Monday, January 26, 2009

$+!@*&/% !

Tonight NPR takes us on a time trip back to Leave it To Beaver Land. Given the problems that the world is facing, you might hope NPR would do a story on the founder(s) of a group working for social change that actually challenges the powerful instead of a fricking "No Cussing" club.

I went ahead and dropped the following comment on the NPR web site:
Global climate catastrophe, 1.3 million civilians dead in the Iraq War, the curse of child labor, insane global war spending, global assaults on human rights, etc. and NPR devotes 4.5 minutes of prime news time to this trivial "No Cussing" campaign - well, damn!

9 comments:

Life As I Know It Now said...

Devoting time to non-stories and in between filling the gaps with bits of music to pass the time. They obviously don't have much to say.

Madison Wilburs said...

What could be worse than the Alberto Gonzales interview they aired today? A softball to promote Algo's new book? What about the new administration and its Justice dept.?

nash said...

Indeed! I caught that one today myself and was mystified by the waste of time.

It is quite striking how, for a network that's ostensibly serious and cerebral, so much of NPR's "news" programming consists of lame fluff pieces like that one.

--nashtbrutusandshort
Categorical Aperitif

Hubertg said...

I beleive Madison pretty much nails it with the book promotion comment....otherwise Albert would still be in hiding. It was a waste of air time....we need real news.
These characters that want to promote themselves should stick to Letterman and Leno.

Madison Wilburs said...

Back to the cussing piece: as often happens on NPR, the best action is happening in the comments. Some of us are taking an inane story and using it as fodder to tackle some bigger issues. NPR opened up the can of worms of user comments; can they deal with the unrepentant slew of "Sir Arrogant" comments?

Hubertg said...

"Insane global war spending and global assaults on human rights"...
Yes it truly is insane...and in the land of 'freedom and justice for all' we fight tooth and nail for social justice.. I find it difficult to comprehend why this is so.

Anonymous said...

Did anyone else hear the torture apologist lineup on "Diane Rehm" Monday? I couldn't believe my ears, as said apologists recited a litany of terrible terror plots FOILED by Bush-era torture. Torture is good! And some of the callers concurred.

Anonymous said...

What could be worse than the Alberto Gonzales interview they aired today? A softball to promote Algo's new book?"

Reminds me of Michelle Norris' softball "interview" of Gonzales after the warrantless domestic spying revelation.

Norris basically gave Gonzales an opportunity to say whatever he wanted with little or no challenge.

It highlighted just what a journalist Norris is not.

Anonymous said...

Yes, you are all correct. Constant, mind-numbing fluff and propaganda is almost all we get from NPR. It is depressing and infuriating. Tell all your friends! Don't contribute any money to NPR. How, oh how, can the NPR "journalists" go into work everyday and produce that garbage? Are they brain washed? Robots? What?