Saturday, May 12, 2007

Open Thread - Saturday

NPR related comments welcomed.

2 comments:

Porter Melmoth said...

Lil' Scottie's Story Time continued in fine, gruesome form this morn. But what's new there? Well, the thing is, in the past few weeks - ever since, it seems, the 'Surge' was proven to be a failure (!) - all the NPR News shows have, to my mind, taken on a distinctly more lightweight, or lighter, fluffier tone than usual. Creampuff feature stories abound. As another contributor pointed out recently, even the usually reliable 'On Point' seems more prone to mount 'fun' subjects on the show. I wonder, a new gang behind the scenes, with a Neo-Agnew agenda to inflict the Ho-Ho-Ho News on us while Baghdad continues to burn? Not only was Scottie tut-tutting Dan Schorr about being too hard on my good buddy Wolfie, but the Ho-Ho-Ho News climaxed with Gwen Tompkins' odious 'report' from Southern Sudan, in which she hopscotched through that unhappy land, peppering her jabbering with Mall-talk-isms so that the white folks listening could feel more comfortable and not be so obsessive with their 'I'm glad I don't have to live in Southern Sudan!' thoughts. Her single most significant analysis of the capital city, Juba, remains: that it has only one paved road.
It's too bad, but the timbre of Tompkins' voice is really quite fine, but it's perfect for these boutique-y 'reports'.

Porter Melmoth said...

And what the hell's with Jamie Tarabay? I love Aussie culture and diction, but she sounds like her mouth is full of mucus-coated rubber bands, further tweaked by a sound engineer back at NPR HQ, playing tricks on her by morphing her reports into wobble-degook! Or maybe it's a case of too many Green Zone Pizza Hut fry-ups.
Why do these things have to bug me so much? Why??