On the Radio

I don’t listen to the radio much anymore.  Sure, I turn it on when I’m in the car driving around town and running errands.  Then I’ll listen to NPR or the community radio station with its eclectic contemporary music format.  When these stations are in their fundraising mode, I’ll flip to the classic rock station or if I’m desperate, I’ll listen for a while to sports talk radio.  But I hardly ever turn on the radio at home.

Yet when I was growing up, the radio was an integral part of my life.  No, I’m not part of the generation that gathered with their families around the radio in the evening to hear one of those great shows like The Shadow.  My family had a television.  But the TV was never turned on in the mornings when we were getting ready for school.  Instead, my mom would be in the kitchen making coffee and putting out breakfast while listening to KDKA blasting its 50,000 watts into Pittsburgh’s airwaves.  Morning disc jockey Rege Cordic made us smile with his zany antics, and Ed Shaughnessy gave us the news and the all-important school closings.  Then, all summer long my parents would sit on the front porch to escape the heat while Bob Prince regaled us with baseball stories interspersed with the play-by-play from the Pirates game.  The radio was the only way to “see” a home game.

At my first communion party, the only present I really cared about was the transistor radio that my godparents bought for me.  Before that, I had annoyed everyone by walking around the house holding a cufflink box to my ear, pretending it was one of those miniature radios that I longed for.  When my brothers and I became old enough to do the dinner dishes, the radio was there in the kitchen to keep us company.  We listened to Chuck Brinkman on KQV spin the latest tunes from the Beatles, The Dave Clark Five and other groups that were part of the British Invasion.  My older brother tired of that style of music and turned to WAMO, intoducing me to Porky Chedwick, soul music and the Motown sound. 

In Junior High I did my homework listening to Terry Lee’s “TL Sound” on WMCK.  At ten o’clock, TL would switch to “Music for Young Lovers.”  Who could resist as the Duprees crooned, “See the pyramids along the Nile . . .?”  In the late 1960s, Motown gave way to psychedelic music and we all ran out to get FM radios so we could listen to WDVD and WYDD.  The FM DJs talked very low and really slow as they played entire record albums straight through.  My best friend joined the Columbia Record Club so he could get twelve albums for $1.99, despite having to buy a bunch more at the regular, exorbitant Club prices.  The radio helped us decide which ones to buy.  And when the Steelers finally started winning in the 1970s, we watched them on TV, but turned the sound down so we could listen to the radio announcers, Jack Fleming and Myron Cope, on WTAE.

I’m not sure when my love affair with the radio ended, but it was probably sometime in the late 1970s when stations started playing disco.  Techno-pop in the 1980s wasn’t any better and the only other choices seemed to be oldies and country.  What had been new and exciting album rock turned into classic rock – another form of oldies, featuring mostly Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Steve Miller Band.

 

So now I rarely turn on the radio when I’m at home.  If I feel like listening to music, I’ll put on a record or CD.  My son recently suggested that I try Pandora, and that’s a nice source of music, but it lacks personality.  I guess WYEP, the community radio station, comes the closest to giving me what first attracted me to radio – identifiable personalities, contemporary music with occasional oldies, news and weather.  When I think about it, it’s actually a pretty good radio station.  Okay, I guess I’ve run out of excuses.  It’s time to go to their website and donate to their latest fundraising drive.

New Year’s Revolution 2015

You say you want a revolution,

Well, you know,

We all want to change the world . . .*

When Barack Obama campaigned for the presidency in 2008, he promised bold change for America.  With Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress, it appeared that he could indeed lead this country forward with daring new ideas, such as universal health care.  But two wars in the Middle East, a worldwide recession and the eventual takeover of Congress by conservative Republicans has caused his agenda for change to be severely scaled back.

 

In these final two years of his final term, the President has a choice.  He can sit back and wait with his veto pen to try to prevent the Republican Party from taking this country back to the 19^th century.  Or he can use the bully pulpit and power of his office to boldly lead this country forward. 

So what kind of change should be on the President’s agenda as we begin this New Year?  There are many problems facing this country that cry out for action, such as the 14-year war in the Middle East, the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, gun violence and income inequality.  Taking action to address these problems is important, but is it revolutionary?  Would it change the world?

Revolutionary change is hard to come by.  It usually happens as the result of some extraordinary event or invention.  The invention of the wheel transformed ancient civilizations just as the invention of the computer has transformed modern society.  The widespread use of computers and other electrically powered appliances and devices could not have happened except for the revolutionary change that made electricity available in homes and businesses throughout the country.  That change resulted from the discovery that coal, oil and natural gas could be burned to produce steam to drive turbines that could generate energy that could be sent via wires to our homes and businesses.  Without electrification, we would be a far different society.

But scientists have discovered a huge downside to the generation of electricity from burning fossil fuels.  Burning these fuels releases carbon dioxide (CO₂) which builds up in the earth’s atmosphere.  CO₂ is a greenhouse gas, which means its buildup traps heat from the sun, which eventually will alter the climate of the planet – and not in a good way.

This nation’s energy needs will continue to grow as our population increases and our society continues to invent new technological devices that rely on electricity to make them work.  Conservation efforts can help to slow the demand for power, but such efforts inevitably will not be enough to reduce emissions of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases that are causing changes to the earth’s climate.  Ultimately, we must reduce our national dependence on the burning of fossil fuels to generate power.  President Obama has taken action to commit the United States to reducing carbon emissions.  He has negotiated a treaty with China committing the U.S. to reduce carbon emissions by 28% below 2005 levels by 2025.  His EPA has proposed new rules to require power plants to substantially cut CO₂ emissions.  These are important actions, but they can be undone by a future administration that refuses to acknowledge that climate change is occurring.  Also, since the CO₂ already emitted can linger in the atmosphere for thousands of years, simple reductions may not be enough.  Many scientists are telling us that we need to get to zero carbon emissions to really have a chance of halting and reversing climate change. 

The use of solar, wind and similar renewable sources is a step in the right direction, and we must do all that we can to encourage the further development of these technologies.  But they will not be enough.  Therefore, just as President Kennedy challenged the nation to send a manned mission to the moon by the end of the 1960s, President Obama should announce a major initiative to produce commercially viable power from nuclear fusion in the next ten years.  Nuclear fusion, which produces no greenhouse gases, is the only known technology capable of replacing fossil fuels in supplying electricity to the nation’s power grid.  Fusion is being researched by various entities around the globe that are hoping for a breakthrough to eventually make it commercially viable.  However, a major development effort under government sponsorship could bring together the people and resources necessary to make it a reality in the short term.

Such an effort, if successful, and if shared with other nations, would achieve nothing short of saving the planet.  That would be quite a legacy, Mr. President.  And it is a change that could not be reversed or dismantled, no more than the computer could be replaced with the abacus.

So be bold; be revolutionary.  Yes, we all want to change the world.  And you should use the power of your high office to inspire us and lead us to that change.

*  Revolution, Lennon-McCartney, © 1968