NPR dribble

Big NPR fan but some of the stuff is straight dribble. Listening to Nina and the gang the other morning. Basketball deflections. Big story. Stats posted during half time. Who cares. I guess some other people do. Food fight. A child was hit in the eye with a cookie. John McCain saw someone climb over a fence at the border. A hospital decided not to pay for an expensive cancer drug. Some jobs coming back to Texas. These then were the chewy stories on the Morning Edition.

And of course . it was all dressed up in the NPR campy reporting. The guy who does it sounds like he is ten and it all sounds very relevant. But that is news now right? It sounds relevant and very important but it's not really. In fact most news has very little relevancy to our lives and a lot of it is not really news at all but opinion dressed up like fact. Or it is just fluff.

Take the basketball stats story. Deflections and their impact on the game. I don't know maybe I missed something but why is this a story. John McCain saw a lady climb the fence in Arizona and get arrested. Hmmm. I guess. It didn't have a thing to do with immigration reform but it was a lead story. Again. Who cares. The hospital that decided not to pay for an eleven thousand dollar cancer drug and then posted an op-ed about it. Wow. Groundbreaking. Then the drug company dropped the price by half. Ok.

Oh and oil demand could be tapering off by end of the decade. Natural gas and more fuel efficient cars. Wow.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
 

The Bushwhacking of NPR

You should be concerned about this one if you go to movies, plays, the ballet, poetry readings, book readings, galleries, enjoy fine wine, a good book, a symphony on the lawn, Mozart, the Beatles, just about anything to do with culture. Because let's say the bad guys have a point in busting up the unions and cutting every social program they can get their hands on. You could almost say that they are doing some of this out of true fiscal concern or at the very least ideology. But trying to destroy National Public Radio is attacking what is left of culture in this country and every single Sesame Street watching child and Ken Burns devotee should really say enough is enough.

What? We want to cement Sarah Palins bet that America is truly a stupid country? That in fact the lowest common denominator should rule the land? That some short sighted ideologue who was probably the weird guy in the class who entertained Timothy McVeigh fantasies and saw the government as evil but then veered into fame as a better way to satisfy his tortured loner geek soul could now score points by trying to take down the wine drinking cheese crowd by getting an NPR executive to spill  his guts so he could prove what a left leaning organization NPR really is, is really pathetic and a true low point in what American society is capable of producing.

Let's say we get rid of NPR. Let's say we get rid of culture. Let's say the stupid men rule the land. Now what? Without culture you do not have a country. You have no collective national consciousness to balance the insidious vapidity of crass commercialism which rolls along F. Scotts Fitzgerald's definition of cheap entertainment as simply heroin of the soul. Even rabid conservatives  want to go see a fine play or enjoy a night at the symphony after a long day of taking bottles from children and cutting out funding for the education, women, infants, and poor  people. But alas, they cut out culture too and instead of Stravinsky  they are stuck with Die Hard 6.

So this is not about scoring points. NPR is part of America. America needs something elevated to balance the natural crassness of a country founded on the almighty dollar as it's guiding light after paying lip service to liberty and freedom. We need it if only to keep the creeps in the corners and our own hope alive that one day we will get beyond the infancy of  the mega commercial state. We can only hope NPR is still around when the dust settles after the conservative slash and burn orgy of 2011.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man will blast off April 26th

The Boors at the Party--The Right threatens NPR Funding

In our old neighborhood there was a woman who came to parties and offended everyone. Cathy just couldn't help herself and in our liberal city enclave she managed to stick a size ten right wing shoe in her mouth every time. The women kept inviting Cathy to parties but eventually even mothers in arms could not save her from her continual faux-pas, brilliant denunciations of progressives, crass jokes, idolatry on par with a talk show host who just cant keep stepping over his guests. Eventually even Cathy realized she wasn't having a great time, but this made her more ornery, more obnoxious, to the point where fights would break out. She just couldn't get over the fact that there was a dividing line between her progressive college educated neighbors and her rustbelt background.

Billy O'Reilly wants to take away funding for NPR over the Juan Williams firing. Juan is now happily ensconced in Foxland and appeared on the Huckabee show complaining he cant sleep and is still in shock. I mean I said nothing wrong he lamented to the nodding Huckabee who told him he was a loyal American and that they were all behind him. Juan looked like  man who had drank too much at a party and now wasn't so sure he liked the hosts. Of course he isn't sleeping because he doesn't like his new bedfellows all that much, two million bucks can give you a lot of cushion, but it is sort of lumpy.

The whole right is up in arms about the firing of Juan which really brings us full circle to Cathy. It is not that O'reilly and the boys care that much about Juan or even the Muslims, it is really that they just are frustrated there is a party that they are not invited too. Like Cathy they have gone to the party, but there is a difference between them and their progressive brethren that makes them feel like a kids who didn't get invited to a sleepover. NPR is the biggest sleepover of them all and now they see a chance to take down the hosts.

If there is anything that is more offensive to the right it is that there is a difference that goes beyond issues, that goes to who we are. It is the elitism in liberal elites that they feel keenly. They want to think they can walk the line wherever they choose and those dumb liberals just don't understand the way the world is. But then it occurs to them that maybe they aren't really wanted at the party, maybe they just don't get it. Like Cathy, that makes them more obnoxious, more of a boor, more of pluck thine own eye out it it offends thee devotee. Taking away NPR funding will not get them an invitation to sit down and break bread with smart people. Like Cathy, once again, they will simply not be invited.

William Hazelgrove's latest novel is Rocket Man due out in the fall
http://www.billhazelgrove.com/