Le Sequoit

Does the Right Hand Know What the Right Hand is Doing?

I'm beginning to think that when it comes to conservatives those who can, do, and those who can't, politic.

I'm an avid Public Radio listener at this point. There's much more of it out there than I might of guessed; I spend much of my day listening to WNIJ out of DeKalb, IL and WHAD out of Delafield, WI. The first runs a lot of NPR programming but the latter is part of a very robust Wisconsin Public Radio Network―actually one of two networks; one for talk and one for music and news. I suppose you're thinking dairy farm tips here? Yesterday I was able to to talk to Thomas Frank and Frank Rich in the same hour.

Well, the rodents have sniffed this deal out and the grandest ferret of them all has dispatched Kenneth Tomlinson, a man whose read on the pulse of 21st Century America can be summed up best by his credential as former editor in chief of Reader's Digest, to ride herd on the commies over at PBS and NPR.

Every once in a while WPR has a suggestion day, and the cranks call in their complaints about the left bias of public radio. Of course public radio is left biased...IT'S PUBLIC! As in non-commercial. Who do you think is backing off from the incessant bombardment of LCD (lowest common denominator) programming and blaring nitwit commercials? Who's looking for ideas? Who enjoys the sounds of thinking enough to resist the narcosis of the laugh track? A lot of us, and more all the time. Listenership is distinctly on the rise, hence this recent snuffling by the culture police.

How confident is the right that even if they could engineer a new slant to NPR they would benefit from a calm, cool discussion of of the issues? Not very, as the official desire is for less news and more music. Suddenly musical taste at the White House has shifted from Brooks and Dunne to Bach and Dvorak!

While callers are on hold to moan about the dollar and a half of their taxes that goes to funding this "liberal platform" they drive through McDonalds oblivious of the monstrous donation the Kroc's made to NPR. While 1% of NPR's funding comes from the feds the lion's share comes from the darlings of these whiney little knee-jerk "patriots", American corporations.

Why do you suppose this is true? These callers will never learn from Rush and Hannity why this is so, and apparently the fact hasn't been dispatched to the inquisitors for the righteous either.

I know, but then I actually listen.

posted by sequoit @ 11:50 PM