smash it up

why is it so noisy?

i took public transportation today, and the bus was blaring one of the most annoying radio stations i've ever had the displeasure of having to listen to. i actually got scared, because not so long ago, when i was in university, i took public transportation all the time, and have had to listen to similar drivel a lot more often.

why are radio stations so loud, so noisy, so chaotic?

which is not to say i don't like loud music, i am a big fan of audioslave, of soundgarden, of guns n' roses. but we're talking noise here. as if the djs have some kind of tourette's syndrome and are part-deaf. they recite mindless blather, further corrode people's vocabulary by saying things wrong on purpose, and, well, rubbing it in that even when you're a brainless idiot with nothing worthwhile to say, you can still be heard on the radio.

needless to say, the entire thing gave me a headache.

so i have a few questions:

1. why in the bleeding hell are these idiots even on air?
2. are people listening to these idiots at all?
3. if people are tuning in, why?

this is really disorienting for me, because today's bus ride has made me start thinking that maybe, just maybe, we are one of the noisier nations in the world. i mean, sure, there's the mardi gras, the love festival, the tomatino, the burning man... but not on a daily basis. why is it so noisy here?

a friend of mine once said that people who talk too much are trying to cover up the lack of activity in their brains, that maybe, by talking endlessly, nobody would notice he or she isn't really saying anything. that people like to keep their surroundings noisy to avoid dealing with the silence in their brain. if people, and probably a lot of them, are tuning in to such mindless radio, and turning it up to unreasonably loud volumes, is it safe to assume that everyone who tunes in is trying to cover up the silence in their brains?

by the way. i come from the land known for "peaceful revolutions". the land of people power. we love our democracy so much we elect people into office, then continually try to kick them out. to all the leaders who have been kicked out of their elected office by similar people revolutions, i send out a big fat i'm sorry. (this week's victim: Kyrgyzstan's Askar Akayev)

from Democracy Guy's "Didn't Democracy Already Happen There?"

A lot of these dominos falling, especially the post-soviet ones, sound familiar, don't they. Azerbaijan, Krgystan, Moldova...didn't democracy already happen there? [a version of this appeared in the London Sunday Times, January, 2004]

and, from Star Wars, episode II:

Popular rule is not a democracy. It gives people what they want, not what they need. - Senator Amidala

oh! boss gave us the afternoon off to view the pope's funeral. i may not be a big fan of The Vatican, but i am definitely one of afternoons off.
i get to see Questy!