Thursday, January 08, 2009

Q Tips

NPR related comments welcomed.
Posted by Mytwords at 4:52 AM
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18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Listening to Ari Shapiro's interview of Sari Nusseibeh this morning, I thought: this guy is a total tool. So I went over to As'ad AbuKhalil's (invaluable) Angry Arab News Service Blog so see if As'ad had anything to say about Nussiebeh and found this 2007 entry:

When the White Man finds a Wog he Likes, You have to give it to the White Man. Really. I mean, when he finds a wog that he likes, he really really promotes him/her. Look at the case of Sari Nusseibeh...

1/8/09, 6:01 AM
Anonymous said...

... On the other hand, the interview with Gregory Feifer about Russia's motives and haphazard entry into war in Afghanistan was excellent.

1/8/09, 6:03 AM
Anonymous said...

It took them ten days, but they did finally find someone who lives in Gaza to interview. It was a 4-1/2-minute piece on All Things Considered Tuesday, "Gaza Resident Describes Situation". Melissa Block was not completely terrible. Mr. Hamda conveyed the fear and terror Israel is perpetrating. But Block does drift off into closing with "How do you know when a young man is or is not a Hamas militant?"

1/8/09, 10:05 AM
Porter Melmoth said...

A slight deviation:

Don't miss 'Vanity Fair's latest issue, which features a stinging preliminary oral history of Dubya's Thousand-Year Reich, complete with life-size (and kissable) portraits of all the essential sociopathic egomaniacs in the Bushy cabal. Some of the players are obviously trying to acquit themselves, a la Dougie Feith, but at least they're going on record, confirming what we already know.

Leadership is everything in mass media. VF's editor, Graydon Carter, has long pursued critical and exposing avenues concerning BushCorp. He's no firebrand, but at least he's using his leverage to allow for intelligent discussion. This, from what is supposedly a style/fluffball/glam mag. Contrast that with the supposedly 'thinking' NPR and one has no choice but to surmise that NPR = Nationalist Propaganda Radiation - yet again.

1/8/09, 10:30 AM
Anonymous said...

Appreciate the tip, Port. But alas, pin-ups of such scalliwags as "the dumbest $#%*-ing man on the planet" (or however Franks precisely phrased it) and -let me guess, Condi Rice-a-Phony's amongst the cast of characters as well?- is not my idea of a barrel o' fun (weaning self from NoPR was a major first step in refusing further self-abuse). Were they printed on toilet tissue, however...

(sorry to get all scatological on ya's - guess I'm still in recovery from that recent viewing of 'Salò')

1/8/09, 10:42 AM
Anonymous said...

Everyone should listen to today's broadcast of the BBC's World Have Your Say. You can download the show later today as a podcast. "Can Israel do whatever it wants?" Could NPR have a show like this?

BBC world Have Your Say podcasts

1/8/09, 12:24 PM
Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!) said...

But Block does drift off into closing with "How do you know when a young man is or is not a Hamas militant?"

Back in the 'Nam, there was a maxim: "If they're dead, they're VC."

1/8/09, 12:56 PM
Anonymous said...

"How do you know when a young man is or is not a Hamas militant?"

Jeebus. Perhaps when you steal his ancestor's land, allow him no livelihood, no normal life and no hope for the future, then systematically starve him and attempt to bomb him to smithereens in a bloody concentration camp? I dunno. Baffling. It's a puzzlement.

1/8/09, 1:15 PM
Anonymous said...

"If they're dead, they're VC"

Likewise, in Iraq, if they're "MAM", "Military Aged Men", it's okay to make them dead or toss them in a dungeon for years of torture. I recall a story Ann Garrels filed from her embed a few years ago where the Marines basically were rounding up all the MAMs they would run across. No wonder we have so many friends...

1/8/09, 1:24 PM
Anonymous said...

1/8/08 Talk of the Nation topic is the Oakland police shooting in the back of a man lying on his stomach already in custody.

Sounds like the callers-in include USG agents making much of 'anarchists smashing windows' and 'professional protesters' etc.

I've heard USG shills dominating and steering National Propaganda Radio's call-in shows before.

It would only make sense at Voice of America/NPR.

1/8/09, 1:54 PM
Anonymous said...

"If you work at the CIA or used to, give us a call."
I'm NOT kidding.

Now the 1/8/08 Talk of the Nation is actually a call-in from CIA people to give their comments about the appointment of Leon Panetta as DCI.

Former CIA Station Chief career honcho Milt Bearden on the phone for the whole segment. (He approves and thus knows that Panetta has been covert intel for ages.)

Voice of America people interviewing CIA people.
Now THAT's NPR in a nutshell.

1/8/09, 2:21 PM
Anonymous said...

I like reading this blog, but don't think I can really contribute much, as I am so utterly fed up with NPR's neocon controlled propaganda that I can't bear to listen at all anymore. This statement comes from a loyal listener of 25 years. Buh Bye.

1/8/09, 6:08 PM
Anonymous said...

Some comments on comments:

Porter, I second the rec on the Vanity Fair article -- it's a treasure of oral history. I wished it were five times as long.

Oddly, Todd Purdum, one of the authors, was on "Diane Rehm" today (alongside some reliable righties) and seemed to go more gentle on Cheney & BushCo than the article did. The topic was the so-called "debate" on Bush's (atrocious) legacy. No one but the callers would say Bush lied, that the "intelligence" wasn't just "faulty," it was invented. Such things are verboten on NPR.

"World Have Your Say" offers some invaluable international voices. My public radio station broadcasts it daily.

Anonymous, I caught some of that segment on the Oakland shooting & protests. It did sound like they were talking about "rabble rousing" and people rioting just for the love of smashing things. Conan's show never ceases to incite me to my own private riot.

1/8/09, 9:26 PM
Anonymous said...

What I don't get is how the REAL journalists at NPR (and there are some) stomach the endless stream of garbage from all the quacks (Inskeep, Gonyea, Norris, Liasson, Wortheimer, etc).
Then again. Maybe they are not real journalists, after all, cuz if they really gave a ...t, they would register the ultimate protest by quitting.

1/9/09, 7:15 AM
RepubLiecan said...

Anonymous at 6:08 PM

"I am so utterly fed up with NPR's neocon controlled propaganda that I can't bear to listen at all anymore. This statement comes from a loyal listener of 25 years. Buh Bye."

I feel your pain! I've managed to wean myself from Nationalist Propaganda Radio nooz over the past few weeks. I do catch small doses when its nooz precedes some entertainment segment I wish to listen to.

I think Newt Gingrich deserves a hardy well done. He couldn't zero out NPR's budget but he did zero out its efficacy.

1/9/09, 10:47 AM
RepubLiecan said...

Anonymous at 1/9/09 7:15 AM

Brings to mind a new wording for the acronym.

No Principled Reporters

1/9/09, 10:51 AM
Anonymous said...

I think Newt Gingrich deserves a hardy well done. He couldn't zero out NPR's budget but he did zero out its efficacy."

he would have done us all a favor if he had succeeded in zeroing out its budget.

"No Public Radio" would be better than National Propaganda Radio".

1/9/09, 12:37 PM
RepubLiecan said...

Anonymous @ 12:37 PM

I was thinking the same thing after I posted that comment. It makes me regret the letters I sent in support of NPR/PBS/CPB back in the 1990s.

1/9/09, 2:30 PM

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