So How Did You Discover Aural Moon?

[Roger -Dot- Lee(Admin)]

Originally Posted by Wojtek

After a few months in March 2004 I visited again. Avian, Keithie and someone third was in the BR and this is how all started. I remember KW had a headache . Next day there was again KW in chat room and I met Mossy. That was around noon and I was very surprised to read that Mossy listened to AM at night. Hah!! Good old days . In 2004 European morning crew was extremely active. No sooner after me Jam joined, KW was around every morning so we had a huge amount of faff.

I remember those days. I was wasting my existence at HP at the time. I was part of the European Morning Crowd as well (even if it was 3am local time). We had some wonderful conversations. I remember asking about whether or not the end of Communism actually benefitted the regular folk in Poland like we in the US were hoping it would.

Those were the days....

[mossy]

Yes those early morning faffs in 2003/2004 were the only way to start the day. Unfortunately, since I'm on pacific time, I had to get up at 4 am to do it. I managed to do this for about six months, then I got old. I also got married, which, by default, put an end to getting up at 4 am and hopping on the puter. Steady Stan, tee, jamforte, keith, woj, mortis, sometimes rick, vax, the Spaniards siluencar and david, sometimes lotus? Stan got the theme cooking and we had a good time. Dot, I think I was gone from the routine already when you started doing the morning shift. Good memories indeed.

[mossy]

I forgot Artemis....it was a hoot having stan on there and then his wife logging in from work.

[Wojtek]

Originally Posted by Roger -Dot- Lee

I remember asking about whether or not the end of Communism actually benefitted the regular folk in Poland like we in the US were hoping it would.

Those were the days....

Yes. These were cool discussions. I remember you were also very interested in linguistic matters.

Originally Posted by Andyyyy

I wonder what his answer was. Years ago, I was a member of Solidarnosc California. We raised money to help Solidarnosc in Poland. Now that the Commies are mostly out of power, it's interesting to hear that some actually miss the socialism of the old days. Though I should add, it's the security they think they had in those days.

My answer was probably same as I would respond today. No doubt it was good to get rid of communists and socialism. But the spectre of the past is still present today.. I mean..of course there is completely different, better reality now but within decade and a half we didn't manage to repair what had been done during 50 years. Health care still is in fatal condition, roads are poor, some aspects of mentality are echoes from the bad times.

[Roger -Dot- Lee(Admin)]

Originally Posted by Wojtek

Yes. These were cool discussions. I remember you were also very interested in linguistic matters.

That hasn't changed one bit. I'm a bit more wise to the ways of Slavic linguistics (though some of them still leave me a bit confused -- a matter we can discuss when we both have leisure).

And then there was the popping of Dance on a Volcano for the local Football squad before a game...

Originally Posted by Wojtek

My answer was probably same as I would respond today. No doubt it was good to get rid of communists and socialism. But the spectre of the past is still present today.. I mean..of course there is completely different, better reality now but within decade and a half we didn't manage to repair what had been done during 50 years. Health care still is in fatal condition, roads are poor, some aspects of mentality are echoes from the bad times.

Something that I've noticed in observing the emergence of many countries from under the thumb of Lenin's Great Social Experiment is that some are doing better than others. It's a complete and total reversal of mindset from Communism to a Capitalist state of affairs. This isn't going to happen overnight. Countries are having to redesign their entire government/populace interaction. And, people being what they are, the spectre of the NKVD/KGB/Stasi/Whatever being greatly diminished if not outright eliminated, people are going to start looking out much more for themselves without giving any thought to what it might do to anyone else (or, in many cases, knowing and not caring). We in the west have been very fortunate to have most of these kinks worked out years ago. Many places in Eastern Europe and Asia are not so fortunate.

Additionally, most of the former communist nations' citizens were under communist influence for their entire life. They had no clue as to what life was without it, due to the information constraints in place under the Soviets. Thus, they have the taste for freedom, but no inklings of the responsibilities that go along with those freedoms. One that I've noticed that seems to have taken many, especially from the former CIS states (I've seen this in people from Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan personally) is that the right to succeed in what you want to do also comes with the unspoken right to fail. During communism, failure wasn't an option, so by definition, one succeeded regardless of the success of the project (see Chornobyl for a perfect example of this at an infrastructure level -- that's a report that'll age you very quickly -- almost as quickly as the event did at the citizens of Pripyat'). With the fall of Communism, people got to see failure for what it really was. Unfortunately, a lot of them weren't able to adjust.

The Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) are, of course, exceptions. But then, they've always been exceptions that have annoyed the Russians to no end.

Whee. I haven't had a brain dump like that in a long time.

Roger -Dot- Lee, Political Science and Prog -- a nice way of spending a balmy summer weekend.

[AngelSings4u2]

We discovered Aural Moon through the Gagliarchives...and we love it!

[podakayne]

after discovering you could get music thru the computer i found live365 as well as saw your listing on the progradio.net station listings, listened mostly from home...never went to the site till i got tired of trying to get the music at work and visited hoping for a bit of info...i registered then and finally got music thru windows media player.

then one day in 2003 when you got the new look (gosh i forget what the site looked like before the blue/black design) i was at a seminar and wanted some music during the lunch break...i logged on, saw the new look and the now famous black box registering listeners talking...been great ever since.

everyone was so very nice and down to earth, really wonderful people here.

i love it!