So why did NPR need to remind us this is the anniversary of...

[BiggJawn]

...Chappaquiddick?
One of those "today is..." blurbs at the top of the hour before the news.

Hell, that's OK, they'll have "Prairie Home Companion" on later to keep the Liberals sending in the donations....

"This is NPR, National PUTSCH Radio..."

[Sporadicus]

1. I've Adopted the Term "National Petroleum Radio" Lately n/t

[luaneryder]

2. Apparently, this "anniversary"

is being kept in the news by freepers too who are on some sort of email/letter campaign to remind everyone of it.

[Jacobin]

3. The meme is:

"You can't trust them Northeastern libruls. Kerry is one of them, too. They all drive drunk, kill people, and are effete. Besides, they drive Volvos and drink lattes. Oh and they'll take all your guns away and kill your feces, er fetuses"

[Jacobin]

4. When is the anniversary of Laura killing her boyfriend?

Perhaps we could have NPR announce that as well.

[BiggJawn]

5. Or the anniversary of Scarborough killing Lori Klasustis?

THAT would be "Fair and Balanced"...

Or the anniversary of implanting Chandra's heart in TinMan's chest?

Yeah, I know...

[Jacobin]

8. That would be a good one too

[G_j]

6. today in history

http://www.indystar.com/articles/4/162953-7014-047.html
On this date:

• In A.D. 64, the Great Fire of Rome began.

• In 1940, the Democratic national convention in Chicago nominated President Franklin D. Roosevelt for an unprecedented third term.

• In 1944, Hideki Tojo was removed as Japanese premier and war minister because of setbacks suffered by his country in World War II.

• In 1947, President Truman signed the Presidential Succession Act, which placed the speaker of the House and the Senate president pro tempore next in the line of succession after the vice president.

• In 1984, a gunman opened fire at a McDonald's fast-food restaurant in San Ysidro, Calif., killing 21 people before being shot dead by police.

---
http://www.infoplease.com/ipd/A0533316.html
July 18th
1925
The first volume of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was published.

----
http://www.scopesys.com/anyday /


1536 Pope's authority declared void in England
1716 Jews are expelled from Brussels Belgium
1753 Lemuel Haynes, escapes from slaveholder in Framingham Mass
1814 British capture Prairie du Chien (Wisc)
1853 1st train to cross the US-Canada boundary, Portland, Me.-Montr‚al, PQ
1853 Completion of Grand Trunk Line, Americas 1st intl railroad
1872 Britain introduces secret ballot voting
1904 P Gotz discovers asteroid #538 Friederike
1914 US army air service 1st comes into being, in the Signal Corps
1918 US & French forces launch Aisne-Marne offensive in WW I
1927 Ty Cobb's 4,000th career hit
1932 US & Canada signed a treaty to develop St Lawrence Seaway
1936 Spanish Civil War begans, Gen Francisco Franco led uprising
1938 Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan arrives in Ireland-left NY for Calif
1940 1st successful helicopter flight, Stratford, Ct
1942 1st legal NJ horse race in 50 years; Garden State Park track opens
1942 Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe, 1st jet fighter, takes 1st flight
1947 US receives UN trusteeship over Pacific Islands
1951 Uruguay accepts its constitution
1955 1st electric power generated from atomic energy sold commercially
<snip>

[The Zanti Regent]

7. Time to shut down Nothing but Propaganda for Republicans!

NPR is a 24 hour Nazi Party organ.

It's time to pull the plugs!

[Selwynn]

12. This is the reason no one takes us seriously.

Sweeping generalized, over the top, extravagant and ridiculous all or nothing statements like this about the most liberal LEANING - key word LEARNING - media outlet of all major media out lets. More so than NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, CNN, MSNBC, etc.

It IS a major media outlet, meaning its never going to be some Air American propaganda tool to the left, but acting like NPR is a tool for the right is a laughable joke. Republicans HATE NPR and that bitch about it all the time! Why? Because NRP's political commentary is MODERATE - not flaming liberal and not flaming neo-conservative, and its social commentary and programming is very liberal.

Finally, keep in mind there is not single "NPR." Many local stations pick and choose some of the programs they will carry from both NPR and PRI (Public Radio International.) Here I get show's like Tavis Smiley and As it Happens and the absolute last thing you can call those shows is "right wing."

[Ernesto]

15. Selwynn.... You rock

These DUers sound more like freepers than responsible Dems. The fact is NPR has a HUGE national audience & without it, we'd be in much deeper shit than we are now....... I often think about Tavis Smilely when I hear someone ask "Where are the liberal talk shows?" Bro Tavis & company hammer chimpco relentlessly... Thanks for sounding off!

[The Zanti Regent]

17. NPR is NOT Moderate. It's the same Right Wing Crap!

Cokie Roberts always reciting the latest GOP lies?

Nina Tottenberg stabbing Anita Hill in the back?

Juan Williams reciting the same garbare he spews on 19th Century Fox?

Michelle Malkin recylcing the same shit that Ann KKKolter does???

If you want more examples of the total right wing bias of Nothing but Propaganda for Republicans, go to http://www.fair.org /

NPR is moderate if you only have a right butt cheek!

[Selwynn]

20. See my previous post. :)

[Donkeyboy75]

19. Yep, that's the problem with crying "media bias"

If something is said that doesn't further a political agenda by a media agent, suddenly that media outlet is "biased" against said agenda. For fuck's sake, all someone has to do is listen to Tavis Smiley to realize it's not a right wing shill. It's a lot easier to cry "bias" all the time instead of doing something meaningful

And BTW, does anyone really believe Air America isn't biased?

[Jerseygirltoo]

9. How about David Kelly's suicide?

It's the one year anniversary, and a lot more relevant than Cappaquiddick

[Selwynn]

10. NPR is the best station on all the radio!

Car talk, This American Life, the Michael Feldman show, As it happens, Talk of the nation-Science Friday and the Tavis Smiley show are fabulous shows.

The problem with most of you is you listen for the wrong reasons, and want the wrong things from NPR. NPR is public radio, not national liberal partisan radio. If you don't like the politics, don't listen to the politics shows. But don't expect that public radio should cater to your particular political world view either. As much as you gripe and complain about NPR, the conservative crowd gripes and complains even more about how liberal it is. Why? Because NPR occasionally has news programs that say things that make liberals upset, and then they occasionally say things that make conservatives upset.

NPR's news shows are at the very worst, of the centrist democratic persuasion, and it is impossible to even try to argue otherwise in an intellectually honest fashion. Oh, it feels good sometimes to bloviate all or nothing sweeping generalizations about how NPR is nothing by a conservative propaganda machine, but it sounds pretty stupid to anyone not caught up in the mindless rant. The real gripe of most people here is that NPR isn't a mindless liberal propaganda machine, and you don't like that. NPR is not, and will never be, nor should it be, Air America. If you're listening to NPR and looking for that, you went looking in the wrong place.

NPR continues to remain the most neutral of all major media outlets, having lots of social programming and commentary that liberals can identify with, having some news opinions that liberals can agree with, but also having some things that we might disagree with as well. There's nothing wrong with that. Even now, NPR beats NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, CNN, and MSNBC in terms of quality programming that reflects a more responsible perspective more often than not. More often than not - that's the key. Not every single hour of every day, but more often than not.

And again, to return to the beginning, Car talk, This American Life, the Michael Feldman show, As it happens, Talk of the nation-Science Friday and the Tavis Smiley show are fabulous shows. The problem with most of you is you listen for the wrong reasons, and want the wrong things from NPR.

[AP]

13. TOTN SUCKS! (Science Friday is OK, but I've written off TOTN the other

four days of the week, so I'm rarely in the habit of listening to TOTN-SF).

However, some of thos other shows are among the best things on the radio.

This American Life was the best thing on radio for years -- it tells stories about how real Americans live. However, now that they're making movies out of their stories, I get the feelign that they're now looking for stories that are more, well, "cinematic" and therefor it might lose some of what made it great.

Car Talk is FABULOUS because it tries to help people spend less and make sensible decisions about what, for most Americans, is the second or third biggest investment they make in their lives (after their homes and in some cases education).

I can't say enough good things about Tavis Smiley. I have purchased more interesting books which have serioudly informed the way I think about the world in the last two years after listening to their authors on Tavis Smiley. And his show is the ONLY place I've heard those authors interviewed. His interviews with the presidential candidates in the fall of 2003 -- the first person to have them all on consecutively -- really informed my opinions about the candidates at a very early stage. And where else can you regularly hear Cornell West talk about American culture and politics?

Another really good show is Latino-USA. If your station doesn't carry it, you should encourage them to do so.

NPR news is very disappointing, if you ask me. It is subltly reactionary, and the problem is that most of the listeners believe it's liberal. And NPR manipulates that audience to believe things that are not helpful if you're liberal.

One of the things that epitomizes this problem can be seen when NPR drops the act in those segments which are explicitly not news: those two minute opinion/story pieces. That Russian professor form Lousiana is OK, but he's the excpetion. The typical story is from a middle class woman complaining about the struggles of being middle class -- and the solution to her problem is so often, "don't feel guilty about being middle class -- go out and buy something! And don't look to your government to solve the problems of people who have it much worse than you." They do that in the "news" segments too, but much less explicitly.

They also do that very explicitly with Terry Gross too. Her guests are ALWAYS people who have something to sell (and they're always people who have no problem accessing commercial media--you rarely hear from them ONLY on Fresh Air). Ninety percent of the time, her show is trying to sell you a consumer good -- and one that's already going to sell 1 million copies or tickets or whatever.

And Terry seems to have a special fondness for the automobile industry. If you listen closely, she seems to do special duty trying to give cars a good image. I know it sounds crazy, but I've noticed...

[Selwynn]

14. I said TOTN, Science Friday, and I don't listen to Terry Gross

She come on at a time when I'm never in my car. :

TOTN is sometimes great sometimes not. As with so many thigns in life, it is really not "TOTALLY" anything.

"those two minute opinion/story pieces. That Russian professor form Lousiana is OK, but he's the excpetion. The typical story is from a middle class woman complaining about the struggles of being middle class -- and the solution to her problem is so often, "don't feel guilty about being middle class -- go out and buy something!"

I'm calling bullshit on that. I listen to the same pieces, and I can't think of the last time the "conclusion" was anything remotely close to that. A lot of those pieces are very moving for me, precisely becuase they often end with no utlimate solutions or answers, which leaves me stuck there to think about all I've just listened too. I challenge you to provide some specific examples where the final analysis of a human interest piece was "hey don't feel so bad, just go out an buy something!"

This to me just goes to show how much human beings basically hear what the want to hear, unless they critically train themselves to do otherwise. If you come to NPR with the pre-bias that says, "I think NPR is slanted towards the left, then that's exactly what you'll hear, as evidenced by the tons of concservative rants against "liberal" NPR. And if you come to NPR with the pre-biase that says, "I think NPR is slanted towards the right, or corporations, or whatever," then that's exactly what you will hear as well.

Basically, after listening for several years, because its better than music radio stantions on my long drives in my car, I can't say either the extreme that NPR is the most progressive radio station in america or the extreme that NPR is a right wing station. NPR basically has political programming that is pretty much center-left, and social programming and commentary that is firmly left.

[AP]

16. I totally hate it everytime I listen to it. I don't listen to it any-

more.

After what's-his-name left, I thought it could only get better. It didn't get much better at all. Mostly, I remeber the host trying to cut off people who still wanted to talk about the election theft. It's also one of those shows that seems to need to have two conservatives for every liberal they talk to.

Specific examples of "oh, how the middle class suffers":

The piece where the middle class woman wined about the anxiety she felt when she tried to feed her baby healthy food manufacturers (like, oh, say, monsanto, which wasn't make much money off the non-GMO, pesticide-free things she was feeding her kid before). She made fun of all the different things she bought -- organic this, natural that. Then she said she wasn't truly happy until she loosened up and started feeding her baby junk food. She felt liberated.

So, there you have it: consumption can make you feel good, especially when you consume in a way that makes money for heavily processed food. And we're totally begging the question about the way, say, a poor person feels about feeding their babies. If you want to talk about anxiety about feeding babies, let's talk about people who have anxiety over WEAHTER they can feed their babies.

That story was the standard template for those piecies -- they're something sort of funny that middle class people experience, but the subtle message is, "isnt' it difficult to be middle class...but don't worry, you can usually consume your way out of the anxiety...and please let's not compare my problems to REAL problems, let's just make my stupid problems seem like they're the most important problems in the world."

[Selwynn]

22. I know you hate it - you post on it all the time :)

However, your entire analysis is never backed up with anything other than subjective opinion. Now, I'm a pretty smart guy too, and I come nowhere near the same conclusions you make about human interest stories run on NPR.

You gave one specific example - one. How many pieces does NPR have in a year? What's more, I don't even agree with your interpretation of the one piece you did cite. I don't think the ultimate point was to say, hey consumerism is the answer! Seeing as how she wasn't consuming any MORE stuff, just different, less complicated stuff, it really doesn't seem to be about that.

What's more I reject that notion that just because a story was about a mother who didn't happen to be dirt poor means that it is somehow inappropriate or wrong. There are plenty of stories on NPR and PRI's many shows that deal very directly with the poorest of the poor. Several pieces on NPR have brought me to tear with their extremely frank and gripping presentation. At least one piece on NPR inspired me to action, volunteering my time for a particular agency dealing with poverty locally.

The bottom line is, you've chosen to have a view about NPR, now everything you ever see or hear will do nothing but confirm that view. When your mind gets fixated on a thing, you filter everything else out and see only that thing every where you turn. The fact of the matter is quite a few other sophisticated, intelligent, progressive minded people find lots of programming of value on NPR - they clearly get something different out of it than you. If you don't, great - don't listen to it. But at least by intellectually honest enough to recognize your own biases and, in lieu of an actual detail chain of evidence with a clear and obvious pattern, consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, you're reading something into it that isn't actually there, or not there 99% of the time.

Very few things are either/or in this world. But NPR has something of positive value more often than it has something I'd rather not listen to. Now this morning they had an interview with Rumsfeld. That is not what I wanted to hear on NPR. So you know what I did? I didn't come here and post a tirade about how NPR is some right wing propaganda machine. Because I know that's an extreme exaggeration to the point of being false. What I did do was turn off the program I didn't want to listen to, and come back to it when it was something I did want to hear. Problem solved.

[BiggJawn]

18. All those aren't my cuppa, either.

"Car Talk". How many phone calls from people asking if it's OK to drive around town without gasoline, because their therapist told them driving without gasoline was bad for the spark plugs or something can you stand. OK, a little hyperbole, but I know how to fix a car, I don't find it amusing to listen to people wondering about a rattle in their 240,000 mile-old Volvo.

I wish somebody would explain Michael Feldman to me. I don't get it. I think it's entertainment for "Down East" Post-Yuppies or something. I didn't like "Thirty-Something" when it was in production, either, so that may be insightful.

Garrison Keeler is a wonderful writer, but more than 5 minutes listening to his wheezy half-whiny "voice" make me want to shove knitting needles into my ears.

And those little before-the-top-of-the-hour "features" on ATC....OK, I like Codrescu's stuff, but that Yuppie stream-of-consciousness CRAP...Last winter, it was the alleged Psychiatrist who thought she was a writer telling us all about the fears and agnst of taking her "Golden Child" downtown on public transportation with all those smelly people who don't shop at L.L. Bean....

NPR's news is NOT objective, and I don't find much else they offer of interest, either.

Oh, I almost forgot: They edit "BBC Newshour" for content. Listen on NPR then listen on shortwave if you don't believe me.

[tom_paine]

11. They HAD to because Grover and Karl made it clear they had to

I'm sure through intermediaries.

The New Totalitarianism of "managed Democracy" is a very subtle beast. It works along corproate lines of influence and tries to be traceless and odorless in the "real world" (what's left of it).

NPR is feeling the pressure to be "Ferh Und Balansed" like those Fuherer worshippers at Faux.

[Tracer]

21. The only time I listen to the radio is when I'm in the car.

And I have NPR on one of my radio buttons.

I honestly can't say that I've heard any "right wingers" on this station. Perhaps that's due to my irregular listening habits.

I have caught the BBC News, The Connection, Terry Gross and other shows.

One of my favorites is on (here) on Saturdays Ñ "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me". This is a very amusing program.