Category: anonradio

ASFO 2024–11–30

Heraclitus tells us that we can never step in the same river twice, so although you are surrounded by voices proclaiming that that the world is coming to an end, do not be deceived. The inevitability of change means that it is every bit as just, or unjust, to speak of beginnings as of endings. It is, perhaps, only natural to be afraid of the colossal opportunities that are even now opening out before us, but if we seek to shun them, we will only get changes we like less. Also, a bit more about the gold standard (hopefully I will finish with that next week) and erroneous ideas about “intrinsic value”.

Supplementary Shows

  • 2024–12–03 “Man is the great antientropy of universe” — Utopia or Oblivion : the Prospects for Humanity by R Buckminster Fuller (who else?), Introduction (Robert W Marks), A Citizen of the 21st Century Looks Back, and the beginning of The Music of the New Life.
  • 2024–12–06 “In is individually unique as a direction toward the center of any one system — but out is common to them all.” More of Utopia or Oblivion : the Prospects for Humanity by R Buckminster Fuller, continuing with The Music of the New Life, and a discussion of the importance of flush toilets over any other educational facility.

ASFO 2024–11–23

Mail call! Did Russia actually launch an ICBM with no warhead against Ukraine? The Steppenwolf Plan for disarmament. And, more of the story of the gold standard : Isaac Newton enters the picture.

Supplementary Show

  • 2024–11–26 The Treaty of Peace between the United States and Germany, and a list of other treaties arising from the Paris Conference of 1919.
  • 2024–11–29 “German Observations on the Conditions of Peace” (with a liberal helping of well–deserved sarcasm) and the Allied reply.

ASFO 2024–11–16

In which my motivations for reading selections from an annotated version of the Treaty of Versailles are, perhaps, revealed, and the vexed question of German War Guilt is examined ; along with an attempt to introduce some of the basic concepts of banking and currency, with the intention of eventually explaining the various things that might be meant by a person referring to “the gold standard”, and the contexts in which these meanings arise.

Supplementary Show

  • 2024–11–19 More from the annotated Treaty of Versailles, and specifically the Covenant of the League of Nations.
  • 2024–11–22 After a bit of a glitch at the start, mostly the Preface and first section, “The Paris Peace Conference, 1919”, of The Treaty of Versailles and After.

ASFO 2024–11–09

What is good in life? (wrong answers only) — oaths of fealty, and the question of how far self–interest actually predicts human motivations — immigration, and what it has to do with Don Quixote. And the Preamble and Chapter I of the Charter of the United Nations, for those requiring a refresher.

Supplementary Show

  • 2024–11–12 Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen ; the Preamble and Chapter I of the Charter of the United Nations ; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ; and some material from a US Government publication entitled The Treaty of Versailles and After, including the resolution of 18 April 1946 for the dissolution of the League of Nations.
  • 2024–11–15 More from the annotated Treaty of Versailles, specifically the Covenant of the League of Nations.

ASFO 2024–11–02

Mail Call! A plea to my fellow Americans — “Iowasolation” — a reassurance for those who hope to escape to the last place uncontaminated by capitalism — and the problem of argot and specialized symbology.

Supplementary Show

  • 2024–11–05 Three editorials from Analog magazine — from Ben Bova, who strove to carry on the provoking and insightful tradition of John W Campbell. “The Mystic West” on the supposed conflict between the empirical sciences and the humanities, and the role and character of mythology in the modern world (1972 June) ; “Life Cycles” on astrobiology and urban renewal (1972 May) ; and “Man in Space”, 1972 December, which I did not quite get to the end of.
  • 2024–11–08 What Supports Apollo? by Ben Bova and photographer J Russel Seitz, from the 1970 January Analog magazine ; most of a John W Campbell editorial from the same issue, on “Racial” Tensions ; and at the beginning, some poetry to express my frustration with the state of the world and reaffirm my belief in the inherent nobility of mankind, which is sorely tested at the moment.