You may or may not have noticed amongst the blizzard of other stuff that's happened in the last two weeks that Donald Trump appointed Ajit Pai to the chairmanship of the Federal Communications Commission. Pai has a history of being something of a contrarian; during his time as one of the five commissioners of the FCC, he repeatedly spoke against regulations that protected the consumer and was against diverse media ownership (since the 1980's, we went from 50 media companies to just six). Time and again Pai's said that he was going to tear down regulation after regulation that the …
I think that it's safe to say that everyone's been annoyed at one time or another by someone in a restaurant, on a bus, or in a store by someone who was carrying out a loud conversation on their cellular telephone and refused to make any effort to leave the area. Now, there are some of us who sometimes don't have a choice in the matter (like those of us who are on call for work, though many of us at least make the attempt to get away from everyone else in an attempt to not be rude), but there …
This morning, after arriving at the Metro station closest to my office and climbing the escalator (I need exercise, what can I say?) to the platform closest the street, I noticed something that you don't hear very often in downtown DC: Swimming through the air thanks to the odd accoustics of the Metro station above the sound of the traffic was music. Live music, replete with the little vibratos and imperfections that come with playing the same particular instrument for many years for hours on end. Pan pipes, a wooden flute, bass, and a drum machine.
