Monday, November 19, 2007

Open Thread

Got NPR related comments? Post them here.
Posted by Mytwords at 6:19 AM
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4 comments:

Porter Melmoth said...

From my blog:

When I heard NPR's Jackie Northam, a proudly seasoned reporter supposedly used to Asiatic climes, refer to a particular area in northwestern Pakistan as 'someTHING called the Swat Valley', then blithely called it a 'tourist zone', I thought, stupid, stupid people. They make my eyeteeth curl. A minor detail, perhaps, but it speaks volumes of the dismissive tone of some of these worthless hacks. Philip Reeves never would have engaged in such a blatant lack of meticulousness, in a region where meticulousness is absolutely required. This 'thing' called the Swat Valley is, or was, a profoundly beautiful region with a hospitable populace, whose splendid isolation has been ruined by Bush's mobile 'war on terror'. Oh, and a busy Jackie also says 'the Islamists' are coming, and that they're heading to all the cities in Pakistan. Never mind the 160 million other Pakistanis, engaged in their daily lives, hardly affected at all by Musharraf's state of emergency, who might have something to say about that.

My point being: more depth of understanding is required from the western media if they are going to take on the subcontinent. It seems that in the western media's view, the essentials that I have only started to outline above, (in my blog) are not really attended to, or even acknowledged. If the media are not up for the job, they had best stay home and cover the region via Google Earth and just make cell phone calls.

11/19/07, 3:01 PM
Mytwords said...

Thanks for sharing your post, Porter...amen.

11/19/07, 6:31 PM
Anonymous said...

Sunday's weekend edition had an interview with the author of a new book who claims to understand Lee Harvey Oswald, and what went through his mind as he 'killed JFK'. I understand that NPR is selling the books of the authors it promotes, but there was not a single challenging question as to the fundamental veracity of the primary assumption. I really felt the subject of some psy-ops effort to tranquil the savage conspiracy theorist. As the author was describing how "easy" the shot was from the book depository, I remembered the words of my father's colleague, who was a Latin American Skeet shooting champion: "Not those shots, with that man, and that rifle". Of course there were several shots, which has always led to speculation about how rapidly a single shooter could have re-loaded a bolt-action rifle. But questions such as this, and the change in parade route, and, well, where's JFK's skull? never seemed to make it into the story. In fact the whole interview fits nicely into my conspiracy theory. Apparently, in a choice between informing listeners and selling books, the listeners lose.

11/19/07, 7:10 PM
Mytwords said...

Yeah, the Oswald piece was worthy of a post, but just no time. I especially loved the sainting of Kennedy and all the progress he was ushering in. I kept thinking that the obvious reason people keep looking for conspiracies is because the US government (including Kennedy's admin) is always engaged in criminal, murderous, secretive activities...duh...

11/19/07, 8:56 PM

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