The Gastrocast

As a Mac user, fan of iTunes–as it used to be–and a podcaster (yeah, okay only for 14 weeks and a few experiments before that. . . ) I have been, like most, curious to see what effect Apple’s podcasting client would have. Apple announced today that 1 million podcasts have been subscribed to in the last two days. So I tootled over to the iTunes Store Podcast Department to A) see if I have been listed yet–No. Still seems weird when there are so many other minor players included. . . . B) Just who’s shows are being subscribed to.



Imagine my surprise to see the top podcasts subscribed to via iTunes for the most part aren’t even podcasts at all! Unless, of course, you believe a re-released radio show or other commercial broadcast programming entity served by RSS to be a podcast.  What’s more, with the exception of the Adam Curry Podcasting Empire, very little original content is being served. Disney, ABC. . . .glad to see they’re there to spread the word about individualism, free expression and taking control away from the corrupt mainstream media.



Podcasting ain’t Radio folks–some might try to morph it. Wannabe’s and out of work Shock Jocks. But if Podcasting becomes the new Radio, then we have lost and failed ourselves. Radio is radio and it has been killing itself for the last 20 years. Thank God Apple hasn’t yet realised how much Anti-Apple/iTunes material is being served over it’s confused and mis-categorised podcasting client. The revolution which had already begun has restarted, and we’re beginning to see the appoligists, retractors and backsliders already.

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Firstly, Lloyd Davis has written in two posts a great manifesto of sorts about blogging and why he blogs. It is well worth the read. The fact that Lloyd’s blogging philosohy extends over to podcasting and other new media is great. This opening of conversations between unknown peoples is great. It is really brilliant stuff so I won’t try to elaborate on it more here. It’s good to see someone else using a white board for something other than equations and marketing strategy. . . .



Secondly, I am beginning to regret my decision to opt in to the iTunes podcasting phenomenon. Between the stripping of links, the bizzare new RSS tags I can’t include yet, and other oddities I think that there are problems which will need to be met and soon. I keep finding errors in the way podcasts are listed, and how they are served. I reluctantly subscribed to Adam Curry’s Podfinder show to find out what it was about only to find out when I went to play it I did not have permission to play it on my computer. Permission from whom? Is this the way other podcasts are going to be treated? No thanks.



So this morning I did a search to see if I’ve been included in the list–not yet. But it seems everybody else has. Even people who’d probably rather not be included or don’t care one way–Lloyd’s Perfect Path Audio blogs have a category but no shows. Bicyclemark’s Audiocommunique is there. Did anyone get notification whether they wanted to be included or not? Usually it is a struggle to get a podcast recognised in the directories of your choice. Apple made it unforgivingly easy–just take a lucky dip in the 5000 podcasts out there. And no this isn’t resentment because I was not chosen. I’d love the chance at recognition and audience Apple may bring, but not on thier terms. Podcasting is about individualism and freedom of expression. It is about small and new challenging large and staid. Yet in the hands of big corporations it is more of the same–Apple giving Disney the lion’s share of the top podcasts in the opening page of the directory. How does this represent podcasting to a new audience? They’ll find out eventually what it’s been all about from the beginning. What was that, a fluke? Once it’s white-washed by the corporate machine and made more respectible will it be any better? Podcasting, like blogging is here to stay–and its more about the empowerment of the little individual than it will ever be about the corporate, capitalist machine, despite how said machine manipulates it.

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Planet Raw Milk has a great article on PETA’s move to eliminate dairy from our diets based on the belief that the cows which produce are milk are cruelly treated and live in squalid conditions. This seems to be a case of cutting off your hand to remove a wart. It’s akin to the rants of Vegans against the meat industry. Classically this is a case of the activists missing the mark. Rather than point to specific remedies, PETA obfuscates the issue. Suggesting that we free the cows from thier bondage is great, but how do we solve the problem that creates? However you feel about it our rights are being diminished here–look at the issue of Fois Gras.



Rather than jump on the ban-everything bandwagon we need to come up with rational solutions. Rather than move to ban all dairy let’s find a solution that works for everyone (except the Big Dairy Concearns). Granted, there are huge problems with our Food Sources. Factory farming is a disaster. Our Dairy and Beef industry are guilty of attrocities beyond belief. Does that make eating milk or beef morally wrong? No. What is wrong is attacking all dairies, all cattle ranches. Consumer’s need to make a statement that they aren’t going to put up with the abuse of thier food sources. Dairies need to evolve to the next level–small format, fresh, local, healthy animals. Same with beef. We need to get away from resource wasteful grain fed animals and start back to grassfed beef, and dairy cattle which graze on real grass. Surely we haven’t paved over every last bit of farmland, have we?

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