New Moon Edition June 2026
Ain’t springtime grand? For all the clickbait news and weather coming our way that promises one sort or another of gloom and doom, a leisurely stroll outside, maybe along Bear Creek nestled there in that bank of trees to the right, tells a different story. Our little town churns through all the typical ups and downs of daily existence, the glories, the worries, victories and defeats, and especially all the strife of small town living as one faction and another tries to have its way; yet, something as simple as a walk in the park tells us all in all life is pretty fine. Even peaceful at times. Imagine!
It does bring to mind the question of why sensationalism, that barrage of hysteria and threat that media presents us, is such a powerful force in attracting our attention. The car wreck syndrome, one supposes, where no matter how horrible as it may be to witness one simply has to look. No doubt it’s been that way since Roman chariots were colliding on the Appian Way. It’s just human nature. It gives us a rush, whether or not we want to admit it, and that rush, most any rush, is addictive.
Outrage, provocation, whatever gets the blood boiling, has been a successful tactic of populists throughout time. Technology now, social media, podcasts, television news, talk radio, marries with its proponents perfectly. In an era when too few of us take the time to think our way through things, and far too few apply any sort of critical thinking to what we see and hear, we are especially ripe fields for plunder by those well-honed manipulators feeding our addiction. Time for a walk. Leave your phone at home. Yes!
We were introduced recently to an amazing young filmmaker named Davide Fiore. He’s an Italian national working currently in Los Angeles, where he edits film for the big streaming houses in between making documentaries of his own. Most recently, he brought us A Little Fellow, the award-winning story of A.P. Giannini (HERE), who grew his Bank of Italy in San Francisco into Bank of America, the largest in the country. He did it by extending credit to all the little fellows no one else would finance.
Like his subject, Davide is well on his way to making a name for himself. A native of Torino, he began making film in the Italian music industry, where he found the idea for his first documentary, Just Us, the story of two deejays in his home country, which he produced in 2014. You might suppose that got our attention.
Davide has very generously shared his knowledge and experience with us as we try to learn what the possibilities are for making a short documentary about freeform radio. It seems like a logical next step in our efforts to reach the largest possible audience with our history of a remarkable time in radio broadcasting (HERE). Short docs are the hot thing at the nation’s film festivals and the cost of making one is kinda within reach, it seems, so the possibilities are being considered and the beat goes on, Stay tuned!
Not often we get to say: I told you so. But last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders echoed a proposal made in this newsletter several weeks ago (HERE), and with the identical rationale: “This month … the progressive senator from Vermont, proposed that the federal government levy a one-time 50 percent tax on A.I. companies that would be paid in stock. His rationale was that the technology was built on Americans’ collective intelligence — songs, computer code, scientific research, videos and more — so everyone should share in the wealth it creates (HERE).”
There’s perhaps never been a clearer case of big business exploiting the public than the sudden emergence of Large Language Systems, which colloquially we call A.I. Whatever the benefits it brings, and they are many, and whatever the downside, the substantial disruption that technology systematically inserts into our lives, there’s an inarguable fact about artificial intelligence: it’s mining and marketing the collective knowledge of humanity – intellectual property that deserves a royalty for its use.
Fearfully, perhaps, no less a serial disrupter than the current president of our country seems to be tinkering with the idea (HERE). For what purpose one can only guess. In our case, though, it was with the intention of creating and funding the sort of public safety net that so often is dismissed as unrealistic and unaffordable by the captains of capitalism: Basic Income and Universal Health Care for starters. Royalties of half the multi-trillion dollar valuation of these companies would fund them very nicely.