Hi, this is Eric with a few thoughts for this week's housekeeping.

What I want to bring up this week is how to think about the portal podcast, and in particular

I want to give a few thoughts on how we should measure the scale of a critique or the

power of an idea and how these two different concepts might interrelate.

Many years ago I used to live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and we had our own very peculiar

notion of celebrities back then.

I mean Tracy Chapman literally used to busk on the street for money, and NPR's Cartalk

guys lived locally.

It was within that milieu that I would go to talks for entertainment.

As a broke graduate student, lectures were a godsend as they were free and plentiful.

I would attend them the way other people would go to movies or concerts, and from time to

time that would include Nome Chomsky's lectures on political theory as he worked at MIT.

I was always impressed by his sincerity and sometimes I would stay after and talk with him.

On one such occasion I told him that I had had a conversation with a contacted NPR, and

that that person might be interested in getting him a regular slot of perhaps five minutes

or more.

I was actually very excited to make something like this happen if it were in fact possible.

Nome's response was surprising to me at the time.

He was absolutely emphatic that he was not interested.

Somewhat stung, I asked him why he was so definite.

He replied in such a small slot against the backdrop of NPR filtered news, he would

appear to the audience to be a stark raving madman, and that there was no way of presenting

...