Observations on Work

Part 1: New World Notes #694, 28:10 (June 22)
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Part 2: New World Notes #695, 28:19 (June 29) 
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A fine, newly (re)discovered audio collage by Virtual Renderings / Chazk. One of his earliest works (2006) and one of his best. 

Mixing serious commentary, parody and satire, corporate propaganda, and highly relevant music, it explores American jobs, working conditions, the increasing hours and decreasing pay, the myth of upward social mobility, and related topics.

Voices heard include those of Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, John Trudell, Barbara Ehrenreich, Utah Plillips, and others.

I have made some minor cuts in the original owing to time limitations. Also I bleeped a few racial/social epithets that many radio listeners will find offensive, The collage. is otherwise uncut.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "aegis") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.

The GOP and the Dems: Hypocrisy and Betrayal

New World Notes #693, 28:05 (June 15)
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Noam Chomsky in 2017

In a new talk, Noam Chomsky gives the history of the Republican Party's vote-getting strategies over the past 50 years. These included racism plus pretending to believe in positions held by many working-class Whites: pro-gun-rights, anti-abortion, climate-change denial. Party leaders' actual core values remain advancing the interests of corporations and the rich.

Not that the Democratic Party is much better. K.D. reads from Eve Ottenberg's article, "Biden's Broken Promises Spell Hard Times Ahead." 

Chomsky was interviewed by phone on June 1, 2021. Thanks to The David Packman Show for the recording, which I have edited and condensed. Eve Ottenberg's article, dated June 11, 2021, appears online at counterpunch.org . My reading omits a substantial portion of the article.

Can Technology Save Us?

New World Notes #691 (June 8, 2021):
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Even though you know the answer (no), you'll probably still enjoy the show, which features selections from two funny and intelligent talks.

Jello Biafra explains how the last supposedly revolutionary technological advances--cell phones and the Internet--have weakened real communities and increased alienation.

Then urban-design theorist James Howard Kunstler discusses our technology gurus' (at Google) inability to understand that technology cannot solve the problem of declining fossil fuel reserves. In a nutshell: you can make iPods out of petroleum (Dude,) but not vice versa.

Previously broadcast.

James Howard Kunstler

George Carlin at the National Press Club

New World Notes #691, 28:45  (June 1)
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George Carlin's address to the National Press Club, in Washington, D.C., on May 13, 1999.

A little more restrained and more unified than Carlin's concert routines, the speech is packed with wit. humor. and Carlin's trademark iconoclasm.

It's a 3-part satire on the degradation of language in America. Carlin targets first the b.s. of politicians, then the euphemisms loved by most citizens, and then the "politically correct" language of liberals.

This talk--highly relevant today--now appears for the first time on New World Notes. I have slightly condensed the speech, shortening Carlin's introductory remarks.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "suspicious gaze") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.