can't sleep at anytime between 12Midnight and 5am CST, we can listen to the curiously USA-centric news about the Major League Baseball World Series and the recent Republican majority election results.

We can also hear some really neat programs, like Witness, reporting on historical events large and small by someone who was part of them, ranging from the Lovings' lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Virginia for violating their civil right to be in an interracial marriage to an incredibly successful jewel heist of a NYC museum to "Shoot," the performance art piece by Chris Burden.  (Again, BBC World Service appears to be the British outlook of America for insomniacs and third shift workers across the USofA, even when they have guest news anchors/commentators from Nairobi, Kenya or Melbourne, Australia.)

I awoke around 2:30am CST to hear the tailend of Herman Koch on The World Book Club, discussing his book The Dinner.  In synopsis, The Dinner is the story of two brothers -- one a successful politician anticipating to be the next prime minister and the other, a teacher on anger-management disability -- and their wives coming together for dinner at a neighborhood but chi-chi restaurant to discuss what they should do about their sons after a horrifying exploit that was captured by one of them on video.  Both the audience and he (the "book club") were articulate in their q's and a's, and I did not fall asleep! 

We miss the shipping news weather report.  I think it either comes on earlier than "Six o'clock GMT" or it is part of the regular BBC broadcasts aired for domestic consumption, rather than this BBC World Service, which is spreading sanitized British culture across the globe, or at least America.  But, can't have everything, I guess.

So, whenever you can't sleep, turn on the BBC World Service on NPR, sit up and browse www.booksonfirst.com or switch on the light and read a book like The Dinner.

Browsing and the BBC World Service

When I am home on the weekends, "home" being Lee County, Illinois, I am able to fall asleep and wake up several times during the night to the BBC World Service offered on WNIJ, our local NPR station out of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. This begins at midnight, or "Six o'clock, GMT." That's actually how I knew that it was 2010, Auld Lang Syne time, by the BBC already telling me it was 6am.

I had wanted to share a story about "middle age writers," those writing and being published at an older age, which was defined as age 50, but I am unable to find that radio item, the BBC websites being handled differently from www.npr.org. I recall a bit of "cheating," since they spoke quite a bit with someone who is only 49, having published a book at age 48 (sorry, I was not fully awake to figure out which author was speaking). It was an interesting discussion on whether being published is as important as being read, and with electronic books, self-publishing services and the internet, perhaps writers over the age of 50 should look beyond the traditional publishing paths. I don't quite know why the piece was produced, focusing on "older beginner" writers.

Browsing the BBC website, I did find something rather interesting about Vietnamese coffee, which I share with you now. Warning: it appears that programmes become "available for listening" and then, that availability expires. There is nothing wrong with that if they are indeed selling content (I have yet to write that promised post on "content") as that's the producer's prerogative. I am simply saying that if you are reading this a year or even a few months from now, you may be out of luck.

"Browsing" is generally not in the province of the world wide web, despite that word being used for what we all do on the internet. "Browsing" involves serendipity, curiosity and satisfaction of that curiosity, handling in order to consider whether this item is the right fit for the browsing person's life. However, I will admit this once, that I really had a browsing experience online.