Category: Politics, Religion & Money

Three Christmas Gifts in Five Parts

Last year at this time I pointed out a book I had read, Brian Sibley’s Joseph and the Three Gifts: An Angels Story.

Dickens’ Agnostic Christmas

This year the book has been adapted as a BBC Radio 4 play. I can’t embed it here, so it’s linked on this picture.

A young girl in trouble, needing a husband, and he marries her knowing the child is not his. That’s as human as it gets.

From the New Revised Standard Version:

The Birth of Jesus the Messiah
18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah[i] took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”

which means, “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son;[j] and he named him Jesus.

Cassette Assets

This is a blog post about cassettes, with no mention of the Sony Walkman, except here. The Compact Cassette was developed by a Belgian team of engineers at Philips, and introduced under the Norelco brand in 1963. Two years later, to promote the new format, Philips gave portable cassette decks to EMI for the Beatles to try.

Upstairs at EMI Studio 2, 1965. Engineer Norman “Hurricane” Smith is on the left.

Christmas, 1969, I received a Panasonic RQ-204S cassette deck. It was rugged, with very good sound that could be played loud without breaking up, even at full volume.

I used the Panasonic deck to record WBCN radio and some records, but especially to exchange voice letters with my friend Greg, back in Connecticut. Long distance phone calls were out of the question, but a cassette could be mailed with a couple of stamps.

Norwalk, Connecticut, January, 1969

I first learned about cassettes as a computer software medium upon meeting one of my college roommates, named Brad. Before starting at Westfield State, Brad spent a year aboard the Atlantis II research ship, out of Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

The Atlantis II is best known for hosting the Alvin deep-ocean submarine, and for being used to locate the Titanic. The year when my friend Brad was aboard, scientists were conducting the early research into Continental Drift. I recall the project ended up being featured in National Geographic.

Brad was a math whiz just out of high school, working as a Fortran programmer on the Atlantis II. Cassettes were used to load programs and for data storage. When we met, Brad had a large collection of cassettes from the ship that he had mostly repurposed from data to music, with his very expensive, high-end portable Sony deck. Ten years later, working with Brad at a software company, the sound of the 300 baud modems we used was indistinguishable from what I heard playing data cassettes.

Which brings me to what this blog post is really about — Radiolab’s Mixtape series, and their Cassetternet segment from a month ago. The first part is about cassettes used for software. The second part returns to cassettes as a means of human communication; specifically, their influence in bringing about the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

All That and World War, Too

England’s evacuation of Dunkirk happened 18 months before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, 80 years ago. The Day of Infamy made it official, that there was a second World War. BBC Radio has a collection of World War II audio essays. This is the Dunkirk installment.

Here is the home page for the complete series.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02prmgr

From Malicious to Well Meaning

Every so often, for entertainment I will answer a robocall on my landline. In one call a guy claimed to represent a local police charity, and I agreed to donate $50 to his worthy cause. He said to leave the money in my mailbox and a police officer in street clothes would pick it up. I suggested a better idea, that I would be happy to meet the officer at the police station. He hung up.

Last Sunday’s new episode of The Simpsons, “Bart’s in Jail” (what, again?), was worthy of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight. It presented a surprisingly serious and cynical view of scams and multi-level marketing firms, including a dig aimed at Cutco. Coincidentally this week, I watched LuLaRich, a 4-part series on Amazon about LuLaRoe, a MLM company operating as a clothing wholesaler that became a pyramid scheme.

I had never heard of LuLaRoe, so I checked to see if there are LuLaRoe sellers on Amazon, and of course there are. Pyramid schemes and scams have been interesting to me ever since seeing this episode of Dragnet as a kid.

The trial of Elizabeth Holmes, who was behind the fraudulent company Theranos, is stretching the limits of distinction between a legitimate business opportunity and stock fraud. Did Holmes sincerely believe she would be able to develop a miracle diagnostic device? If so, was that belief based on actual technology, or was she just acting out a wannabe Steve Jobs fantasy?

Some frauds begin with good intentions, which are known to pave the road to you-know-where. During the 1980’s there was a movement to help people with severe autism who are non-verbal. Facilitated Communication was the subject of a memorable and noteworthy Frontline documentary in 1993. FC is an example of the Ouija Board effect. The level of self-deception on the part of the counselors is appalling, considering their backgrounds in Psychology. This is the foundation of all con games. The victims must be willing participants.

https://youtu.be/WOqIMT4YqnY

Follow-up: One day later, this notice popped up about a fake cop fundraiser scam.

Readerslip

I remember before Internet broadband took off, the total paid circulation for The Boston Sunday Globe was about 625,000 copies. The Sunday want ads were essential, as was the real estate section. The first section of the paper featured full-page display ads for department stores. Every car dealership had ads in the auto section, and every retailer had a slick flyer insert. Print circulation is now less than one quarter of what I remember, and there are only about 250,000 digital subscriptions.

Click to enlarge