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Looks like I'm back blogging with about one post a week. You can also see what I'm up to on the NPR website: see my "Postings at NPR" links over on the sidebar.
My fiancee' commented to me last night that she is looking to burn some music CDs to replace trying to listen to NPR as she drives her truck. Expressed disgust this morning that the same installment of Bob Edwards' Morning has ran on WEKU for the third Saturday in a row. She wondered if Bob Edwards was dying or something. I figure he and Garrison Keillor are out having a bender or something since the Ennui Home Companion seems to be in a similar rut.
Speaking of Garrison, he has a lot of nerve saying that Mark Twain's autobiography were just the ramblings of an old man given what he does every week on that execrable excuse for a radio show of his.
By the way, in case you missed the sunny Saturday edition appraisal: war against those 9/11 plotters in Afghanistan is going great guns and our hearts are with the ninety year old lady who crafts nice things for the troops and says a little prayer with each knit and peril, because, as every fighting soldier knows, there's an 'I' in peril.
I'm proud to say that I just stimulated the economy by giving a nice little Xmas gift to Democracy Now!
The nice thing about NPR is that their propaganda is entirely predictable.
No matter how long you are away from NPR, you can pick up pretty much where you left off.
You can depend on the fact that NPR will be shilling for the powers that be until the day their funding is cut off -- which may be sooner than we think once the Republicans get back in the house.
We can always hope.
Garrison's just jealous that Mr. Clemons, 100 years dead, still outdoes him in every respect, and always will.
Sorry Mr. ClemENS, I greatly exaggerated spelling your name.
Four Ports To Warm A Winter Wine Glass
I don't want to be the frumpy grinch who can't stand to see people enjoying themselves, but...hearing Snotty (FW) Simian gush about how $100/bottle port melts on his tongue is, well, an indulgence too far. Given poverty in Wash., D.C., a story on freegan kitchens would have been more tasteful.
Can you imagine that story about desert wines on DN? Wow. The mere attempt gives me whip-brain.
AMY GOODMAN: Do I need to let the port breath in its new container?
Gary Vaynerchuk: Well, we've had it prebreathed for you.
AG: The delicate hue of this 2004 Quinta Do Noval matches the terra cotta veranda at my Nantucket home.
GV: That's why chose it for you.
...
dessert, too...also
Wow, sippin' Port with scottie! Who said Nauseating Pile o' Rubbish stands for nothing?
Lieanne Hansen was at it again this morning with the usual pack of lies about "progress" in Afghanistan. She called up some military guy and let him spew his talking points. Even the military guy seemed a bit surprised his spewing went unchallenged.
The story after that about net neutrality surprised me because it was blunt and candid in the way I used to see from NPR. Lieanne must not have had any idea what the reporter was going to say before she introduced it because she ladled this gristly piece of crap out of her stew of lies: "public interest groups and tech companies say net neutrality favors the giant phone and cable companies that provide broadband access to millions of Americans..."
"It's almost like an orchard, reduced somehow," Simon agrees. "It's just pumped into your nostrils." -- Scott Simon
What a way with words.
What utter rubbish.
How anyone can actually listen to that guy without puking is a complete mystery.
He is so full of himself -- and full of it -- that I think he actually believes he is coming across as sophisticated.
but he's really just nauseating, perhaps the MOST nauseating of anyone at NPR -- and that is saying a lot.
Simpleton Simon talked about the "word of the year" on Saturday and he said, "I'm just saying" covered snarky and snide comments. So I went to his Twits 'R Us page and said that Scott Simon was the Liberal Hawk and I wasn't JUST saying that. Some one accused me of expressing opinion as fact so I posted his justification for the war on terrorism (of course in the context of his Quaker background according to San Pete(in Utah). And while I was looking for that I found this: http://www.friendsjournal.org/friends-journal-readers-response
Took him 18 months to come up with this piece of crap.
"The war against terrorism does not shove American power into places where it has no place. It calls on America's military strength in a global crisis in which peaceful solutions are not apparent." simon in WSJ
edk
A pre-Christmas national fund raisere on Saturday and Sunday (same show repeated - and within the show itself the second half was a repeat of first half sheeesh) but anyway.
They had a segment where Terry (Gasbag) Gross had a "conversation with Jon Stewart and it concerned his face off with Jim Cramer when Syweart called them out about their being wrong about the financial situation pre-collapse.
This was to demonstrate something to NPR listeners/financial supporters but I wondered if any of them asked: When did NPR call out Jim Cramer and the rest of the banksters and fraudsters? There is such a disconnect between these listeners and the real world. They just send their cash in, love Terry Gross, and never stop to wonder why a comic is doing what NPR (and the rest) SHOULD be doing.
edk
Wow, Ed, that's pure, unfiltered Snott, oozing its unctuous bile without the inhibition of moist, flushable wipes. His To Friends Journal Readers: A Response is just so awful, I haven't yet been able to force myself all the way through it.
This bit is typical:
I have come to regret one phrase of my remarks in "Reflections on the Events of September 11." When I asserted that the hijackers of September 11 "hate us because they are psychotics," I was unfair—to psychotics. As several readers wrote, psychotics have a genuine mental disorder. It is often the product of a chemical or emotional imbalance. The hijackers of September 11 were mass murderers. As far as I can tell, they were in full possession of their faculties when they massacred 3,000 people.
I think perhaps he is, at heart, a simpleton - but a very dangerous and powerful simpleton. I'd thank you for finding that, if it hadn't so totally ruined my already bad mood.
Yes indeed, eNdtimes Public Radiation seems to be getting more whacked out than ever lately. Even Frank Browning (in Paris) sounds like he's been commanded to drink NPR's Happy Kool-Aid, so as to get more 'expression' into his delivery, so as to keep the young people from texting distractions. I really think they're getting that desperate.
Some of the druggy reactions don't seem to be going that well, though. Auntie Liane sounds depressed, Beardsley sounds like it's a real hassle just to say 'in Paaaris', and Jack Speer recites his last name as if it's the most boring thing on earth (he may have a point).
I know, these are tinkertoy details, but to my mind, very telling as far as what's going on behind the scenes. I would imagine that there's a certain terror about losing corporate funding, and the looming doom from Juangate that awaits in the next Congress.
Whatever...
Q: When you have a hole in a regular old axis of evil, how do you fill it? (One word answer, please.)
A: Belarus!
OK, I'll try to keep it brief, but it's been pretty hilarious (pathetic, is more like it) to hear NPR's limp attempts to paint Belarus as a citadel of neo-Soviet satanism. Never mind that the US is in tight with Uzbek and Turkmen 'leaders', there's a Stalin wannabe in Minsk, and he's bound to go viral before too long.
David Greene, perhaps the greatest master of smug-smile talking at NPR, wasn't smiling so much during his 'coverage' of the election there though. Seems somebody on his crew had a Prince Charles moment amongst some protesters, and I'll bet that really pissed him off.
Anyway, Greene's been doing yeoman work in the former USSR, what with the hubbub in Kyrgyzstan, which he just happened to turn up in time for, and who knows what else. He probably can't get access to Putin, so he's working on 'containment' from the fringes. Sort of takes me back to the good old Brezhnev days.
Auntie Liane, her quirky voice sounding more world-weary than ever, tried to rev up a little Cold War zing, but Greene didn't have much to give, though Linda Wiesenheimer got a bit of action out of him today.
Here's a possible future scoop from NPR: David Greene discovers that all the dictators/tyrants of the world (you know, Chavez, the Kims of N. Korea, Morales, Castro, and that guy in Minsk) all share Facebook pages. That'll knock that smartypants Assange guy out of the headlines all right.
Inching my way through Scott(MFW)Simon's piece in the Friends Journal: To Friends Journal Readers: A Response, I find this:
I did a story from the Kabul soccer stadium. When the Taliban was in power, thousands of people would be rounded up from the streets of Kabul and locked into that stadium each Friday afternoon. Then, 12, 18, 20, or 25 people would be marched onto the field and executed by Taliban "judges" for various religious crimes. (Perhaps it is needless to add: there were no appeals, no inquiry of a free press, and no F. Lee Bailey or ACLU to file last-minute appeals.)
Trouble is, he provides no documentation (not even his own) of these events and a search of the internets provides none. So...what is he talking about? Anybody have any idea if he actually did this first-hand reporting and, if so, that he documented it?
The Taliban Soccer field is a recurring piece of Neo-Con agit-prop. Even if it is truce, Scott (The Bloody Quaker Bush cheerleader) Simon's moral outrage is always selective and politically skewed to be FOX approved.
Per US State Deptl's "2009 Human Rights Report: Saudi Arabia"
"During the year the media reported that the government announced 64 executions by beheading. Closed court proceedings in capital cases made it impossible to determine whether the accused were allowed to present a defense or were granted basic due process. There were no executions for sorcery during the year, although death sentences for two women and two men convicted of witchcraft and sorcery remained in effect. The government executed 102 persons in 2008 and 153 persons in 2007."
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/nea/136079.htm#
Here's a heart warming interview BBC with Saudi Arabia's top executioner:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2966790.stm
Here's what Amnesty International says about the Saudi's:
"At least 102 men and women, 39 of them foreign nationals, were executed in 2008. Many were executed for non-violent offences, including drug offences, “sodomy”, blasphemy and apostasy. Most executions were held in public." [Public includes a soccer field too, but the Saudi's also televise their executions.-GD]
http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/saudi-arabia/report-2009
Mr. Simon is quite selective in his moral outrage. For example, the arrest an detention without trial of one reporter in Iran is an outrage to Scott, while detention without trial AND TORTURE of dozens reporter in Iraq by US forces is ignored.
Another example, three US hikers that violated Iran's border are imprisoned, yet hundreds of innocent prisoned AND TORTURED at Gitmos, Iraqi prisons, and other black sites, not a concern for the Bloody Quaker.
The Saudi's human rights record and promotion of terrorism is far worse than Iran, yet never mentioned or reported on his programs. It seem to me Mr. Simon doesn't complain about the Saudi's because the Saudi's work hand-and-glove with US corporate interests, including his boss at the WSJ Rupert Murdock.
China's treatment of Tibet is also of limits to Scott and the NPR little FOXes.
Simon's concern for human rights is a calculated function of FOX agit-prop and the Neo-cons' enemies list both ensure him a nice paycheck. I don't know if Mr. Simon is Quaker, but I am sure that Simon pro-torture cheer-aw, "reporting" proves he isn't a Christian.
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