I listened to KUT/NPR, The Morning Edition, on my commute in to work this morning. I now know that its cheaper, a lot cheaper, to live in Argentina compared to America. Around 15,000 Americans now reside in the South American country, most live in or around Buenos Aires or other large metropolitian areas. One American living in Buenos Aires, cited the price of real estate as his primary reason for immigrating; the costs of real estate is about five times less. This makes Argentina a very attractive locale for many artists, and other creative folk, due to the friendlier cost of living. You see, they can slack off and still keep food on their plate and not starve to death. I could take my lousy monthly wage down there and live pretty comfortably, for a time at least. So that's the plan: Graduate, work for few years, then off to Argentina for early retirement. There is, of course, a drawback. Many of Argentina's working middle class see the increase in American immigration as an ominous sign of things to come. Many Argentinians see the rise of prices in their country as going hand in hand with the rise of immigration; still the appeal of the low cost of living continues to draw immigrants from North America.
A second topic covered on the Morning Edition was the renewal of talks between Israel and Hammas in a effort to resuscitate the road map for peace. Apparently the only thing accomplished in this round of talks was the affirmation by all parties (US, Israel and the Palestinian Authority) of the need for more meetings and international involvement.
The remarkable thing about all of this is the fact that all of this information was relatively timely and current. My drive to work was only fifteen minutes so once I clocked in at my desk, I found KUT on the web and listened to their streaming web cast. I still have the web cast playing right now, I just mute it when customers are near. I have to be careful not to fall asleep though, some of the material really makes you yawn.
3 comments:
Sometimes we take for granted the things that we have access to, like the radio. It is such an old form of technology that we tend to forget how much it has changed our lives. The speed of news travel is almost instantaneous nowadays. We can find out exactly what is going on - on the other side of the world in seconds.
The news clip about Argentenia, who would have thought that we would be listening about a potential new lifestyle to live in? I wouldn't mind moving there. I think I could handle being artsy fartsy and just enjoying life. Sign me up!
I had never bothered to listen to NPR before this assignment. I probably still won't on a regular basis, considering the sheer number of sources from which to read/hear/see the news these days. But for a few days whenever I was in my car (the only place I have a working radio) NPR proved to be very useful and informative. There are alot of pauses and blanks that you don't get from normal broadcast radio, but even then the quality and amount of detail you can get form news stories was amazing. Listening to Morning Edition for 20 minutes, I got better stories with less bias and cheesy reporting like you would see on the television news. Considering that I was also thankful to get away from sappy human interest or "celebrity" news for a while. Although I really agree with you, if you're not careful or totally into it some of the on-air personalities can be really sleep inducing.
What is the difference between a program like this and a news hours on another station such as 590? Info like this is great to get the news on the go, but people are not on the road that often. A majority of the people get thier news from the televsion and a growing about from the internet.
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