VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES: Check out Volunteer NRV, a site that tracks various opportunities to help people around the New River Valley.
PENDING DOOM for net radio:
The region’s relative isolation is balanced by a techie overlay, incubated by the large universities in Virginia Tech in Blacksburg and James Madison in Harrisonburg. There are Net-savvy tinkers and entrepreneurs in those rolling hills. In nearby Waynesboro in June 2006 I81.fm—a Net radio station clearinghouse for the region—was born.
And next week, absent an 11th hour compromise on the licensing fees Net radio operators must pay, I81.fm, serving 35,000 listeners a day, will die.
And we still have a round of rent-seeking to look forward to:
The goal is nothing less than a licensing regime for all digital music that recognizes no ownership rights, fair or otherwise. In its place will be a digital licensing fee tacked on to every broadband customer’s bill, right alongside the other mysterious fees and taxes that serve the political status quo.
This is disappointing for lots of reasons, but I’m still vaguely optimistic on both fronts.
First, while it will be disruptive and painful as we watch the transition being royally botched, the content issue may become moot. There is simply too much quality music being generated outside of the grasp of the traditional royalty structure, and it’s getting easier to find. For example, I think Marc Gunn’s excellent Irish and Celtic Music Podcast is more enjoyable than NPR’s Thistle and Shamrock. They cover the same genre, but the podcast consists mostly of the work of lesser-known artists, who have given their permission to be included in the monthly show. I find myself buying more of their music, and I sleep better. (That is, given that entertainment funded partly at the point of a gun differs only in degree from, say, buying clothes produced with slave labor.)
Second, I won’t be surprised if (and will be delighted when) distibution — the pipe into the home — eventually moves outside the bounds of regulated utilities. If deregulation doesn’t accomplish this, innovation will.
A “HANDS-ON” STORYTELLING WORKSHOP sounds like trouble: Blue Ridge Parkway Offers Craft and Story Telling Workshops. Perhaps the tactility is limited to the crafts. In any case, an opportunity to help preserve some traditions.
A WALKING TRAIL opens in Southwest Virginia, apparently with only minimal looting of the taxpayer. If word of this possibility gets out…
READING FOR PLEASURE: Thoughts on teen reading from local author (and English professor) Tiffany Trent.
I doubt many of these kids, between the pressures exerted on them by parents and those of their peers, even have time to read. And what are they reading in high school? Classics. Things that they must read in order to meet their standardized testing requirements. How does reading for pleasure possibly fit in?
Good discussion in the comments.
I BLAME the evil horse food corporations: Fat horses face health problems.
As with humans, physiological adaptation can’t keep up:
Horses today are managed much differently from their evolutionary roots, indicated Dr. Pleasant. “The horse evolved as a free-roaming grazer on sparse pasture types,†he said. Later the horse served primarily as a work animal, serving as a source of transportation and draft power. Today, most horses serve as companions and light performance animals, he said.
It’s always sad when (as was the case with Barbaro) an injury or condition that would be merely painful and inconvenient for a person takes the life of a horse. Good to see the vet school and CALS working on these kinds of problems. Any added knowledge applicable to humans is a nice bonus:
Human health may also substantially benefit from this study, according to Dr. Thatcher, because humans suffering from obesity experience chronic inflammation. If obese horses are also found to suffer from chronic inflammation, the possibility would then exist for the horse to serve as an animal model for the study of obesity in people for the very first time.
THE THINKING MAN’S VIOLIN: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on a ukulele. The YouTube video can barely keep up.
WINE DOWN THE MUSIC TRAIL: An update from the festival being held near the Chateau Morrisette Winery on the Parkway (through today).