Transcript
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD:
And I'm Bob Garfield with a few of your letters. Last week, we spoke to former Federal Election Commission Chief Brad Smith about the political gridlock that may leave us without a functioning FEC in the new year. The prospect didn't bother Smith.
Dale Amon posted this from Northern Ireland, quote, "Good on them! The sooner the FEC is consigned to the dustbin of history, the better. It's a total breach of core First Amendment rights."
Chris Garigliano of San Francisco responded by saying he found Smith's, quote, "nostalgia for the glory days of the past, without FEC oversight, droll. I wonder how Huey Long or Boss Tweed would use the Internet, Fox News, blogs, text messages - or, indeed, blimps?"
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
On my piece last week on the New Hampshire primary, Paula DiNardo of Dover, New Hampshire observed that, quote, "New Hampshire embraced the primary when others threw the chance away, and we made it work for almost 100 years now. It's good for the candidates to learn humility, put up with the weather and the local characters. It's my favorite thing about living in the Granite State. Some traditions are worth keeping, even if they don't make sense."
But Eric Goebelbecker of Maywood, New Jersey says he's, quote, "still waiting to hear a better reason than 'we've always done it this way' for seeing all the candidates kowtow to such a tiny, sparsely-populated state. Seriously, which state reflects the rest of the country less? I mean, other than Iowa."
BOB GARFIELD:
[LAUGHS] And on our discussion about a new technology that supposedly uses the skull to make the sound resonate inside the head, several listeners didn't buy it. One who wrote in only as "Jon" observed, quote, "According to the website of Holosonic, the manufacturer of the speaker system, the sound is created by a speaker directing a beam of ultrasonic frequencies - which we can't hear - that interacts with the air to create a sound. A major difference, but maybe the commentator has some inside information that the resulting waves resonate on a skull. Seems unlikely to me."
BROOKE GLADSTONE:
Thanks for your comments and questions. Keep them coming to Onthemedia.org or Onthemedia@wnyc.org, and please tell us where you live and your first and last names.