Last night I experienced the insomnia that comes from focus on an interesting set of work challenges. At about 2:30 a.m., I put on headphones, and turned on my shortwave radio.
I understand the argument that conventional shortwave radio is less relevant than in the pre-internet days.
Netaudio and Netradio provides an extensive array of great broadcasting. But for my 2:30 a.m. waking hours, nothing beats shortwave radio. It's got an old-fashioned charm about it. The disk jockeys read post cards from listeners far away. Everything is calm and conversational. The shortwave radio station is the last small town.
As I surfed the airwaves, I heard one station in which a "coming economic collapse" program ran an advertisement for "heritage seeds". The pitch was that "GMO", or "genetically modified seeds", were going to strand people without food in a coming economic collapse. The advertisement touted "heritage seeds" as a commodity likely to jump in value in times of despair. The ad then offered to sell a box of them for sixty dollars. I've read of the Dutch tulip craze a few hundred years back. I suppose the idea is that seeds will bloom like tulips. I was amused, because I remember visiting the Theodore Payne Foundation native plant operation, a wonderful non-profit devoted to California native plants. What I remember most vividly is box after box of native seeds, available very inexpensively, largely unsold. I did not realize I was viewing a hidden bulwark against a food apocalypse. The whole story amuses me, because I support native seeds, mildly deplore granting intellectual property rights to lab-induced corn, and yet the radio station was a bit off kilter.
After surfing past various jeremiads attached to what in my view should be a religion of love, I finally settled on Radio Australia. I love listening to radio stations about domestic issues unfamiliar to me here, where we tend to be a bit myopic (why worry about Europe when you don't even know what is happening in Midland, Texas?).
The program was quite interesting. For one thing, reading
Although I would have wished for a bit more "Canberra has a colorful botanical garden" or "the little penguin lives on Kangaroo Island", I nonetheless thoroughly enjoyed the programming. I love, too, sliding the dial of my Grundig shortwave, knowing, in a way, that I am one of thousands upon thousands, each with her or his own shortwave, trying to listen to the world.