Air Date: Week of February 15, 2002

This week we dip into the Living on Earth mailbag to hear what listeners have to say.

Transcript

CURWOOD: It's Living on Earth, I'm Steve Curwood, and if you have a pair of headphones nearby you might want to put them on to fully appreciate our upcoming audio walk with artist Janet Cardiff. But first...

[THEME MUSIC]

CURWOOD: ...time for comments from you, our listeners.

Terry Link's commentary suggesting that newscasts contain updates on ecological, as well as, economic indicators, struck a chord with some listeners. "It always bothers me when I hear the Dow Jones reported as though it were the only thing in the world that merited a daily update," wrote KSMF listener Dave Levine, from Williams, Oregon. "How about a report on topsoil loss on the Great Plains, or a feature on the breeding numbers of Kirtlands' warblers, Blackfooted Ferrets, and California condors?"

KERA listener Kim Smith, from Fort Worth Texas, had a visceral reaction to our EarthEar soundscape last week, of vultures picking away at a zebra carcass on the African plains. "I about shed my skin listening today," she writes. "I screamed at you guys. Then I laughed, jumped up from my desk, stuck my fingers into my ears, started for the stereo, and turned you down for three minutes. Some things, you should warn us about. Y'all, that was just really too much. Good job. Now, quit it."

And finally, our recent Technology Note about pumping nitrogen into bilge water, to prevent rust and kill invasive tagalongs, sounded very familiar to Jim Takos. He hears us on WVPM in Morgantown, West Virginia, and wrote: "I want your assurances that the lead scientist who came up with this idea does not have a patch over one eye, hasn't recently been jilted by his fiancée, and does not know an American reporter who looks like Raymond Burr. Your story sounds a lot like the original Godzilla! They got him with the oxygen destroyer too. Just wanted to check."

[MUSIC: Akira Ifukube, "Suite from Godzilla", THE BEST OF GODZILLA (Crescendo - 1998)]

We welcome all your comments. Call our listener line anytime, at 800.218.9988. Or write to 8 Story Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138. Our e-mail address is letters@loe.org. And visit our Web page at www.loe.org. Tapes, CDs and transcripts are $15.00.

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