Quotulatiousness

September 17, 2015

Regulatory tangle may shut down major US railroads in December

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Railways, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

A safety regulation for US common-carrier railroads is due to come into effect at the end of December, but the railroad companies are already warning that they may not be able to comply and that the only legal course of action under the current rules would be to shut down:

In a candid letter to a U.S. senator, BNSF Railway’s chief executive, Carl Ice, said September 9 that BNSF would in effect shut down most of its network rather than violate a federal law mandating that positive train control be operational by December 31. CSX Transportation has said it, too, questions whether it should violate federal laws, and other Class I carriers are likely to follow suit. This set up the real possibility of a national transportation crisis at the beginning of 2016. The public may be unaware of how closely the U.S. economy is tied to railroads, but the reality is that without railroads, this country will quickly cease to function normally. Imagine, for instance, no electricity to heat homes.

[…]

The Surface Transportation Board, which regulates railroads, in effect came to the aid of BNSF and other railroads this past week. Its chairman, Daniel Elliott, wrote to Thune to say that railroads can “lawfully suspend service for various reasons, including safety.” In other words, Elliott is saying that the common carrier obligation of railroads is not absolute. Elliott added that CSX has expressed sentiments similar to those of BNSF.

So what does this all mean? I take railroads at their word that they have diligently tried to install PTC by the deadline. Six years ago Congress thought it was giving railroads enough time to do this, and railroads did not object then to that deadline. But implementation has been a disaster. The technology being put in place is largely new. FRA was slow to issue necessary rules. Signal engineers able to put all the pieces together have been in short supply. And then for more than a year everything ground to a halt because the Federal Communications Commission would not issue permits for construction of radio towers and antennae.

Further, as Ice points out to Thune, PTC is full of bugs as railroads roll it out on their networks. Says Ice: “We are seeing the PTC system trigger unnecessary braking events in which trains are stopped with a full-service brake application. This means that significant work has to occur before the train can re-start. These kinds of delays are numerous and cumulatively consume railroad capacity.”

What railroads have sought is an extension of the deadline, something that Congress has thus far refused to act upon because the votes to permit an extension aren’t there. Now the industry is beginning to say fine, we will not disobey the law and as a result we will be able to offer only a fraction of the service our customers depend upon.

QotD: Corporate culture and management overstretch

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Corporate culture is another limiting factor: The larger your company gets, the harder a great corporate culture is to maintain. From all accounts, WinCo has a great community of workers, and it has 15,000 of them, which sounds like a lot. But Wal-Mart has more than 1 million employees in the U.S. It might be hard to maintain that level of excitement as you get into the hundreds of thousands of employees. If you try to expand quickly to get scale, your core of loyal employees who have been with you forever shrinks relative to the newcomers who don’t yet have the same commitment to the company. This is particularly a problem in employee-owned companies; as you get more employees, you can dilute the sense of ownership, because each employee’s contribution makes such a tiny impact on the bottom line — or you may get wars between groups of employees, as we saw with United Airlines.

This is related to another key challenge: management. As organizations grow, they have to change. Anyone who has been through a startup can attest to this — when you start out, you don’t need to have many meetings; you just hash stuff out impromptu when the need arises. As the company grows, you start to need management reporting lines, and defined roles, and scheduled meetings, and other bureaucratic unpleasantness that everyone hates. But if you try to do without it, everything quickly degenerates into a chaotic mess.

Not every company is good at this transition. If one of the things that made you great as a little baby company was your informality and flexibility, you may find that growing makes your key producers unhappy and ultimately saps the creative flux that made you great at what you do.

This is also a big challenge as the company moves beyond “small” and into “large”; in fact, every time you dramatically increase the size of your business, you will find that it needs to gut-rehab its management structure. Your three great managers who made all the trains run on time can no longer oversee things at the level of detail they once did; they need to spend more of their time making sure that other people do so. Some of them aren’t good at that role, but they will be unhappy if someone else is promoted or hired over their head. You start to rely more and more on well-standardized processes rather than individual initiative, which may require some compromises on quality to maintain the price point that your customers expect. It is the difference between an exquisitely pulled shot at your local coffee shop and the massive amount Starbucks has invested in machines that make exactly the same coffee every time.

Megan McArdle, “In-N-Out Doesn’t Want to Be McDonald’s”, Bloomberg View, 2014-10-02.

August 27, 2015

Incentives matter … but in a perverse manner for public employees

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Government, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 03:00

On the Property and Environmental Research Center website, Warren Meyer explains why the US Forest Service is cutting ties with private organizations that have been running federally owned facilities for less than the Forest Service is able to do … despite the private company’s proven higher levels of service:

Private concessionaires pay all operations costs out of the entrance fees paid by the public — and without further taxpayer subsidies. In addition, the concessionaire pays the public agency a concession fee. The resulting savings to taxpayers can be quite compelling. In a recent PERC case study, I showed how a parks agency had to supplement every dollar in visitor fees with an equal amount of tax dollars to keep a park open. By privatizing the park’s operations, the need for tax revenues could be eliminated. And in fact, the park could be turned into a money maker for the agency.

While this may resonate with the public, it’s a hard sell to the agencies themselves. The National Park Service uses concessionaires to provide some visitor services, but it has not considered private operation of entire parks. Even the Forest Service — which does allow some private park management — often seems eager to go back to running the parks themselves.

[…]

No private company would behave like this. So why does the government? Over the years, I have observed three possible explanations:

1. Government employees have incentives that go beyond “public service.” For most agency managers, their pay and prestige and future job prospects are tied to the size of their agency’s headcount and budget. Privatization savings that look like a boon to taxpayers may look like a demotion to agency managers.

2. People who are skeptical of private enterprise and more confident in government-led solutions tend to self-select for government jobs. Even in the Forest Service, concessionaires frequently experience outright hostility from the agency’s rank and file. “It’s wrong to make a profit on public lands” is one common statement.

3. Government accounting is not set up to make these sorts of decisions well. Few agencies have reports that tell them whether an individual park’s revenues are covering its full operational costs. Costs can be spread over multiple budgets, making it seem as though public park operation is less expensive than it really is.

To overcome these obstacles, we’ve learned that progress generally has to start above the agency. Some sort of legislative push is necessary. And we try to find ways to pitch our solutions as a way for agencies to free up money to address other problems, such as fixing rotting infrastructure.

August 26, 2015

Organic food recalls on the rise

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Food, Health, USA — Tags: — Nicholas @ 05:00

It must be a trend if even the New York Times is reporting on the increasing number of food safety recalls involving organic food:

New data collected by Stericycle, a company that handles recalls for businesses, shows a sharp jump in the number of recalls of organic food products.

Organic food products accounted for 7 percent of all food units recalled so far this year, compared with 2 percent of those recalled last year, according to data from the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture that Stericycle uses to compile its quarterly report on recalls.

In 2012 and 2013, only 1 percent of total units of food recalled were organic.

Kevin Pollack, a vice president at Stericycle, said the growing consumer and corporate demand for organic ingredients was at least partly responsible for the increase.

“What’s striking is that since 2012, all organic recalls have been driven by bacterial contamination, like salmonella, listeria and hepatitis A, rather than a problem with a label,” Mr. Pollack said. “This is a fairly serious and really important issue because a lot of consumers just aren’t aware of it.”

August 15, 2015

Still suffering from the injustices of a caste system? Just apply capitalism

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Economics, India — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar explains how the introduction of free market practices is rapidly undermining the ancient caste system in India:

Karl Marx was wrong about many things but right about one thing: the revolutionary way capitalism attacks and destroys feudalism. As I explain in a new study, in India, the rise of capitalism since the economic reforms of 1991 has also attacked and eroded casteism, a social hierarchy that placed four castes on top with a fifth caste — dalits — like dirt beneath the feet of others. Dalits, once called untouchables, were traditionally denied any livelihood save virtual serfdom to landowners and the filthiest, most disease-ridden tasks, such as cleaning toilets and handling dead humans and animals. Remarkably, the opening up of the Indian economy has enabled dalits to break out of their traditional low occupations and start businesses. The Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DICCI) now boasts over 3,000 millionaire members. This revolution is still in its early stages, but is now unstoppable.

Milind Kamble, head of DICCI, says capitalism has been the key to breaking down the old caste system. During the socialist days of India’s command economy, the lucky few with industrial licenses ran virtual monopolies and placed orders for supplies and logistics entirely with members of their own caste. But after the 1991 reforms opened the floodgates of competition, businesses soon discovered that to survive, they had to find the most competitive inputs. What mattered was the price of your supplier, not his caste.

July 23, 2015

Why US military installations are gun-free

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

L. Neil Smith grew up on and around US Air Force bases, and explains at least some of the reason for the government requiring military installations to be gun-free:

One reason, of course, for military gun-free killing zones is the dire need the military experienced during the 1960s for conscriptees — for which read military slaves. Almost any scum were gratefully-accepted. Judges regularly sentenced car thieves and other such criminals with “go to jail or join the Army”. Would you really like to issue guns to society’s dregs like that? My dad, who ran Vehicle Maintenance Departments in Newfoundland and in Florida, was always having to get his younger men out of jail on various charges. Sometimes, in Florida, it was simply because the Sheriff’s deputies were moronic redneck thugs and many of Dad’s men were black. The uniform made them “uppity.” Sometimes it resembled the Jerry Springer show, one of his Airmen got his wife and mother-in-law pregnant simultaneously. And they say incest is a game the whole family can enjoy.

As a teenager, I was taught to throw a knife and an axe to good effect by a youngish Lieutenant Colonel in the First Air Commando Group who’d remarkably earned his Master’s degree in Anthropology by making and learning to use primitive weapons. He spent his spare time in Vietnam teaching airplane mechanics on the maintenance line to throw a two-foot screwdriver like a knife whenever the Viet Cong came marauding around. But when your enemy is armed with an AK-47 and half a dozen hand grenades, a screwdriver must seem like a pretty frail reed. If possible, it’s even worse than bringing a knife to a gun fight.

So, am I saying that Air Police and Military Police (and Shore Patrols) should be fully armed at all times? Not at all. I’m saying that all military personnel should be armed at all times. A soldier is a guy (or a gal) with a gun. You can’t have it two ways. An unarmed soldier is a joke — and potentially a corpse. Officers should wear their sidearms publicly and proudly; a democratic republic should issue equally-effective sidearms to all of its enlisted personnel as well.

Pentagon officials and other military bigwigs who oppose this principle, which would put an immediate stop to base-shootings like the one in Chattanooga that happened today are criminally negligent. A very big part of the problem is corruption or stupidity in high places. Shamefully, the U.S.government treats its soldiers very badly and without respect. The lower ranks are forced to go on welfare to feed their families, and seek food stamps. The sleazy, sloppy treatment they receive in Veterans’ Administration hospitals closely resembles being sentenced to a Third World prison. Incompetent, uncaring doctors don’t listen and have to be argued into doing what is required of them.

Years ago, I prescribed, in an article for Reason/Frontlines that the raw numbers of American military personnel be reduced, that it should become very difficult to join the military, and that military personnel receive a tenfold raise in wages. Now I say, arm them, as well, and allow them to defend themselves as they defend our country.

The alternative is more death.

July 13, 2015

“Links to this Site are not permitted except with the written consent of TO2015™”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Media, Sports — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Toronto’s Pan Am Games organizers appear to have been living in a cave without an internet connection for the last 15 years:

The organisers of the Pan American Games in Toronto, which start this week, require that people seek formal permission to link to its website at [toronto2015 DOT org].

Under the website’s terms of use, amid piles of incomprehensible legalese seemingly designed to hide from the fact that social media exists, it is decreed that no one is allowed to use one of those hyperlink thingies to connect to the website unless they first get approval. It reads:

    Links to this Site are not permitted except with the written consent of TO2015™. If you wish to link to the Site, you must submit a written request to TO2015™ to do so. Requests for written consent can be sent to branduse@toronto2015.org. TO2015™ reserves the right to withhold its consent to link, such right to be exercised in its sole and unfettered discretion.

Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that the $2bn sports event – effectively a mini-Olympics – also appears to have trademarked the term “TO2015.” Which makes about as much sense.

Incredibly, this is not a misreading of the terms, and it doesn’t appear to have been a mistake either. Instead, it’s about the increasingly insane approach that intellectual property lawyers are taking to sponsors – and non-sponsors – of sporting events.

Alongside such gems as forcing people to put tape over their own computers if a computer company is a sponsor, and stopping people for drinking anything that isn’t a sponsor drink (if there is a drinks sponsor), now it seems the Pan Am Games lawyers have decided they need to prevent the internet from entering the hallowed sponsor world.

Strictly speaking, anyone who links to the website or even anyone who uses the games’ own hashtag of [hashtagTO2015] is violating its terms, and could be sued. Although not a court in the land would actually enforce it.

Notice that, as I live in Canada, I’ve carefully obfuscated the URL and the hashtag so you don’t accidentally click on them and violate their intellectual property right claims or anything. I suspect this will be the only actual coverage of the games I’ll be posting, just to be on the safe side. Discussion of the financial side, or the disruption to normal life in Toronto caused by the games, of course, is still fair game.

Do photographers have any rights left?

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

I no longer do much in the way of “serious” photography (my digital SLR has been out of service for a couple of years now), but I still occasionally do a bit of cellphone photography when the occasion arises. On the byThom blog, Thom Hogan provides a long (yet not exhaustive) list of things, places, and people who are legally protected from being photographed in various jurisdictions … and it gets worse:

Funny thing is, smartphones are so ubiquitous and so small, many of those bans just aren’t enforceable against them in their natural state (e.g., without selfie stick), especially if they’re used discriminatingly.

I’m all for privacy, but privacy doesn’t exist in public spaces as far as I’m concerned. Indeed, I’d argue that even in private spaces (malls, for example), that if you’re open for and soliciting business to the public, you’re a public space. As for Copyright, placing artwork in open public spaces (e.g. Architecture) probably ought to convey some sort of Fair Use right to the public, though in Europe we’re seeing just the opposite start to happen. FWIW, I no longer visit and thus don’t photograph in two countries because of national laws regarding photography. Be careful what you wish for, Mr. Bureaucracy; laws often have unintended consequences. As in reducing my interest in visiting your country.

About half of this site’s readers actively practice some form of travel photography, either during vacations or while traveling for business. Note how many of the restrictions on photography start to apply against those that are traveling (locally or farther afield). It’s always easy to impose laws on people who don’t vote for you. it’s why rental car and hotel room taxes are so high, after all.

What prompted this article, though, wasn’t any of the latest photography ban talk, though. Here in Pennsylvania we have fairly restrictive regulations on “recording” another person (e.g. conversations, phone calls, meetings, etc.). In some states, it only takes one party to consent for a recording to be legal. Here in Pennsylvania it takes all parties to consent to being recorded.

H/T to Clive for the link.

July 12, 2015

The erosion of meaningful marks in school

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Education, Randomness, USA — Nicholas @ 04:00

Richard Anderson on the move to eliminate “D” as a mark in educational grading schemes:

Thing is that if you get rid of Ds then Cs become the new Ds. If C is now the borderline for pass / fail then the slackers will work hard enough to get Cs, or more likely public school teachers will just drop their standards in order to meet their performance metrics. While this change might mean that the students learn a bit more as a signalling mechanism it’s a lateral move. Employers and colleges will know that the new C minus student is about as mediocre as the D minus student of yesteryear. The end result is that Peppermint Patty gets into the C Minus Hall of Fame instead.

Yet Ds are important in education. They tell the student they’re not very good at that particular subject. This is because they are lacking something: work ethnic, motivation, intelligence or aptitude. The grade system, assuming it is reasonably applied, is providing important feedback information. It’s fundamentally no different from any other form of measurement. Imagine a speedometer that never gave you the correct speed below 20 mph. That’s the same as a grading system were Ds have been done away with.

The D-Reformers are trying to short circuit the educational feedback loop. Instead of providing real information that can be used to draw conclusions, it instead provides false information that misleads and misdirects. While in the short-term this can seem kind, over the long-term it’s very cruel. It gives students an incorrect understanding of their talents and abilities. Sooner or later objective reality catches-up. Often this happens when the student reaches college and flunks out.

Of more than just “academic” concern…

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Humour, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Jay Currie rounds up the current issues for your university faculty:

Notes Re Coming Academic Year
From: Dean of Arts
To: Faculty
Dear Colleagues,

I hope you are enjoying your well earned summer vacation. I know I am. However, a number of issues have arisen which I feel I must bring to your attention.

1. Marking: Many of you are still clinging to the outmoded idea that marks are designed to measure absolute progress in a subject. You are insisting upon received grammar and spelling in essays. You are setting exams and papers which, in themselves, are triggering events causing significant anxiety. Worse, you are not taking into account the often heart rending oppression narratives which many of your students bring to class. Stop it.

2. Subject matter: It is not enough to include writers and topics from outside the tragically exclusionary Western Cannon. The fact is that even a reference to Shakespeare will trigger feelings of anxiety, worthlessness, racial othering, religious persecution and, of course, sexual confusion. Just stop it. The same with references to the Bible, Plato, Milton, any so called Saint, Mark Twain or that Moby D*** fellow with the harpoon obsession. Each of these references will only serve to underscore the possible ignorance of your students which, rather obviously, will make them feel anxious, disrespected and unsafe. Best not to mention any of it.

[…]

6. Race: Pretty much the live hand grenade of the Arts Faculty. Say anything and it explodes with unknowable consequences. Even a supportive statement such as “slavery is wrong” can lead to disastrous conversations about Black African complicity in the trade and the continuing Islamic acceptance of slavery. Plus, and this is an acute problem, Chinese and South Asian students, dealing with our university’s current admission policies, may take strong exception to remarks vis a vis affirmative action or diversity. Just don’t go there.

7. Logic/Argument/Reason: Mansplaining at its heteronormative worst. It is pretty clear that argument, both verbal and written privileges middle class, usually white, usually male, left brain dominant, testosterone charged, individuals. By prioritizing thinking over feeling, requiring reason means an instructor risks making women, minorities and queer students feel unsafe with the feelings they often use in discourse rather than accepting the oppressor’s terms of exchange. Stay away.

July 11, 2015

Reason.tv – The TSA’s 12 Signs You Might Be a Terrorist

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Humour, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Published on 9 Jul 2015

Traveling this summer? Avoid these officially terrorist-y behaviors—or you might get detained.

July 8, 2015

Minnesota students face new rules under which “everyone accused of sexual assault will very likely be technically guilty”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Reason‘s Robby Soave on the introduction of new “affirmative consent” rules at the University of Minnesota:

The proposed policy is currently under review for another 30 days before it becomes official. Its language is fairly standard, which leads me to believe that it will suffer from the same problems as other “Yes Means Yes” policies:

  • It is the responsibility of each person who wishes to engage in the sexual activity to obtain consent.
  • A lack of protest, the absence of resistance and silence do not indicate consent.
  • The existence of a present or past dating or romantic relationship does not imply consent to future sexual activity.
  • Consent must be present throughout the sexual activity and may be initially given, but withdrawn at any time.
  • When consent is withdrawn all sexual activity must stop. Likewise, where there is confusion about the state of consent, sexual activity must stop until both parties consent again.
  • Consent to one form of sexual activity does not imply consent to other forms of sexual activity.

“It is the responsibility of each person who wishes to engage in the sexual activity to obtain consent.” But isn’t that redundant? All parties to a sexual activity must be willing participants in the first place, or else they are victims of rape under any standard. That’s what consent is: agreement to engage in sex. I presume the policy’s authors mean to say that it is the responsibility of each person who wishes to initiate the sexual activity to obtain consent. But such a requirement is at odds with the reality of human sexual activity — the initiating party is not always so clearly defined, especially when alcohol is involved (as it often is).

Equally troubling is the mandate that each and every sexual act be hammered out beforehand. May I touch your hand? What about your wrist? May I touch your shoulder? May I kiss this spot on your neck? May I kiss this other spot on your neck? May I kiss the first spot again while I touch your hand? Nobody is going to do this. Does that mean everyone is a rapist?

July 4, 2015

Reason.tv – The Secret Scam of Streetcars

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, Railways, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Published on 1 Jul 2015

Meet the Thighmaster of urban public policy: Streetcars.

Municipal politicians all across the country have convinced themselves that this costly, clunky hardware can revitalize their flabby downtown economies.

That includes the fearless leaders of America’s capital city. The DC government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the last decade trying to erect a streetcar line in the up-and-coming neighborhood of H Street. The project has been an epic disaster, perfectly demonstrating how ill-suited streetcars are to modern urban life.

Watch the full video above, or click below for downloadable versions. And subscribe to Reason TV’s YouTube channel for daily content like this.

July 3, 2015

The unintended consequences of a bottled water ban

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Economics, Health, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Mark J. Perry talks about the outcome of a well-intended ban of bottled water at the University of Vermont:

Here’s the abstract of the research article “The Unintended Consequences of Changes in Beverage Options and the Removal of Bottled Water on a University Campus,” which was just published in the July 2015 issue of the American Journal of Public Health (emphasis added):

    Objectives. We investigated how the removal of bottled water along with a minimum healthy beverage requirement affected the purchasing behavior, healthiness of beverage choices, and consumption of calories and added sugars of university campus consumers.

    Methods. With shipment data as a proxy, we estimated bottled beverage consumption over 3 consecutive semesters: baseline (spring 2012), when a 30% healthy beverage ratio was enacted (fall 2012), and when bottled water was removed (spring 2013) at the University of Vermont. We assessed changes in number and type of beverages and per capita calories, total sugars, and added sugars shipped.

    Results. Per capita shipments of bottles, calories, sugars, and added sugars increased significantly when bottled water was removed. Shipments of healthy beverages declined significantly, whereas shipments of less healthy beverages increased significantly. As bottled water sales dropped to zero, sales of sugar-free beverages and sugar-sweetened beverages increased.

    Conclusions. The bottled water ban did not reduce the number of bottles entering the waste stream from the university campus, the ultimate goal of the ban. With the removal of bottled water, consumers increased their consumption of less healthy bottled beverages.

[…]

Wow, nothing worked out as expected by the college administrators at the University of Vermont: a) the per capita number of bottles shipped to the University of Vermont increased significantly following the bottled water ban, and b) students, faculty and staff increased their consumption of less healthy bottled beverages following the bottled water ban. Another great example of the Law of Unintended Consequences. And the bottled water ban was not costless – the university paid to modify 68 drinking fountains, they paid for a publicity campaign, and they paid for lots of “free” reusable water bottles; and what they got was more plastic bottles on campus of less healthy beverages!

July 1, 2015

QotD: The CRTC, Canada’s most fascistic government body

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Media, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The CRTC is an even more odious organization. Back in 1920s both the Canadian and American governments declared the broadcast spectrum to be public property. So a technology pioneered and commercialized by the private sector, in both countries, was essentially nationalized by the state. Since it was a new industry it lacked the ability to effectively lobby Washington and Ottawa. The result has been that a large and important sector of our modern economy now lives and dies at the whim of an unelected government agency: The CRTC.

Of all the organs of Canadian government the CRTC has always struck me as the most fascistic. You could rationalize socialize health care, public education and government financed infrastructure as doing useful things in a terribly statist way. The CRTC is at an exercise in make work at best. At worse it’s an attempt to impose indirect censorship on the Canadian people. Beneath the reams of government drafted euphemisms the blunt truth behind the CRTC is that we mere Canadians are not clever enough, not patriotic enough or sufficiently sensible to watch and listen to the right things in the right way.

The existence of the CRTC explains much of the timorousness of Canadian broadcasting. The Americans did away with the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, thereby triggering the explosion in talk radio in the early 1990s. While Canada never had an exact equivalent, the regulations surrounding who could and could not receive or retain a license were sufficiently vague to make such a rule unnecessary. A nod and a wink from the right people at the right time was enough to indicate what type of broadcasting would or would not be acceptable.

The result was an insufferable group think that could no more be defined than challenged. There were unwritten rules of etiquette that forbade serious discussion from talking place on a whole host of issues: Abortion, capital punishment, race relations, linguistic issues and any frank discussions of our socialized health care system. It wasn’t that these discussions didn’t take place in a public forum, the newspapers and magazines were largely unregulated, but broadcasting was the late twentieth century’s pre-eminent mass media. It’s where ordinary people got their news and opinions.

Richard Anderson, “And All Must Have Prizes”, The Gods of the Copybook Headings, 2014-09-24.

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