Empire of the Air

Friday, March 02, 2007 by Dave Winer.

I've been watching the Ken Burns documentary Empire of the Air, the history of radio. Highly recommended. 

There was a pivotal, electrifying moment in the story, an interview with Helen Kelley, who was around when radio was new (interestingly she didn't seem that old, must have been an old interview). She said there came a point soon after she started listening to radio when she realized she could stop practicing the piano, because she "didn't have to make her own music anymore." 

I said out loud: There it is, that's the moment we're reversing now. It was a mistake to believe that creativity was something you could delegate, no matter how much better they were than you, because it's an important human activity, like breathing, eating, walking, laughing, loving.