msb-0229 Some Characteristic Characteristics

msb-0229 Some Characteristic Characteristics

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

First, a lot of people have been accessing these shows from the web (subscribing through iTunes is a lot lazier but who am I to complain how you get these shows...) but they're been picking up things from the "oldest" shows to "newest", and I like to think I'm got better with age.

Could I ask you people to go from the "front" to the "back" in time, which is from the "bottom" of the list to the "top".

Ooo. I spitting mad. This [ http://community.disaboom.com/community/leopercipied/archive/2007/11/16/not-sick-enough-how-a-bizarre-catch-22-has-gutted-disability-protection-in-america.aspx ] blog entry (which I discovered through "this [ http://vvbms.blogspot.com/ ] blog site [which I discovered through this [ http://www.mdmhvonpa.blogspot.com/ ] blog site,]) reflects the kind of problems and "Catch-22"s' that you encounter out there in the insensate and insensitive world of the 85%ers.

When you're healthy enough to work, but not healthy enough to actually get a job because you're part of the 15%ers, (the people with a disability of any kind,) well you really get "fucked over".

You're healthy enough to work, so you can't get disability, but nobody'll hire you because you're not a youthful, pristine, ignorant little jewel ...

So you get kicked to the curb by people who, rightly or wrongly figure they're doing the fiscally responsible thing.

You get to watch everything slip away from you and you eventually starve to death because the "United States of America" doesn't believe in using any "social safety nets". (One slip and go "Splat!" ... alone...)

It would "not" be a problem if they did use those social safety nets, like every other civilized country, but they'd rather play "world police" and get "shot at and hated" by everybody else.

Keerist... "Les bras m'tombes!"

----

This episode is all about virtuosity. (I'm featuring the kind of music that I loved to play [I used to listen to, and play, "Hokus Pokus" by "Focus" and I loved it. I just loved it. {Its the melding of classically rich musical themes and the pace of modern rock music that I love. (Then again, I used to listen to "intelligent rap" [not the kind of senseless filth out there now,] by the "The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy", who I still think were a grossly underrated band. Their themes still ring true today and they stopped recording in the nineties.)}]

.. [ ]

---- "Razor Concerto" by: "The Groove Mine" http://www.myspace.com/thegroovemine

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Devils Cotillion" by: "The Groove Mine" http://www.myspace.com/thegroovemine

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Iowa requiem" by: "The Four Bags" http://www.thefourbags.com/

"Thesis:"

I am a writer, if only by the simple fact that I am doing it. And I must be expressing myself well enough because the feed back I have received (and which you can read in the comments to my blog,) is pretty positive.

I have many tens of thousands of downloads of my 'cast because I pick what I consider to be pretty good music wrapped around a theme, and I have a theme for my theses, syntheses and conclusions.

Great. What am I blowing my horn about here? I'm getting confused about the application I am about to write to the editor at WBAI. (editor@wbai.org and Programming (Overall) Bernard White, Program Director bwhite@wbai.org ) Jeez..

Enough about me then.

The thesis of this show is concerned with inhalable therapies. (Yes I'm back on that again. [Sue me! I "hate" sticking myself with a needle.])

"Change on a dime time!"

I'm going to put the content of the letter I'm writing on this blog and see it any of you can tear a hole in it. (Be ruthless, I can take it and I "need" it.

This is important.

I need to know where I'm making unsupported allegations, where I'm making statements that might be construed as misleading.

I want to seem as honest as know I am.
I want to seem as reachable as I know I am.
I want to seem as knowlegable as I really am,
[I'm no expert and I don't want to be thought of as one.
I "am" an MSer.
I "am" unemployed and facing the dire prospect of having to compete with the "norms".
I am handicapped (by a cane and even more by the attitudes of the "norms".
I can report honestly on what I see happening to me and around me.])

---- "Dark Sky" by: "The Groove Mine" http://www.myspace.com/thegroovemine

"Synthesis:"

I want to say something like:

"To the Editor,

In a city with a population of about 8,100,000, the WHO (World Health Organization) estimates that 15%, or about 1,215,000 people, are disabled, if not permanently, at least to some degree.

Likewise, the MS Society of America estimates that 0.00833, or about 67,500 people, have this disease to a lesser or greater degree.

I am one in, if not a million, then in twelve hundred and I am affected by this disease.

I am writing to propose an entertaining program for the disabled, not the usual show, full of hand-wringing and "woe are we."

I do want to focus on the issues that affect us, and as an MSer I can say "us" with impunity, but I also want to entertain us."

Well, I'm still thinking about it...

What do you think? Do I go for it?

---- "Opus 999" by: "The Groove Mine" http://www.myspace.com/thegroovemine

"Conclusion:"

Don't worry.

I'll return to the theme of inhalable, as opposed to injectable, medication in next episode.

---- "Last Tango in NYC" by: "The Four Bags" http://www.thefourbags.com/

Outro

msb-0228 Swarm Behavior

msb-0228 Swarm Behavior

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I'm writing so fast and furiously that nothing has a chance to come in, though the email channel is being monitored. (God helps those who help themselves, and brother, I'm helping myself. [I actually fell great. I feel free. I feel like the world is my oyster and that I can accomplish my ultimate goals. I feel almost euphoric. {And no, its not a symptom of this disease... I really feel this good.}] :-)

I am writing, selecting and melding music to create a message that I feel is important.

And my climbing stats seem to bear out my thoughts about a real hunger out there for information that otherwise gets completely ignored by the media offered with entertainment and music.

Opinion delivered with humor and "sans"a cudgel to club people into insensibility seems the way to reach MSers; not baffling them with facts to mask the mystery that is MS.

---- "Worm food" by: "Ruth Theodore" http://www.ruththeodore.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Wormhole Wipeout" by: "The Tsunami Experiment" http://www.myspace.com/thetsunamiexperiment

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Wormhole" by: "Specimen 37" http://www.specimen37.com/

"Thesis:"

The ad that I ran in Momentum really worked.

MSers all over the country, which make up an extremely computer savvy bunch of people, are finding my 'casts and uploading the episodes in the thousands, not thousand but thousands.

(Maybe I'll even be successful with the business model I see for these kinds of boutique disease 'casts and be able to feed myself while putting out these shows and I'll be able to continue them into the future.)

There is a fascinating behavioral model which was alluded to in an article [ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/science/13traff.html ] about the findings of "Dr. Couzin, a mathematical biologist at Princeton University and the University of Oxford".

It was concerned with leaders and followers and with the very simple rules that determine the choices we as individuals make to be at one time leaders and at other times to be followers, (sometimes the difference being the time it takes to shift our attention to be either and both.)

---- "Night Worm" by: "Ardent Octopus" http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/www.ardentoctopus.podshow.com

"Synthesis:"

The decisions being made are often extremely simple yet have enormous ramifications, life and death in all kinds of situations.

Birds flock, fish school, insects swarm, mammals migrate and humans ... "vote".

Of course we vote, (when we can, [even if it often feels like deciding between "heart attack or cancer".])

While the effects of group behavior in the animal kingdom fill naturalists' notebooks, the effects of the same type of behavior in humans fills the cemeteries.

The behavior of "attraction versus avoidance" occurring in well delineated nested spheres (like the concept of "personal space",) doesn't translate too well to more complex decision making processes.

I could make some comments about a majority of people's driving accidents being violations of personal space due to a failure to properly set and respect three dimensional space limits, "somatic limits", between individuals, extended to their cars, but it so obvious, I won't get into it, (at least not this time. :-)

Which brings me to voting.

What do we vote on exactly?

A poor choice between heart attack and cancer? Otherwise known as the tyranny of democracy, (politics' "push side") reflected in the tyranny of demographics (the candidates "pull side").

I don't expect to change the situation. They've got the numbers on their side.

MSers represent 0.0833% of the population.

Handicapped people of all stripes represent 15% of the population and they can't get a mention in the campaign speeches.

We don't even stand a chance against the disabled if you go by "broadcast rules."

But "broadcast rules" don't apply to podcasting.

They don't apply to "any" internet commerce.

With some advertising, (like with "Google" and "Momentum" [which I must admit has proved much more effective because its so focused to start with,]) MSers can set up their own subset where "they" are in the majority.

To be honest, any sub-mainstream group can and should get in on the podcasting phenomenon.

(Okay, I'm offering. Need help or just need information? I can help, (specially as a consultant.])

---- "Wormwood" by: "Blame It On Society" http://blameitonsociety.net/

"Conclusion:"

It might seem like quite a reach to go from reading at article in the New York Times to offering my services to help set up any group as a podcaster, but its really not.

Its a way for MSers, or any small group, to set their own parameters for swarming.

The cohesion afforded us by the internet can overcome paradoxical division imposed on us by the tyranny of demographics and democracy.

I'm not "anti democracy", but I choose to find a way around it when its "anti me!"

There times and places for "winner take all" rules and there are times and places, like when you're stuck in a neuro ward, when democracy is just another dumb idea.

---- "WORM" by: "Jeff Mallon" http://www.myspace.com/jeffmallonmusic

Outro

msb-0227b Giving Thanks

msb-0227b Giving Thanks

Just something for you to listen to on this thanks giving day.

Now pass the gravy...

---- "Thanksgiving" by: "Steve Stellavato" http://www.stevestellavato.com/


---- "Happy Thanksgiving Day" by: "TVs Kyle" http://tvskyle.web.aplus.net/


---- "Thanks for the Drink" by: "Mark Cochrane" http://www.markcochrane.co.uk/


---- "Thanks" by: "All Mighty Whispers" http://www.allmightywhispers.com/


---- "Thanks to You" by: "Ayla Brown" http://www.aylabrown.com/


---- "Thanks for the Fairy Tale Ending" by: "By the Wayside http://www.myspace.com/bythewaysidetempe

Outro

msb-0227 Yeah, I've got MS, So what?

msb-0227 Yeah, I've got MS, So what?

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

There's none (yet) right now.

I'm working on things...

What do you expect?

I'll just answer two questions and then shut up.

First: Sadly, (well sadly for me anyway) MS is what I have. That's why I write about it and podcast about it.

Second: I could do this podcast in video, but just I don't think I'm that good looking.

To be brutally honest with myself, apart from having symmetrical features, I have an ideal face for radio.

You will probably "never" see my nondescript mug.

----

However, I am in a quandary about proposing my voice and writing skills, however weak these might be, to "WBAI" [ http://wbai.org/ ] New York, also known as Pacifica Radio, to represent the handicapped community in a series or weekly broadcasts.

I'm thinking that I should do it, even if it might go on "after" Weaponry [ http://www.wbai.org/programs/weaponry/index.php ] at "What the [expletive deleted] are you doing up at this time of the morning? Go to bed!"

Given the demographics of the Greater New York City Area and the fact that 15% of the population is disabled (and that MSers represent 0.0833% of the population [that's out of 8,213,839 people]) so I should be reaching 6,844 MSers and 1,232,075 disabled people (if any of them are up at godamn'o'clock in the morning and listening to WBAI, 99.5 on the FM dial.)

What the heck? Its not as if I had anything better to occupy my time...

(I'm just sitting here reading my stats. [I know I'd said that I was not going to squawk and crow about them but you folks are fantastic. Simply fantastic...])

---- "Weapon Of Mass Destruction" by: "amb26" http://amb26.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

----

I am working with the Greater North Jersey Chapter of the National MS Society to see if they want some help and a distribution channel for some "Spanish Language Podcasts".

----

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Weapon of Choice" by: "Black Rebel Motorcycle Club" http://www.myspace.com/blackrebelmotorcycleclub

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Weapons of Mass SIDuction" by: "DJ Topshelf" http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=d7f2f2094db4154e02d5528cd633bd08

"Thesis:"

Like Churchill said about Russia, MS is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. (Actually we could extend that to say that most of the contents of my head are riddles wrapped in mysteries inside enigma.)

I have just learned about "astrocytes" in the premier issue of "Momentum". They are the most abundant cell in the brain. They make up the framework, "la charpente" on which everything else in and of our central nervous system hangs.

---- "a weapon more powerful than you could ever imagine" by: "michaels nervous" http://www.michaelsnervous.com/

"Synthesis:"

Like I said in my thesis, I have just learned about "astrocytes". They make up the framework on which everything else in our central nervous system hangs.

And this is the "first" time I have ever heard of them. Incredible!

Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. I'm feel like I've been taught by "leaf men" all these years.

The parallel I can draw from my own experience is that Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby, (the inventors of the integrated circuit, [which has changed the entire modern world in the latter quarter of the twentieth century,]) won the Nobel Prize not for inventing the transistor but for solving "the interconnection problem".

Yes, astrocytes are enormously important in the structure of the brain. They'd pretty much have to be.

They in fact are the living analogue to the structure that Noyce and Kilby came up with.

Gawd! People can be so stubbornly and stupidly blind.

They have no sense of architecture, or of construction.

How else can we explain the fascination with neurons, axons and dendrites which is like the fascination with transistors, resistors and capacitors, when the entire thing becomes an entirely nonfunctional pile of discrete components, gray undifferrentiated goo or a pile of dirty sand, without the ability to weave these things together.

---- "Gunslinger" by: "Danny Weis" http://www.myspace.com/dannyweis

"Conclusion:"

I am left to conclude that I have to look at how things hang together first, before I believe another word about how the brain works, or how the world works.

The bits that get left out because they aren't "glamorous" ("Ooo, look at me , I'm a brain cell. I'm all sexy. Yoohooo.) well they are the bits we should be studying the most intently.

If you want to study the pyramids, you should look at the geometry of the damn things and leave off studying the adhesion properties of the grains of sand in the stone until you understand the bigger questions.

---- "Stick to my Guns" by: "The Genders" http://www.thegenders.com/

Outro

msb-0226 Write wright right?

msb-0226 Write wright, right?

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

There's none (yet) right now, so I'll just shut up.

Well ... except to ask that whoever whoever is downloading my shows from Omaha, Nebraska get iTunes, iPodder or some other form of podcatcher to download the episodes, 'cause you're either one person who's working too hard or there's one fuck of a hot spot of MSers in Omaha, Nebraska.

---- "Count me out" by: "Cofield Mundi" http://cofieldmundi.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Count On Us" by: "Ekocam" http://www.myspace.com/ekocam

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Count Down" by: "Faster Faster Harder Harder" http://www.fasterfasterharderharder.com/

"Thesis:"

The writer's strike currently (November 7th, 2007) shaking up the Writers Guild of America, (the WGA) is also making the big media conglomerates feel like they have "shaken baby syndrome" because the big media companies are about to get their comeuppance.

Since I "do" write every word that's in this podcast, except for the answers I get during an interview, the writer in me is appalled at the shabby treatment the writers who are responsible for what we consume have got over the past twenty years or so by the very people who were supposed to "see what DVDs were going to bring" and then "we'll take care of you."

And indeed they did. The writers were ass-raped by corporate pencil pushers who have raised "creative accounting" to an art form. (These guys would be in prison under an equitable system of laws for even "thinking up" this shit. [Al Capone was a friggin' saint in comparison.])

The podcaster in me is hoping that the strike lasts and lasts.

If all you can get from the traditional media (and the last episode should have made my opinion of these [expletive deleted] clear,) [if all you can get] is shite, then podcasting becomes a better alternative to make you while away precious hours.

---- "Bob From Accounting" by: "TVs Kyle" http://tvskyle.web.aplus.net/

"Synthesis:"

All of the reruns and all of the un-reality shows you're about to be subjected to is going to be another nail in big media's coffin.

They have said "nothing" about MS except for one lousy stinkin' TV special, 83 minutes long, [ http://imdb.com/title/tt0831868/ ] in the millions of hours of content they have produced.

These male-rooster-suckers have kept their eyes so focused on the bottom line that they have utterly ignored us.

Their bottom line may be all fine and dandy, but fifteen percent of of the population isn't fine and dandy, fifteen percent, that is over forty-five million people in the 'States alone, is not fine and dandy, but we don't fuckin' exist to these accountants, and I say "fuck em where they breathe."

I wish a festering pox on every "Hollywood Accountant" who's ever lied and cheated, chiseled and ripped-off the writers out of their hard earned pay.

They are why I'm taking up metaphorical arms against the big media machines who would not hesitate to shut me down if I gave them any fucking reason, and my MSer audience can go screw itself.

Well, lube up you lying bastards, 'cause I'm part of the solution and you're the fuckin' problem.

This 0.00083er is about to take a chunk out of your asses.

1 in 1,200 "is" important, and "fuck you" for ignoring me.

You're going to pay! And I won't, pay that is.

---- "Count on This " by: "The Frail" http://www.myspace.com/thefrailsf

"Conclusion:"

Traditional media will get its well deserved comeuppance in the current writers strike.

Something has to be done about the soul killing jerks, the lifeless corpses, the sub-human creatures who can justify just waiting for Armageddon like Bush is waiting for Iraq to "come to its senses and stop struggling."

The next round of contract negotiations with the low-life lying bastards should be interesting, if only for the disclosures of the accounting practices that the writers should require.

---- "Count to 10" by: "Laura Hughes" http://www.myspace.com/laurahughes1

Outro

msb-0225 Radio Person

msb-0225 Radio Person

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

Okay, I've noticed from my stats that new listeners have been going to my old podcasts from the first (February, 2006) to last. (How could I fail to.)

I would ask that listeners go from the top of the list to the end because I've changed a lot since those early days.

Speaking of stats; they're now changing so fast that I'm frankly astonished. I will stop mentioning them except something truly wondrous happens.

---- "Leaving" by: "Mike Borgia" http://www.mikeborgia.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Leaving Town Blues" by: "Matt Thorpe" http://www.onlinerock.com/musicians/mattthorpe/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Leaving Paradise" by: "Mean Gene Kelton and The Die Hards" http://www.genekelton.com/

"Thesis:"

After my last post "msb-0224 Radio People" I've decided to focus, not on the audience, but on what's happening to the few remaining broadcasters after media consolidation that is taking the plural out of the medium.

Now this doesn't affect me, or even what I particularly want.

Frankly I wish the media conglomerates, the Rupert Murdochs and who ever is heading up CNN, Time-Warner, ClearChannel and Infinity Broadcasting the best of luck and God speed to all they are trying to do with news-papers, radio and television news.

The sooner it happens, the sooner they control all broadcast, the sooner it becomes obvious to anybody with two brain cells rattling around under his NASCAR cap that he ain't getting "any" news from his home town, the sooner it will be the end for the "less than a hundred year old" flash in the pan that was mass media.

---- "My Baby is Leaving" by: "Roscoe Chenier" http://www.black-and-tan.com/

"Synthesis:"

Let me put on my "McLuhan Minion" hat on and tell you what I foresee, not in a hundred years, not in fifty years, not even in twenty or ten years.

Its easy to see five years into the future because it just requires the ability to see the two ships that are passing each other in the night.

The first ship, the HMS Titanic of traditional media, is sailing towards its "rendez-vous" with destiny.

Eventually there will be two or three big corporations owning all of the transmitters across the United States.

They will reduce the number of transmitters to the absolute minimum required to maintain their broadcasts, (of course they will be more vulnerable to any natural or man made disasters, but that won't matter, redundancy in accounting and HR terms just means its something to eliminate. [Accountants don't believe in paying for risk analysis either. {Their idea of risk analysis is more along the lines of "How long can we put off paying for this".}])

They will reduce the number of actual broadcasting centers to the absolute minimum required to maintain some content to intersperse in amongst the ads (the ratings or the quality of the shows don't matter, just look at "Reality Shows" [an utter oxymoronic name for the genre] that will soon will be filling the air waves, but you'll need to get really, really drunk first.)

The coverage of any locality other than the greater metropolitan center hosting the very very few broadcasting centers will be nil (New Orleans during and after Katrina anyone?)

Mass media has had such a short, less than one hundred years, history and it has covered itself with so much glory; featuring such luminaries as"Leni Reifenstahl" and the "Triumph of the Will" and every tin pot dictator thereafter who has tried to strangle it, all while trying to propagandize with it. (Everybody with a megaphone believes that what they have to say is actually worth hearing, likewise, everybody yelling anything believes that you "have to" hear them. So many pleas falling on deaf ears...)

And the cost of building and maintaining such a huge ship means that sailing aboard her is enormously expensive and needs enormous profits. Its is a ship sailing to bankruptcy as sure as the "Leviathan" sailed towards its re-christening as the "Great Eastern" (There are so many parallels to the names and circumstances that I'm positively cackling. :-)

The second ship is actually a whole armada of small vessels sailing around and through the wake of the HMS Titanic, darting swiftly over the waves and able to change course to whatever heading is required riding in the wake of the huge ship because the big ships need the ocean too.

Welcome to the internet boys.

You'll be the last to know what's happened.

---- "Nothing Wrong With Texas-that leaving wont fix" by: "Ernie Payne" http://www.black-and-tan.com/

"Conclusion:"

It is with delight that I am witnessing the fierce paroxysms of the mass media as they devour each other only to be left without prey of adequate size to feed their enormous bulk, while the gnats of the internet, the podcasters, become the dominant forms of life, able to survive any event, even as destructive as a "Chicxulub" impact.

Welcome to the internet boys.

What should we engrave on your tombs?

---- "Leaving Saigon" by: "Briareus" http://www.myspace.com/briareusmusic

Outro

msb-0224 Radio People

msb-0224 Radio People

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

There's about to be some changes around the cast and the various blogs I maintain in order to generate some income.

I've got the donation button on the podcast web page(s) of course where you can give me however much you want. I'm about to make thay even more attractive by becoming a non-profit so that I can give tax-receipts to anybody who donates. If you give me any money through PayPal, you'll get a receipt to count as a charitable donation on your US taxes.

I am still offering some merchandise through CafePress to anybody who wants to carry the MSBPodcast cats on a hoodie or sweatshirt or cap or mug.

I'm about to make the links to Amazon "hot" to make some money from the book and other things I review through an associate program.

I going to offer my services as a podcaster available to anybody who wants to get into the new media.

I've also got a few other ideas to generate revenue.

---- "I, Radio" by: "zoolab" http://www.myspace.com/zoolabrip

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Radio Sundance" by: "Tragedy Kings" http://www.tragedykings.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Radio **Single**" by: "Big Bang Radio" http://www.myspace.com/bbrmusic

"Thesis:"

Radio People are "animals like us". [ http://cdbaby.com/cd/aaronenglish ]

But they are tied to a medium which utterly ignores them, (apart from those fake call-in shows that pretend to give crap away to the n-th listener on the line. [I remember one girl friend I had when I was young who used to answer the phone "I listen to {radio call letters}. I was delighted because anyone who was that young and naive was likely to give me a {expletive deleted}-job at the drop of a hat {and a zipper.}])

For the most part, the people don't care because they don't believe that they have anything intelligent to say, and for the most part, the radio stations don't believe so either, (how else could they treat them so cavalierly?)

---- "My Radio" by: "Bill Janovitz & Crown Victoria" http://www.qdivision.com/janovitz/index.html

"Synthesis:"

I'm not exactly criticizing the Radio People out there and I'm not exactly criticizing the radio stations/CD rotation followers out there.

Its just that I don't cut them any slack.

The mass media out there are in existence for one thing only: to maximize profits for the share holders.

Its the tyranny of demographics.

The worst part is that in reducing the audience to whatever they can sell to an advertiser, they are inevitably reducing the very demographics that they depend on.

If you're aren't a beer drinker, an SUV driver (uh, actually I can't think of another "or" here,) sports hold very little interest for you.

Well sports might have some interest for you but you don't hold any interest for the advertisers.

You, the audience, have been reduced and your numbers have been crunched to be packaged to the highest bidder, which is , of course, the automotive industry, since they take in the most money in this economy.

---- "Radio People" by: "Shadow Circus" http://www.shadowcircusmusic.com/

"Conclusion:"

The delusions that broadcasters pull off is that they are necessary.

Ever had a show that you liked that got pulled of the air. Did you really need that?

Ever watch a show so filled with ads that it ruined the continuity of the story? Did you really need that?

Ever watch a show so filled with ads that they all crowded themselves from your consciousness? Did you really need that?

Now more to the point, did the advertisers really need that?

Now there's a new game in town: podcasting.

Content that you want, when you want it, where you want it, as often as you want it, as long as you want it...

Even the ads are their own separate 'casts. As long as the advertisers want, and that you downl load as you want it, when you want it, where you want it, as often as you want it, as long as you want it...

Now try and watch "Numb3rs" again off the networks knowing that they don't care if you live or die. You're less than a statistic to them. You're a statistic about a target demographic.

---- "Cynical Radio" by: "Love = Action" http://www.myspace.com/loveisaction

Outro

msb-0223 The Missing Class?

msb-0223 The Missing Class?

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I am dealing with the New Jersey State Unemployment and they don't seem to realize that their pathetic telephone system with their nonsensical and frankly hilarious "Your wait time is approximately [some random number] minutes" is just feeding me material for my blog and podcast.

Now I won't record the phone conversations, but I will "allude" to them. (It fits in with my wry sense of humor. [I am ever so glad to have recovered it too. {I attribute this to podcasting.}] This theater of the absurd which I call my life is indeed, uh, absurd... :-)

My ex-employer really messed me up by moving my "state of employment" around to Michigan (even though I was there for a week and the rest of the time, I was doing work between Detroit and Bangalore by phone from here in Jersey.)

Needless to say, I am less than thrilled by this aspect of working for an off-shore outsourcing multi-national. Oh well, it'll work itself out, regardless of how many hoops I have to jump through.

I've got the advocacy arm ot the MS Society involved. (Oops...)

My stats are beginning to scare me again.

Since the last show, I've had over 50, uh, 100, uh, 150, uh, 250 uh, 350 (I went to sleep and they jumped on me [holey model. Its now telling me 395, {strike that 450}]) download and more coming in by the hour.

Hey there is some advantage to having an extensive back episode catalog.

People can download all my old shows, (which is what's happening,) and then, after they tire of listening to me constantly, they can catch my new episodes three times a week.

Meantime, I'm feeling my Spanish roots.

---- "Cerca de ti" by: "Franz Black" http://www.franzblack.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

----

There was an interesting "piece" [ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/06/brain_gene_map/] in The Register about genetic expression of genes in the brain:

"A new catalogue of genes, and the proteins they trigger in the brain, could help scientists develop new treatments for neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's. The database has been created by researchers at UCL and the University of Miami, who have spent years mapping the expression of genes in the brain.

Professor John Hardy, UCL Institute of Neurology, said the research has revealed a high degree of genetic control in terms of how much of a particular protein is made by genes in the brain.

He said: "We've taken nearly 200 samples of the human brain [from one section of the brain] and looked at how much of every gene in the genome is being made in a specific area in and around the frontal cortex. Then we looked at the expression pattern of the genes."

The research, led by Hardy and his US counterpart Dr Amanda Myers, could pave the way for totally new approaches to treating brain disease because it can shed light on exactly how it is a gene may predispose a person to a particular illness.

"It is not just the presence of a particular gene but the amount of protein they produce which is going to have real significance in understanding and treating neurological disease," Professor Hardy added. His team has already linked a protein called MAPT with the neurological disease Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, he said.

"In principle, though we are not there yet, this will allow researchers to take a blood sample from anyone and, from looking at their DNA sequence, know how much of every protein they make in their brain and what they might be more pre-disposed to in terms of neurological disease," he concluded.

The database has been made public, and the research is published in the current edition of Nature Genetics."

So I'm getting some confirmation of my thoughts about the role of genetics in disease.

I'd be interested in finding out about what could be done with genetics and the expression of the immune system which underlies MS.

----

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Cuentan que el" by: "Whitehouse" http://www.whitehouse-music.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Sin promessas" by: "Don Betto" http://www.donbetto.com/

"Thesis:"

I caught "Bill Moyer's Journal" when he had on "Katherine Newman" [ http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/11/the_missing_class.html ] who has written a fascinating book called "The Missing Class".

The book [ http://www.amazon.com/Missing-Class-Portraits-Near-America/dp/0807041394/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-6252728-4291920?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194801592&sr=1-1 ] sounds fascinating, and fundamentally incomplete.

Its about the millions of Americans who are technically above the poverty line but still far from a middle-class standard of living.

These are the people who are one paycheck away from calamity and one illness away from disaster.

She put it most eloquently:

“It’s a fragile existence because they don’t really have the security that comes with owning a home, for example, or having a savings account, or any of the other buffers the rest of us have – and they don’t qualify for federal benefits for the most part… They can’t get Medicaid because they’re too wealthy for that. They don’t get food stamps. They don’t get subsidized housing, for the most part. So we don’t really think about them very much. We don’t even track how many of them we have."

This is the tragedy of thinking that you are invincible.

15% of you weren't invincible, were you, while 85% of you are pretending that you didn't see the crash and are driving around the wreck that has become somebody's life.

Nobody's invincible, and we're only invisible if you live your life with your eyes closed.

---- "Ala sola" by: "Daiki and Little Wings" http://daiki-soulcafe.blogspot.com/

"Synthesis:"

In her arguments, she didn't mention once mention the incredible losses the the healthy suffer if they become sick.

Its a double tragedy with MS because MSers the world over are usually people who exhibit symptoms in their thirties, after they have started to build their lives with husbands and/or wives, children, careers, home ownership, cars, furniture... everything that comes from working hard for your place in the world.

The first part of the tragedy is getting sick. You see your life's options dwindle and shrink. There may still be a brass ring but you won't be the one grabbing it. You'll never be able to compete for it surrounded by the young and healthy. (That is part of growing old in a land full of shiny-faced youth and boundless, senseless optimism, one that refuses to pay heed to what's going on all around. [I could go on about the power "versus" the energy consumption of thought, and maybe I will some day. {Its a lot more productive to work smart than it is to work hard.}])

The second part of the tragedy is that the same sense of senselessness that guides peoples' rapaciousness in the first part of this tragedy is at the root of the acceleration of the dispossession of those who were hurt, caught up in the web of disease.

That's the part that really hurts. Watching everything you have slowly disappear because you got hit by a bus with the license plate "MS" (Or any other damn chronic, tragic disease.)

Our safety nets in the 'States are slung so low that they might as well not exist.

If you're existing below the poverty line, you can't own anything, you can't earn anything, you can't "be" anything.

And of course, you're treated like the dirt you have hit.

Help should come when start in the metaphorical free fall, not too long after either.

You shouldn't have to lose everything before help comes because "everybody" loses something that way. The entire economy suffers from the loss, not just the person who suffers from the disease.

The safety net should be able to stop everybody from falling as soon as they start, not just be there to prevent you from getting up again with a shattered body and soul.

---- "El Pulpo" by: "Carne Cruda" http://www.carnecruda.com/

"Conclusion:"

I would love it if "Katherine Newman" would cover the stories of people who become sick in the 'States.

It would be quite interesting to read or hear her insights about the rapid degeneration and deterioration of people's material evvironment as well as their physical situation.

---- "Cada Dia" by: "Josh Lopez" http://www.joshlopez.com/

Outro

msb-0222 Some days it just pays to get up.

msb-0222 Some days it just pays to get up.

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

You read/heard that right.

Some days it does pay to get up.

Of course some days, its not that easy to get up, but what of that?

----

I'm in a rockin' mood so you're getting some rockin' tunes.

I finally saw my ad in an issue of Momentum at a group meeting this evening (November 7th, 2007.)

It was "Awesome!"

The page is all smears of colors and "FREE SAMPLES" and other "type-hype", and there on the top of the magazine fold, on page 76, in the most desirable section, there is the ad, discreet, subtle, elegant*.

Some white space in the middle of the visual noise, plainly focused on a very simple message:

MSBPodcast.com (That should tell people to go there with their browsers.)

Tunes & Talk
for MSers
by MSers

People who aren't bright enough to figure it out aren't insulted and people who are bright enough will just "get it".

* Elegant comes from two Latin roots: "e", meaning "out", and "legare", meaning "choose."

"Wow!

Let me repeat: Wow! :-)

---- "Forty Winks" by: "Drew Vics" http://drewvics.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

----

They had an interesting statistic in "Momentum".

The level of computer literacy amongst the general populace is 80%.

The level of computer literacy amongst MSers is 93%.

Let me repeat that: "The level of computer literacy amongst MSers is 93%."

----

I just heard (on November 02, 2007) on ScienceFriday.com [ http://sciencefriday.com/ ] about Brainbows [ http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200711023 ] which are a fascinating way of visualizing brain structure in transgenic mice treated with various genes from jellyfish to make the axons and dendrites fluoresce. (The illustration of the technique, basically the photographs of some rat brains, are quite artistic [reminiscent of the French "Impressionistes"])

I've been doing some visualization of my own based on the MRI scans I had done about a year ago, but its more of an internalization thing to fix in my minds eye the lesions of my brain, uh, in my brain.

Its something I like to meditate on during "Tai Chi".

----

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "I'm Alive" by: "Drunk on Power" http://www.myspace.com/drunkonpower

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Just Bring It On" by: "HeadrusH (UK)" http://www.headrushrocks.com/

"Thesis:"

Some days it just pays to get up.

Some days it doesn't pay.

Some days everything hurts when I get up, but its all part of growing up and being British, uh, strike that. I'm quoting an old "Monty Python" routine there.

But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't get up, even though I'd probably feel less "ouchy" if I didn't.

---- "Swamped" by: "Lacuna Coil" http://www.centurymedia.com/us/single_artist.php?ID=31

"Synthesis:"

Feeling "ouchy" seems to be a major problem for some of us.

Specially when we can't define the ouch or exactly what it is that's ouching.

Life a bitch but it would really suck bituminous rocks if we didn't make the effort.

---- "Chastity Buys The Farm" by: "Lady White Noise" http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=bf88173d1c73a4daca29ad0e83d199e3

"Conclusion:"

Yup, some days it pays to get the hell out of bed ... and get my ass moving, because if I didn't, I wouln't be able to, and that just doesn't bear thinking about.

So get your butts off the couches or out of the bed.

It doesn't have to be elegant or unaided but get it moving dude and dudettes.

---- "Girls Like That" by: "Deep Purple" http://www.eaglerockent.com/eaglerockUSA/media_detail.php?media_id=743

Outro

msb-0221 Nothing Yet

msb-0221 Nothing Yet...

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

There's nothing new to report, so I'll shut up. :-)

---- "Freak Flag" by: "Ron Rutherford" http://www.ronrutherford.com/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

----

I've just heard on the Australian Broadcasting podcast Science Show [ http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/ ] a segment about amusia, or tone deafness, and how it seems to be related to the spatial ability that are a part of every IQ test out there.

People who suffer from amusia (but not as much as their audience at a karaoke bar, :-) are actually exhibiting some, uh, faulty wiring in their right hemisphere. (That is something that I actually worry about developing because of this disease.. [I have absolutely "no" singing voice, {I hate the very sound of my voice.} but I have excellent spatial skills, near perfect pitch and excellent musical listening ability. {I just don't play anymore, sigh...}])

That is partly why I'm a lousy driver when I start the car. I have to be driving a little while before I re-establish a sense of "soma" incorporating my car.

----

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Waving the White Flag" by: "Smile Smile" http://www.smilesmilemusic.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Flag" by: "Sheldon" http://www.sheldon-online.co.uk/

"Thesis:"

Nope there's no response from the unfortunate thousands of reader of Momentum.

And I'm not expecting any, yet. What do you think I am, "Stupid or sumtin?"

These things take time do develop and grow.

---- "Red Flag" by: "boxleitner" http://www.myspace.com/boxleitnermusic

"Synthesis:"

No Rome was not built in a day.

But this is part of the plan; my plan to build a network of special, really special, interest 'casts dedicated to MS for and by MSers, and others dedicated at special interest groups formed around the diseases that afflict 15% or the world's population.

I'm not out for world domination, but I am out to free us all from the tyranny of demographics which places us against the 85% of the population that prefers to ignore us.

Here at MSBPodcast, we, the 0.0833 % of the world's population, well, we're 100% of the audience.

The demographics of the rest of the world are no longer relevant.

We're in charge here.

We're in charge now.

We're in charge of this slice of the podcast media.

And we're not giving it up, no way, no how.

Yes, I may one of "Voltaire's Bastards," [ http://www.amazon.com/Voltaires-Bastards-Dictatorship-Reason-West/dp/0679748199 ] one of "Marchall McLuhan's" [ http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/ ] minions and one sick bugger, in more ways that one, but that means nothing to me in my mission of creating a space in the media where we can get text or audio or video and some news of things that matters to "us!"

And national boundaries don't mean a thing.

But linguistics barriers do, which is why I've reached out to Dutch and Greek MSers and I'm still reaching out to any others MSers out there from other linguistic groups.

---- "Flag Down" by: "Craigs Brother" http://craigsbrother.net/

"Conclusion:"

So no, I don't expect an instantaneous uptake and advertisers to come-a-knockin' on my door.

The "'Build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door.' Ralph Waldo Emerson" crap just does not cut it in the modern business world.

But what might just work out is a slow, incremental increases of the subscriber-ship and audience over the coming months and getting the atttention of the people who produce drugs, products and therapies for MS about using MSBPodast to spread the word about their stuff.

---- "Flag Of Democracy" by: "Ernie Van Veen" http://www.vanveen.net/

Outro

msb-0220 The Microphone Wars

msb-0220 The Microphone Wars

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I have some answers from Matt Lawrence of JobEnable.com.

Its a website dedicated to finding jobs for disabled people.

I talked about them and their efforts on "msb-0215 I gots da bluz". I mentioned that I'd love to interview them on "msb-0217 Genetics and MS ... Who knows?"

Matt's got dystonia so he can't quite do a speaking interview with me, but we have the technology, we can fix that. :-)

I submitted some questions and here are the answers:

1) How did you get into doing what you are doing?

I went to college at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas majoring in Journalism. I graduated a semester early with hopes of getting a job fast.

I had numerous interviews but it always seemed they found a reason not to hire me.

Finally, in 2002, I decided to apply to work at camps for the disabled.

I was hired by Camp Oakhurst in Oakhurst, NJ to teach digital photography.

After the summer, I realized that I had a part in the kids’ lives that I dealt with and realized that is what I truly wanted to do.

The following spring, I started graduate school. In 2006, I began looking for jobs dealing with people with disabilities and it appeared to me at first the same thing that happened to me before was going to happen again.

I had the concept for a web site that had a listing of various jobs for those with disabilities but I never did anything with the idea. I interviewed at NetworkIP and told them my concept and how something like it was a needed resource.

NetworkIP hired me to work on this concept originally called Project Blue Dog and now it has become JobEnable.com.

2) What you see as your primary service to your own community?

I want to help as many people find positions they are qualified for.

So many people with disabilities are capable of working but because they aren’t given a chance, they often rely on governmental aid.

Once people get accustomed to having that check each month, more often than not, they just settle for what the government gives.

My goal is to get those who want to work hired and living their own independent lives.

I know first hand what it feels like to know you can work, but not have the job to work.

I want to remedy that as much as possible.

Also, those that are on governmental aid don’t get much at all to live on so its like they are settling for less than what they could have.

I want people to realize that all they have to do is try and someone will give them a chance – just like I was given a chance.

3) What you see as your opportunities looking forward?

The opportunities here are shared and numerous.

It requires that communities of interest share information about JobEnable, and employers and job seekers embrace the concept.

I see nothing but bigger and better things for the web site.

I anticipate once word gets out about our goal we will continue to generate buzz and as a result, companies will follow.

4) What you see as obstacles in the road?

I think our major obstacle is getting the word out to companies and then getting them to sign up on the site.

Getting the word out and having people sign up will always be a part of it.

Also, I think some companies may consider themselves to be inclined to hire the disabled but they actually don’t.

So another obstacle would be getting companies to realize that there are many well-qualified people working but because of their disability, they have been overlooked.

5) What metrics you see as applicable to your achieving your success?

If we are able to connect one person with a job, I will be satisfied. Employment can change someone's life.

It enables a feeling of independence and improves self-esteem.

There's nothing more satisfying than working doing something you love.

So if we can help one person then another and then another, I will consider this a success.

We would also like to get to a point where we are so successful with JobEnable that we can hire more people with disabilities to work with us.

Support from companies, organizations and politicians will help get the word out but it will also create a large group with one common goal - to find those with disabilities jobs.

6) I am also interested in Section 508 and what your involvement with that community is?

My involvement in the disabled community is something I am proud of.

I am a member of the Dystonia Junior Advisory Council. The JAC comes up with fundraisers and ways to promote awareness of Dystonia to those who may not know about it.

I am also am a member of the Dystonia Advocacy Coalition. Each April, we have a advocacy day in Washington, DC where we meet with members of congress and the senate in our geographic area and educate them on Dystonia and ask them to consider passing bills or increasing funding in health related areas.

Lastly, I have been a speaker at family and children’s symposiums telling others about my own experiences as well as how I was able to overcome them.

Section 508 is a governmental act that is formerly known as Bobby Approved.

Section 508 is a law requiring that information technology developed by the federal government be accessible to both federal employees with disabilities and members of the public with disabilities, and that these two groups have equal use of technologies.

There is nothing in section 508 that requires private web sites to comply.

We are striving to maintain and exceed compliancy.

Thank you Matt and Rob for the interview.

I wish you much success in achieving your goals.

---- "Book of Life" by: "Daniël Sensit" http://www.danielsensit.eu/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "In the Book Depository of My Heart" by: "dotCommunism" http://evilresidence.com/dotcommunism

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Books That You Once Read" by: "PAISLEY RIOT" http://www.myspace.com/paisleyriot

"Thesis:"

This episode is about serendipity.

I found a book called "The Microphone Wars" by "Knowlton Nash" (ISBN: 0-7710-6712-7) [ http://www.amazon.com/Microphone-Wars-History-Triumph-Betrayal/dp/0771067127/ref=sr_11_1/103-5822664-9186200?ie=UTF8&qid=1193871167&sr=11-1
] amongst my mother's things when clearing out her apartment, cum library, a few years ago, before she went into a nursing home.

(Don't you just hate euphemisms? My sister and I had her put away so she wouldn't lose herself or set the place on fire as her mental state deteriorated. A home was where she'd been living, her home. Where she was going to was definitely not a home. It was the end of the road, her road, a long in time and in miles, glorious, celebrated road, but the end of the road none the less.)

The book was autographed with a dedication to my mother by "Knowton Nash," one of the most famed CBC late night news personalities in the history of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

I wish I'd been there when she had met him.

There are many stories I would have asked him about...

---- "Cant Judge a Book" by: "Robin Sylar" http://topcatrecords.com/

"Synthesis:"

"The Microphone Wars" is quite an imposing tome. 580 pages in a tall hard cover brick of a book with illustrated plates of the personalities who were influential in shaping the early years of the CBC.

I picked it up yesterday, as I write this, after my "Tai Chi" class and I quite literally could not put it down.

I stayed up all night reading about the origins of the CBC, utterly fascinated by its history and quite glad of this blog to server as my own reminder (when writing my auto-hagiography :-)

Broadcasting is less than a single century old.

The CBC started life as the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Corporation, the CRBC, in 1932.

It was led ineptly by a triumvirate of less-than-luminaries,(Lt.-Col. William Arthur Steel, Thomas Maher and Hector Charlesworth,) before falling prey to the Machiavellian machinations of its own originators, (Alan Plaunt and Graham Spry,) when it was resurrected as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the CBC, in 1936.

The book goes into a great many details.

Despite its length, its by no means an exhaustive history of the CBC, but its quite glorious in its recounting of the sometimes scurrilous and sometimes funny events of the birth of broadcasting in Canada.

It details the attempts to establish a Canadian identity in the face of being next to the huge private, free-booting and all too commercial "gluck" occurring just south of the border.

---- "ripped pages in an open book" by: "Stefanie Harger" http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=13c24e0e31c80b0fbf68cdf4ae9162ec

"Conclusion:"

One never knows, does one.

Something picked up when clearing out a life's debris can turn out to be quite amazing.

"The Microphone Wars" by "Knowlton Nash" (ISBN: 0-7710-6712-7) [ http://www.amazon.com/Microphone-Wars-History-Triumph-Betrayal/dp/0771067127/ref=sr_11_1/103-5822664-9186200?ie=UTF8&qid=1193871167&sr=11-1 ]

Well worth it for anybody who likes a good read.

Its even better if you know the characters, have walked through the various buildings named after them in Ottawa, or are obsessed with media and broadcasting, as I readily admit I am.

Its worth buying your own copy or getting your local library to buy a copy (unless of course they already have a copy.)

---- "Prelude/Books" by: "Nuru Lain" http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=8ce784336377076a758710a392981fbe

Outro

msb-0219 Welcome Momentum Readers

msb-0219 Welcome Momentum Readers

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

Welcome Momentum Readers.

Here's hoping I get some comments and feedback from you over the coming days, weeks, months, quarters, years and decades. (OhMyGod... Can you imagine me doing this twenty years from now? ... I hope the podcast's outgrown me by then and I am well retired by then.)

For now, welcome.

---- "Welcome To Ibiza" by: "DJ NEXUS" http://www.myspace.com/djnexus242

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "Welcome, Ghosts" by: "Explosions In The Sky" http://www.explosionsinthesky.com/

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Welcome In Your Home" by: "Doug Macleod" http://www.black-and-tan.com/

"Thesis:"

The world "needs" podcasting in order to redress the omission of 15% of the world's population from the mass media.

I refer to the percentage of the world which the World Health Organization, the WHO, considers disabled.

Since MSers represent only 0.0833% or only 1 in 1,200 of the population of the world, we are simply too few to attract any attention.

That's the tyranny of democracy and the tyranny of demographics when viewed along traditional media lines.

If the 15% can barely get a mention in the media, except as some local human interest story on the news, (making for a real 15 seconds of fame, to be forgotten as soon as the next feature flits onto the screen,) what chance do we MSers, 180-th of the 15%, have of getting media representation?

Luckily, I happen to be living in the 'States, a republic where mammon is god, king and general.

There is plenty of capacity for our messages on the shining fiber that binds the world's commerce together.

---- "Welcome Home" by: "Andrew Thomas" http://www.astreetproductions.com/weblog/music

"Synthesis:"

Podcasting turns media bull into objective truth.

In a world of scarcity, we're screwed, blued and tattooed.

But bandwidth is "not" a scarce resource in podcasting. (Oh, "ComCast" would be killing me if I was "depending" on their bandwidth from my machine to upload the shows, but they're at best [at worst?] a very minor inconvenience with their throttling 1KB per second that I'm uploading my podcast. [They're doing their best to reduce everybody to consumers sucking on their pipe for our TV, but the content leaves a lot to be desired.] Basically I don't care. As long as MSers can download the episodes from LibSyn or PodShow, I don't care.)

Likewise, podcasting, with its reliance in web discovery through Google-ing, is slipping in under the radar of the media conglomerates, who are still thinking that the world requires transmitters and requires us to be sitting in front of our TVs so their job of gathering ad metrics can stay obfuscated and mysterious. (I operate on real metrics of real downloads to real members of my real audience who watch the ad when they're good and ready, not some nebulous market share of people who may or may not be paying attention at that very moment. [That's just so friggin' bogus.])

What I've realized, like Paul of Tarsus struck blind on the road to Damascus, is that I can stand the entire concepts of marketing on the web on their ear and track the truth about what IP address downloaded what ad (and if they went to the trouble of downloading it, I can assume that they read/listened/watched it. [I don't charge for multiple downloads to the same IP address so the advertisers can't get screwed like they might with Google ad loading techniques.])

I can deal with the truth.

Its the nebulous lies that I find a bitch.

---- "Welcome To Cairo Street" by: "Jim Fidler" http://www.jimfidler.com/

"Conclusion:"

Welcome "Momentum" readers to the fractious world of podcasting.

I'm Charles-A. and I intend to be your temporary distraction, bringing you relief from the dread world of diagnoses, relapses, doctor's visits, MRIs, tremors, non-cooperating legs, arms, eyes or any other thing that we can no longer take fore granted.

That's the plan a anyway.

I hope you like the indie music I pick because the RIAA and ASCAP/BMI are rapacious and litigious. They would shut me down in a minute if I played any music, (nah, I should refer to it like they think of it, as content, [they don't think of it as music and if you look at what they've done to it, they're right,] [so if I played...]) any content from the folks they represent.

When I can get some MS related advertisers, I will even bring you news from the makers of MS related drugs, therapies, goods and services. All the stuff that never get any air time.

Why you ask?

Because its MS and I'm an MSer.

MS only hits 0.0833% or one in twelve hundred of the population and when 15% of the population can't get any air time (except maybe for the arrogant bastard, Dr. House, or some action figure pseudo-hero's tragic "girlfriend of this episode") you just know we're not getting "any" coverage from the media.

Well, guess what?

Here on the internet, MSers can make up 100% of this podcast's audience.

Who else would check out this podcast? Britney wannabes? I don't think so?

So welcome "Momentum" readers.

Welcome to the neuro ward.

---- "Welcome To The Mess" by: "THE LIVINGSTONS" http://www.thelivingstonsrock.com/

Outro