life in the margins

Federal Communications Commission

To celebrate the recent US Supreme Court Decision upholding the “fleeting expletive” rule (allowing the FCC to fine broadcasters for even a single instance of a word like fuck, shit, cunt, cocksucker, asshole, motherfucker, dickweed, shithead … you get the idea), I decided to do a podcast imagining a knock at the door early one morning.

My podcast has an incidental cross-border issue – i.e. since I’m Canadian, the FCC can’t really fine me. Nevertheless, in a world without borders, USSC decisions have consequences beyond US borders. In this case, as in so many others, the world labours under an enormous burden called the United States of America.

Listen now! (7:03min / 3MB)

NPR
Court: FCC 'Fleeting Expletive' Rule OK For Now
# | 2009-05-06 by davidbarker | 21st Century Terrors

Marking Boundaries

Good nannies are hard to come by, but it’s important to give them some space of their own, as one dog-walking suburbanite learns the hard way.

Listen now! (21:52min / 10MB)

# | 2009-04-30 by davidbarker | 21st Century Terrors

Zombie & GriefBot Inc.

This podcast features two stories: the first concerns a mental health patient who starts to worry when the patient in the next room suddenly disappears and housekeeping whisks away some bloodied sheets; the second speculates about what might happen when a software giant gets into the funeral business.

Listen now! (22:04min / 12MB)

# | 2009-03-23 by davidbarker | 21st Century Terrors

Lessons from an Aphasic Priest

What kind of a conversation do you get when you force a paranoid schizophrenic to talk to an aphasic? Does it make any sense at all?

This is the story of a psychotic – but harmless – man who has been convicted of being a nuisance and is sentenced to do community service at the Centre for Incurable Aphasia (CIA). He’s assigned to a priest who was in a cycling accident and has suffered a brain injury. The priest’s gibberish makes perfect sense!

Listen now! (22:33min / 12MB)

# | 2009-01-19 by davidbarker | 21st Century Terrors

Improvisation on an Earlobe

Listen to three poems. The first is titled “Improvisation on an Earlobe” and the text appears on the corresponding post at lifeinthemargins.com. The other two poems first appeared as the November and December 2008 poems for my poem-a-month newsletter which you can subscribe to at davidbarker.ca. They are titled “There Is No Sky” and “Prudence.”

Listen now! (6:06min / 3MB)

# | 2008-12-31 by davidbarker | Poetry

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