Cut NPR Loose.

In celebration of National Public Radio Begging Month, I offer the following idea: it's time to terminate federal support for National Public Radio. Not because it's biased and tends to present a lopsided leftist...sorry..."progressive" side to news and news analysis, true as that may be. The reason NPR needs to be pulled from the federal teat is because it isn't really public anymore.

Decades ago, arts and education radio broadcasting was almost exclusively a local affair, with independent radio stations operating through universities, colleges, high schools, and public libraries. Its content was, almost by definition, of local origin. Mostly classical, jazz, and American (i.e. folk) music was programmed, along with taped or live lectures by nearby academics, and a generous dollop of local and state news. It wasn't polished, but it really was public - i.e., local - radio.

Enter NPR, which dreamed of a nationwide network of radio stations to bring light and revelation to the masses. As determined by their impeccable tastes and predilections, of course. NPR needed stations and frequency space to build their empire, and in the late 1970s they lobbied the FCC to have the hundreds of low-power (less than 10mi reception radius) radio stations run by community colleges, high schools, and libraries eliminated from the low end of the FM band.

NPR then increased their geographic coverage and changed the program content of its "anchor" stations, primarily the higher-power noncommercial stations of colleges and universities. The nation-wide coverage was provided by the setting up of scores of small repeater stations, effectively monopolizing the FM band below 92MHz. So your contributions went for "keeping your public radio on the air", and also spreading its gospel to your "neighbors" on the other side of your state. It was also ironic that the small broadcast-footprint stations were merely replaced by a little larger robot repeater stations, bringing a homogeneous product to a region where there was once tremendous diversity.

Changing programming content proved challenging, because if done ham-handedly, it would alienate the stations' contributor base before it could either be swapped out with a more pro-NPR support base, or before the current contributor base could be "reeducated" to be more NPR-friendly. But it was done, successfully, at some of the biggest anchors in the country, including the University of Michigan's WUOM. In a now infamous incident, shortly after the 1996 spring fundraiser in which WUOM asked the public to help 'keep the programming that you love on the air' (my paraphrasing), the station management terminated much of the local on-air hosting and changed its format from a locally produced, fine-arts and education station to NPR current-affairs programming. Donovan Reynolds, WUOM station manager and leader of the station's pro-NPR junta, recently observed (Detroit News, March 14 2005):

"No other FM in Michigan was broadcasting public radio news and information as a format...it was a unique niche that we could fill. We put the new format on in '96 not really knowing how well it might do. But it was the right thing to do because we've been very successful at it. Revenue increased (emphasis added)."

Well, at least one now knew what was important to station management, not surprisingly, the same thing that was important to commercial radio stations - increasing listenership and making more money.

So, what now comprises the P in NPR? Looking at the WUOM schedule, we have the following line-up. I've italicized those programs that are locally produced or have significant local (local defined as statewide and the communities within 50 miles of Ann Arbor) content. I've also designated those programs that are provided by a satellite feed from NPR, or from another national public radio content producer:

• BBC World Service (NPR)
• Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, & All Things Considered (NPR)
• The Connection (NPR)
• Talk of the Nation (NPR)
• Diane Rehm (NPR)
• News and Notes (NPR)
• Marketplace (PRI)
• Day to Day (NPR)
• The Next Big Thing (PRI)
• Stateside (locally produced, statewide content)
• Studio 360 (PRI)
• Car Talk (NPR)
• Fresh Air (NPR)
• all other small-slot programs not mentioned above (NPR or PRI)
• all entertainment programs (PHC, American Routes, etc - NPR or PRI)
• Great Lakes Radio Consortium (regional coverage, only 5 mins Mon-Fri)

There you have it: out of 168 weekly programming hours, the flagship public radio station of the State of Michigan, funded in part by the University of Michigan, has less than one hour of regular programming that can be regarded as devoted to Michigan and local (rarely) communities. In a UM meeting in 1998, concern was raised that more university intellectual and education life should be on WUOM, and station management responded that this could be satisified with less than two dozen programs of university musical events, and a steady supply of UM faculty as commentators for NPR news programs.

This isn't public radio, this is corporate radio, marketing to the "Birkenstock Niche". Just like a classic rock, hip-hop, country, or talk-radio format commercial station, only with the commercials crammed into two weeks of the year, and daily on-air "acknowledgements" of corporate and special-interest underwriters.

I have no problem with such a media corporation existing. Best of luck to them in the free market. But let's not kid ourselves: NPR has clearly added to the homogenizing of the airwaves, just like the "commericial" media entities. And it doesn't need a penny of my taxes. The slice of federal funding is relatively small, but that slice should now be removed entirely. The claim of public participation - not just financial support - in "public radio" has become a canard.

Juggling Swords.

The Senate Republican Leadership is considering the so-called "nuclear option", namely changing the operating rules by which judicial nominees are confirmed (requiring a simple majority confirmation rather than a supermajority).

It's bad idea, for a lot of reasons based on good conservative principles. George Will recently detailed its dangers, and suggested alternate strategies. I've got another strategy the GOP should employ. One thing a Senator covets more than a principle is ...patronage. I wonder how many Democrat Senators would stand their ground on stopping these supposed "retrograde" judges if they had to sacrifice their state's new water projects, post offices, and the like. Take away Robert Byrd's bottomless pit of govenment-supplied asphalt for West Virginia roads...he'll be hands up in favor of these nominees by the end of the day. Let's Play Real Hardball.

Tax Day, 2005.

This Pulitzer Prize cartoon by the late, great, Jeff MacNelly pretty much sums it up. My own irritation for this day was the State of Michigan's 1040 booklet proudly announcing the option for e-filing, only to find their website a listing of other sites at which to e-file...for a fee. So let me understand this...I have the privledge of paying to make the state's tax collection easier? Who knows how much this financially-troubled state could save in paperwork costs if they hired a couple of hotshot programmers to whip together the state's own e-filing service. They withdrew "Tele-Tax" after only a single year, yet it made doing state taxes (admittedly fairly simple) as easy a writing a postcard.

The time has arrived for a profoundly simpler state and federal tax code and tax-filing system. Let's free the enormous amount of money now being consumed in the process of tax payment and collection to instead create new business and grow our state's economy.

The Unliveable Border.

Life for Americans on the southern border is melting down fast. Deadly cars crashes with speeding trucks packed with illegal aliens, gunplay between ranch owners and drug runners, the killing of NPS rangers, backpacks of drugs cached on homeowners' property, and strange "vistors" in the dead of night. The daily crap-shoot of life, courtesy of the United States Government, is being journaled at Desert Views.

Thanks, Jack, for the Memories.

The Bear Bids Farewell to Augusta National

Six green jackets - Jove among Golf Gods. When I was a kid caddying at Pine Lake CC, Mr. Nicklaus was The Man, with crushing drives (using the puny persimmon!), surgical iron play, and ESP: Extra-Sensory Putting. I began as a soldier in Arnie's Army, and crossed lines to join the Clan of the Golden Bear.

This event sends a chilling telegraph to me of the grind of time.

Hagen, Jones, Hogan, Snead, Palmer....Nicklaus!

NPR Priorities.

I woke up early this morning, and while getting ready for work I watched the solemn majesty of the funeral of His Holiness John Paul II. Clearly this was an event for the ages - a huge gathering of the faithful and the world's religious and political leaders. I found funeral coverage across the AM radio dial as well. Clearly this was news. I then thought: NPR must be providing some excellent coverage too; I mean, they're the serious radio network, right? Alas, a quick roll of the tuner over to the local NPR affliate gave me the typical ersatz news of Morning Edition: a seemingly endless piece on a new education program to teach kids to read using comic books...

The Last Saturday in April is approaching...
Posted by RollCast

Vox populi, vox Dei?

Deaddrifts recently noted the remarkable silence of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America on the Terri Schiavo Schindler tragedy; a review by Blogizdat shows how profoundly widespread this silence is among nearly all of the mainstream American Protestant churches.

John Paul "The Great".

Today the world lost its most important moral voice, and a most beloved man of God. Now in His loving embrace, Requiescat in Pace.

Requiescat in Pace.

Into your hands, Lord, we commend her spirit.

Some remarks that may help align our moral compass.

This Day.

...Jesus again cried aloud and breathed his last. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split, and graves opened; many of God's saints were raised from sleep...

...And when the centurion and his men who were keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and all that was happening, they were filled with awe and said "This must have been a son of God"...

Matthew, Ch27 V50-52,54

Speaking the bitter truth.

A blogger's rant about the Terri Schiavo tragedy, not for those with delicate dispostions. No doubt PETA will complain.

Terrible news from Minnesota.

Yesterday, a teenager entered a Minnesota high school and killed eight people, after killing his police officer grandfather and stealing his guns. The first victim was a security guard, who, according to NPR, was unarmed. How on earth was the guard suppose to protect the school from such a threat? What were they thinking?

The Husband.

A piece from NR a few years ago with some background on the Terri Schiavo tragedy begs the question - who really represents Terri's interests? Some astounding accusations, that, if true, would shame anyone siding with Terri's "husband". Meanwhile, Mickey Kaus weighs in and also recalls NPR's "evenhanded" treatment of this story.

Perhaps the most repugnant comment I've heard on this came from the none other than Ms. Maureen Dowd, who snickered on Imus this morning that Tom Delay and Bill Frist were acting out a sequel to "Weekend at Bernie's" - with Terry Schiavo as "Bernie". I glad that Ms. Dowd discovered the humor in this tragedy, high atop the Upper West Manhattan skyline, where the people below are just so many ants to burn with her magnifying glass.

More on Clear Channel and Thayrone X.

Another woman has opined on Clear Channel's public relations stunt, the firing of Thayrone X:

...Recently, over 200 indecency complaints filed against Clear Channel were terminated in an agreement wherein $1.75 million was paid to the FCC, and in return all cases were dropped and were not admissible in re-licensing hearings. Clear Channel was also fined when a disc jockey on WKQI in Detroit taped and broadcast a prank phone call made to a faith center, asking for a prayer as a joke, without informing the volunteer. The hip-hop songs played on both WJLB and WKQI are full of misogynist lyrics far worse than anything Thayrone plays...

Today's Prayer.

Courtesy of the ELCA Southeast Michigan Synod website:

Thank you Lord for giving us another day. Thank you for those we love, and protect and keep those we can not see. Amen.

Please also pray for Terri Schaivo. Apparently, the ELCA has not seen it fit to comment on this tragedy, but they have bushel baskets of thoughts on human sexuality.

Correction: after some digging in the ELCA website, I found the Social Statement on End of Life Decisions. This document does not directly address the issue of when a patient's wishes are unknown, and when there is irreconciable disagreement between concerned parties regarding a patient's fate. More importantly, it does not discuss the specific issue of this case - accelerating an end of life that is not near its natural end, because a concerned party, let us say "percieves a unacceptably poor quality of life". It does state the following:

...Our faith as Christians informs and guides us in approaching personal and public decisions about death and dying today. Among the convictions that orient us are:

- life is a gift from God, to be received with thanksgiving;

- the integrity of the life processes which God has created should be respected; both birth and death are part of these life processes;

- both living and dying should occur within a caring a community;

- a Christian perspective mandates respect for each person; such respect includes giving due recognition to each person's carefully considered preferences regarding treatment decisions;
truthfulness and faithfulness in our relations with others are essential to the texture of human life;

and,

- hope and meaning in life are possible even in times of suffering and adversity; a truth powerfully proclaimed resurrection faith of the church.

"Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's" (Rom 14:8). For those who live with this confidence, neither life nor death are absolute. We treasure God's gift of life; we also prepare ourselves for a time when we may let go of our lives, entrusting our future to the crucified and risen Christ who is "Lord of both the dead and the living" (Rom 14:9). While these convictions do not give clear-cut answers to all end-of-life decisions, they do offer a basic approach to them.

Allowing Death and Taking LifeWithholding or Withdrawing Artificially-administeredNutrition and Hydration

Patients who once would have died because of their inability to take food and water by mouth can today be kept alive through artificially-administered nutrition and hydration. These measures are often temporary and allow many to recover health. At other times, however, they alone maintain life, and they do so indefinitely. In those cases, is it ever permissible to withhold or withdraw such measures?

Food and water are part of our basic human care. Artificially-administered nutrition and hydration move beyond basic care to become medical treatment. Health care professionals are not required to use all available medical treatment in all circumstances. Medical treatment may be limited in some instances, and death allowed to occur. Patients have a right to refuse unduly burdensome treatments which are disproportionate to the expected benefits.

When medical judgment determines that artificially-administered nutrition and hydration will not contribute to an improvement in the patient's underlying condition or prevent death from that condition, patients or their legal spokespersons may consider them unduly burdensome treatment. In these circumstances it may be morally responsible to withhold or withdraw them and allow death to occur. This decision does not mean that family and friends are abandoning their loved one.

When artificially-administered nutrition and hydration are withheld or withdrawn, family, friends, health care professionals, and pastor should continue to care for the person. They are to provide relief from suffering, physical comfort, and assurance of God's enduring love...


Unfortunately, there is no statement here about a prevailing moral rule when the issue of "unduly burdensome" treatment is debated, or even when it is not clear who is speaking as the legal representative of the patient. Clearly, this document was meant to address the issues relevant to terminally ill patients and events near their death. Perhaps the first conviction mentioned above - that life is a gift from God - provides this guidance. Later, in the document, the issue of physician-assisted suicide is discussed, and it is stated:

...However, the deliberate action of a physician to take the life of a patient, even when this is the patient's wish, is a different matter. As a church we affirm that deliberately destroying life created in the image of God is contrary to our Christian conscience. While this affirmation is clear, we also recognize that responsible health care professionals struggle to choose the lesser evil in ambiguous borderline situations -- for example, when pain becomes so unmanageable that life is indistinguishable from torture...

This is about as close as this document gets to the tragedy of Terri Schiavo. One of the problems of a church leadership that repeatedly attempts to be all things to all people.

Liberalism at the Crossroads, Part IV.

VDH with a critique of the Hard Left's noxious rhetoric flooding the Democratic Party (thanks to LGF):

...something has gone terribly wrong with a mainstream Left that tolerates a climate where the next logical slur easily devolves into Hitlerian invective. The problem is not just the usual excesses of pundits and celebrities (e.g., Jonathan Chait’s embarrassing rant in the New Republic on why “I hate George W. Bush” or Garrison Keillor’s infantile slurs about Bush’s Republicans: “brown shirts in pinstripes”), but also supposedly responsible officials of the opposition such as former Sen. John Glenn, who said of the Bush agenda: “It’s the old Hitler business.”

Thus, if former Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore breezily castigates Bush’s Internet supporters as “digital brownshirts”; if current Democratic-party chairman Howard Dean says publicly, “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for” — or, “This is a struggle of good and evil. And we’re the good”; or if NAACP chairman Julian Bond screams of the Bush administration that “Their idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side by side,” the bar of public dissent has so fallen that it is easy to descend a tad closer to the bottom to compare a horrific killer to an American president...

Liberalism at the Crossroads, Part III.

John Leo weighs in, noting the Left's corrosive hostility to religion:

"...Worse, the cultural liberalism that emerged from the convulsions of the 1960s drove the liberal faith out of the mainstream. Its fundamental value is that society should have no fundamental values, except for a pervasive relativism that sees all values as equal. Part of the package was a militant secularism, pitched against religion, the chief source of fundamental values..."

Amen.


Battle of the Titans.

Wow! What a finish to the Ford Championship at Doral! Tiger Wood's eagle on the 12th hole, followed by back to back birdies by Phil Mickelson to even it up, only to let Tiger slip away on the 16th by matching his bogie! Exciting to the end with Phil's desperation chip on 18 that curled around the lip of the hole! Hats off to Tiger - he earned the victory.

Aye, laddie, that 'twas a Hell of a ro'ond 'a Golfe!


Facelift for Radio Oblique.

My flea circus of an internet radio station - now with "Formula X4" for deeper cleansing action, has a new playlist of R&B, Oldies, Rockabilly, and a kinder and gentler website. Fightin' the Media Conglomerate Man: heard Enima's latest hip-hop offering on four over-air stations simultaneously - aaahhhhghhh! When will they cue up some Don Woody, eh?

Freedom Marchers.

More evidence of the extraordinary bravery of the Iraqi people:

Thousands Protest at Iraqi Bombing Site

By QASIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer; Tue Mar
1, 6:48 PM ET

HILLAH, Iraq - Thousands of mostly black-clad Iraqis protested Tuesday outside a medical clinic where a suicide car bomber killed 125 people a day earlier, braving the threat of another attack as they waved clenched fists, condemned foreign fighters and chanted "No to terrorism!"

...But anxieties over another attack did not prevent more than 2,000 people from gathering outside the clinic Tuesday, shouting "No to terrorism!" and "No to Baathism and Wahhabism!"...

The Power of Perception.

Tom Friedman clearly states the remarkable transformation in the last month:

Thanks to eight million Iraqis defying "you vote, you die" terrorist
threats, Iraq has been reframed from a story about Iraqi "insurgents" trying to liberate their country from American occupiers and their Iraqi "stooges" to a story of the overwhelming Iraqi majority trying to build a democracy, with U.S. help, against the wishes of Iraqi Baathist-fascists and jihadists.

Yes, the transformation of the MSM.