I have done this five times today. Five times. I wonder if there is a Twelve Step Program for radio callers like me. I never used to do this, at least not until two things happened: 1. I started listening to CBC Radio One and 2. I got a land line. For years, as much as I enjoyed the news and current events and social and public education programs I simply could not bring myself to listen to CBC Radio One. (for the information of the many non-Canadian readers on this blog, CBC is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, our publicly funded public broadcaster). In those days CBC Radio Two, formerly known as CBC FM and then CBC Stereo, was my station of choice because they played exclusively classical music. Then they played almost exclusively classical music. After that it was mostly classical music, then a lot of classical music, then half classical music, then some, and after that a little, and finally, hardly any classical music. I quit listening, sent some very nasty and angry emails to the president of the CBC and for several years listened only to Spanish language radio broadcasting and classical CD's. Then, two things happened, or should I say three things happened.
In 2008 someone told me that you could now get CBC Radio One on FM. This for me was a nice little discovery because living downtown with all the electronic interference I cannot get AM radio where I live. I became hooked. At this time I was still almost religiously reading the Globe and Mail every day (Canada's pale imitation of the New York Times) and I had neither land line nor cell phone. I did have a cell phone for a couple of years when it was a necessity for getting on call shifts during the year that I worked at a homeless shelter. When I found a new job as a mental health peer support worker and had to travel long distances on the bus every day in order to get to my various work sights and clients, buying a monthly bus pass became a necessary evil. My earnings were way down and so were my savings, making giving up my cell phone a necessary evil if I was to arrive at work on time. Fortunately I had, and still retain, a very low cost voice mail service
It didn't occur to me to get a land line till 2011 as part of a package deal with getting home internet. Till then I was relying on public internet services, primarily in the Vancouver Public Library. This saved me a lot of money which I was able to squirrel away so that eventually I was able to go on lengthy vacations in Costa Rica and Mexico. But my earnings were already consistently up. I could afford home internet, and a phone and really I was finally admitting that these were not mere first world problems but necessities. Besides this, what finally convinced me to get home internet was this nasty 60-ish woman who really looked quite accomplished, together and professional who ambushed and verbally attacked me in the library one day when I was on the internet. The provocation? She was standing right next to me and talking to someone in a very loud voice, making it difficult for me to focus on the email I was trying to write so I asked her politely if she could keep it down a bit please so I could finish my work. She got so nasty I had to ask the librarian to call security and the nasty piece of work, fearing a confrontation, disappeared very quickly.
I was convinced. The hassle of dealing with idiots unable to behave courteously or intelligently in public drove me towards getting the service at home. It was a fortunate bit of timing that Telus, my phone and internet service provider, offered at the time a special deal on a laptop that I could pay off in two years at fifteen bucks a month. The computer has been paid for more than a year and but for a couple of scares due to the poor care I was giving it at the time (Thank you again, Downtown Computer!) it still works okay.
Then, last year, as I have mentioned in a previous post (Good-Bye Globe And Mail) I quit reading the newspaper and I now save six hundred dollars a year as I get all my news from CBC, another radio station, and the Internet. All things considered, and given my inability to shut up about anything that I feel strongly about, I have become a compulsive commenter, especially on online forums and the radio.
Today, for example. Early this morning, once again the radio host, himself a former sports-caster, would not shut up about hockey and company so I phoned in two complaints. Or was it yesterday? I have nothing against sports by the way, aside from the fact that they are in many ways a remnant of our prehistoric barbarism and warlikeness and still summon forth in us such violent instincts as are better left dormant (can you say, Stanley Cup Riots, Vancouver, anyone?) This afternoon, when I got home from work there was one piece on the radio on the threat that government subsidized housing is under ever since one housing provider in 2007 sold a major social housing development to a major market housing developer. Following this I phoned in again twice about assisted suicide, passionately arguing that from the strength of my own background of working with the dying that unless death is allowed to happen naturally, dying with dignity is but a sick joke of an oxymoron. I further argued that putting grandma on an ice flow as they have done in Belgium sets an alarming precedent given that since passing euthanasia legislation in that country at least three individuals have been euthanized for being mentally ill.
These matters can be further read about in other posts I have written. That said, I seem to be a strong believer in the power of not shutting up. For those sad and tired old cynics who groan dispassionately "what's the use, since no one is going to listen anyway" I have this to say. I believe strongly in the butterfly effect. And that given the right conditions, even the faintest whisper of hope can eventually be fanned into a flame and a whirlwind that will one day transform the world.
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