Social Engineering and peril

It takes a special sort of person to keep their radio tuned to a classical music station. And, there are those special sort of people who, for whatever reason, prefer to stay awake all night. And you can only wonder at the flawed wisdom of those media types that choose to poke a stick at a sleeping dragon.

I refer to the social engineers that have put well know sports broadcaster Gallagher * at the helm of their midnight to dawn friday-saturday slot. Why? Presumably, the brain trust that is the steering committee at Classical 96.3 FM * figures that their audience are just scum who do not need to be accomodated in their special needs. What sort of loser listens to classical music during the darkness of Friday night, when the normals, the Eloi * , are out drunk and stoned and fornicating? Yes, let us experiment with their lives, we shall impose the non-classical Gallagher upon them. Let them suffer. Surely, the very thing they seek to escape, the beer-stinking peasants and their primate lusts for barnyard pastimes, is what we should impose on them in the few quiet hours of their time of refuge behind the thick reinforced concrete of their redoubts where they used to enjoy classical music without the barking of seals.

Can we visualize those who prefer darkness and listen to classical music? I can, but the Curly, Larry and Moe that is the programming staff at Classical 96.3 FM cannot. In no way does the audience resemble a special education class at a Toronto public school. Infact, these people would be considered educated, being familiar with words like isotope, detonator, and conflagration. These people find relaxation in darkness. These people have sophisticated tastes, in music (a given, surely), as well as hobbies and interests. How many angry listeners are there, now? Ones that look up from their hobby projects or pleasure reading to scowl at that hockey voiced creature who gurgles over some factoid about the beloved Wagner, or sprays spittle in the presence of the works of Schubert. The leather gloved hands that work the lathe are stilled in their quest for the perfect receiver * ; the monocle * drops from the eye studying hypergolic fuels * ; even the simple pleasures of human sexual acts are confounded when the tranquility of classical rhythm is confounded with the squawk of some seagull. In the underground lairs across the listening area, there is less happiness, and more venom.

This is what the unthinking non-thinkers at Classical 96.3 FM are playing with when they play at blasphemy. Most listeners know the capitalist game: yes, whoring after some Diversity funding, or stuffing a valuable employee into a low visibility slot while he completes sexual reassignment, or paying off a favor to some gnarly gnome. So, there is a buffer zone, because those that listen to classical music in darkness are comfortable with the workings of power, with dangerous devices, and with costs and price of human life. Indeed, most are patient, and most are only gritting their teeth, re-cleaning their monocles for the xillionth time, or merely going down to their underground workshops to look through parts and projects for a quick and final solution to an unexpected misery. Only a few, perhaps ten or a mere hundred, are taking action, making calls, pressing buttons, constructing devices, or modifying software.

I would expect an apology. The station staff can expect to see unmarked vans parking close to their studios on Queen street in Toronto. Their telephones will make strange clicking noises when they chat with friends about the price of lettuce. People they have never seen before, claiming to be maintenance staff (bearing perfect credentials, work orders, and management authorization) will appear bearing boxes of equipment and bags of tools. Strangers, who wear sunglasses at night, will look at them on the street with all the familiarity of a wolf watching a fatling bunny rabbit. Indeed. It is fall in Ontario. Sleep soundly, Curly, Larry and Moe, the ticking you hear is the crickets. You may social engineer with this Gallagher, and now you can observe results of your experiment, like the evolving primate social scientists you are. The second sunrise of enlightenment awaits you, and soon.

I, Fenris Badwulf, wrote this at both Mitchieville and DustMyBroom.