David Bouchier

In 1922 there were about 100,000 domestic radios in use in the whole United States, and 30 broadcasting stations. By 1924 there were half a million radio sets and over 500 stations. Radio just kept on growing from there.

Spring is here: the trees are leafing out, the flowers are springing up, taxes are falling due and the first air conditioning service vans are circulating coolly through the suburbs. This is the season of romance and it is, or should be, the time for spring weddings.

Self-image has always been a problem for our species. We worry far too much about how we look. A cat or a cockroach doesn’t fret about its appearance, but we humans have whole industries dedicated to making us appear better, more stylish and more attractive than we are.

Earth Day was established in 1970, and that was no accident. We were just beginning to see the Earth in a new way — from space. It is one thing to know intellectually that we live on a ball of dirt floating in the middle of infinite nothingness — it was quite another thing to see it as we saw it in those first photographs from the moon landings. Suddenly it was all too clear that this was it — this was all we had or would ever have by way of real estate, and perhaps we should take care of it.

The Federal tax deadline has been put back this year, which must please a lot of people. But the whole Kafkaesque system somehow seems less formidable than it once did, now we are living in a post-truth society where anyone can say any crazy thing and expect to be believed. Lies have been certified as truth at the highest level, which should make filling in the 1040 form much easier. The IRS, which in any case is overwhelmed by a backlog of tax returns, would surely never question our sincerely held beliefs about income and expenses, no matter how unlikely they seem.