Thursday, January 24, 2008

Bull and Pop Goes the Wessel

Delicious irony again. For fun NPR this morning reported on Malaysian thieves who stole a cow and put it in the back seat of the getaway car. Montagne notes, "so the question lingers how did they squeeze a full sized cow into the back seat of a mid-sized sedan." Ah yes how do you squeeze a lot of bull into a small space?

Speaking of bulls (and bears - oh my) has anyone heard any leftist or progressive analysts on NPR news as they cover the current economic crisis? On Wednesday, Jim Zaroli touched base with Carmen Reinhart (worked as investment banker and for the IMF), and folks from The Economic Group and Global Insight. On Tuesday morning, Inskeep went to the Wessel well twice(!) for a Wall Street Journal perspective.

I don't have a problem hearing from these dedicated capitalists, but a little counterbalance would be in order, eh? Here's a few suggestions: Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect, or Dean Baker of the same magazine, the CEPR would be a good place to call, maybe Robert Weissman, or Chalmers Johnson, or Danny Schechter, or...

2 comments:

Porter Melmoth said...

Dream on, my good fellow! A balanced view is not what NPR's all about. They must please their clientele, both wannabe listeners and corporate in-crowd members. Surely the latter listen, if only for a few minutes, to 'their' NPR and think, 'Mission Accomplished'. Somebody like Chalmers Johnson would just recite an unwanted laundry list of truths that don't figure into the program, so to speak. Johnson's recent session on Democracy Now! was, to my mind, a landmark assessment of the American Empire's current status. NPR would never have the guts to even acknowledge such an analysis.

Anonymous said...

... or Paul Krugman. Right - oops.

And true to Porter's admonition, tonight Missy Temple (or was it Mee-first? shrugs, don't matta') introduced a segment by Aaahhhhdam Daaaaavidson (steee-rike one!) with some "entrepreneur guys" (yep, that's how they phrased it in true gen X-Y-Z vernacular). So by that alone, my knee-jerk reaction was *click* - fusion jazz for the ride home! "Prolly" gained more insight that way, too.