How to choose, how to choose...
Posted on 02/26/2005 4:21:14 PM PST by LurkedLongEnough
Who doesn't like Car Talk? Commercial radio, especially during drive time, sux big time. The adds drive me crazy. Of course I have not heard an add on commercial radio in years due to the radio control buttons on the steering wheel of my car and the remote at home, but I know they are there.
And just when I was beginning to appreciate classical music. Good thing they still have classical formats on public radio in my area of the woods. I think I'll donate.
I totally agree with what you said except I object to their content too. "This is Cory Flintoff(sp?)" then, switch off.
Christopher Leydon was like that before they let him go. He wanted more money. I thought money was bad?
I listen to NPR all the time. Themost irritating thing about the station is its fans actually think that NPR is completely un biased.
I had to drive into Boston with one of my Conservative friends one day and I put NPR on. They were doing a detailed study into "Pimp-Ho" culture. For two hours, they intervied pimps and their prostitutes. They talked about the lingo, and the social behavior of these folks. Funniest thing I have ever heard. I can't reprint the trash here as it's nasty. The funniest part is that they were SERIOUS.
My friend looked at me and said, "What is this? Some kind of a joke or something"?
I roared with laughter and said "No man, its NPR!"
That pretty much sums up the intellectual level of NPR as a whole. NPR's coverage of Israel is IMHO the most biased "news" on the station.
Arioch7 out!
Satellite radio (Sirius and XMSR) have changed that, for those willing to pay for the equipment and subscriptions, so i suspect that NPR has begun to read the handwriting on the wall. Problem is, the hinterlands aren't demanding left-wing cant, and the metro areas already have a surfeit of it.
This is yet another reason to question the necessity of government radio in the United States. Privatize it, or simply pull the plug. The free market is providing everything listeners could reasonably require.
Hey, if there were more like you, NPR wouldn't have to tax me for someone else's listening pleasure.
How to choose, how to choose...
There was a time when NPR performed a public service, playing classical music and reporting news in depth. That has basically come to an end.
NPR in Vermont gave up on almost all classical music years ago, and plays jazz instead. I'm told that NPR in New York dropped classical music to follow the 9/11 story and never restored it.
We have a commercial station in Stowe/Burlington that plays classical music, and evidently makes money with it. I'm inclined to agree that it's not the audiences who tired of classical music but the political maniacs who run NPR, and the rich leftists on whom they now rely for funding.
Someone once said to me that classical music is "dead" music. Actually, a symphony or whatever comes alive each time it is performed. You can hear 10 different recordings of a work and each recording will be different, open to different interpretations. Each performance is an event unto istelf and you might get something new out of even a familiar work. In most popular music (sometimes with the exception of jazz) each work is usually tied to a specific performance that was recorded. A certain work will always be known by that one performance and that is it. If an anthropologist listens to it 500 years from now, it will sound exactly like it sounds today.
It irks me that shows like "American Idol" just have people who impersonate "stars." It might be interesting if the performers created something new and uniquely their own (even if it wasn't very good). Instead, it is all about people trying to sound and look just like some established celebrity. It is about as exciting as going to McDonald's where there is a fairly limited menu and the bland whatever from one restaurant will taste just like the bland whatever from another restaurant.
Dang. There goes Saturday nights.
Several internet sources -- www.king.org is the commercial station out of Seattle. Now requesting donations for continuing to stream internet service. Only objectional crap are the hourly/half-hourly BBC news on weekdays, continuous Audi commercials, and an occasional music/theater/movie critic who always finds a way to bash Bush in his reviews.
Another leftie lie told so often it is accepted as fact. The "tag lines" spoken for the "underwriters" of various programs sound remarkably unmistakeably like commercials. In the Berkshires, there a several outlets of the unashamedly leftist WAMC. I swear one of their affiliates really should be lettered WANK. Alan Shartok (sp) practically soils his panties talking to the local congress critter Maurice Hinchey.
I agree that it's sad that NPR is abandoning classical music; however, I find it sadder still that there is an NPR. A banana republic might "need" state radio; surely the United States does not. Free enterprise is picking up the slack, and if the plug were pulled on taxpayer-funded radio, I am confident that the private sector would step up even more.
Satellite radio is one example of private initiative stepping up to the plate. Sirius, which I subscribe to, has 60+ advertising-free streams, three of which are pure classical, and several others of which have some classical content from time to time. Here's what is currently playing on Sirius's three classical streams:
Stream 80 (Symphony Hall): Georges Onslow's Symphony No. 2 in D Minor, Opus 42, performed by the Hannover Radio Philharmonic Orchestra
Stream 85 (Classical Voices): George Frideric Handel's Esther: Scene 5, performed by Harry Christophers and others
Stream 86 (Pops): Edvard Grieg's Holburg Suite (Prelude), performed by Bournemouth Sinfonietta
Now, I'm not about to claim any expertise in classical music. I doubt I listen to the Symphony Hall stream more than an hour a two a week; the Pops stream less; and the Classical Voices stream not at all. But somehow, it's nice to know it's there. And nicer still, in my opinion, that it can be picked up nationwide, and at no cost to taxpayers.
I say let NPR die a merciful death. If it was ever necessary, I can't see that it still is.
Guess we're lucky here in Central Illinois. From 7:00 pm Fridays to 8:00 pm Sunday (with the exception of a few hours of the usual NPR BS Saturday and Sunday before noon), WGLT plays some kick ass Blues. I called them up during the last pledge drive and told 'em I'd actually contribute if they dropped the NPR BS and went full time with the Blues.
Listen live at http://www.wglt.org/ , left column.
Also not in FReep mail.
Clarification. No obnoxious, in your face, used car commercials for Chamonix Esotique...Avacor... Cortislim...erectile dysfunction...Vermont teddy bears...ad infinitum in 4 minute cycles.
While the style is decidedly more subdued, I find the "sponsors" even more obnoxious, e.g. NARAL, WALMART, Klien Consulting ("we get outsourcing done.") et al. Cheers.
The big question is, why are brilliant gorgeous exciting people like us sitting at home on a Saturday night listening to the radio? We should be out doing glamorous stuff!
I am not allowed out? LOL
Did you see this? At least you on the east coast have a smattering of such stations. They're almost gone out here on the left coast.
stop government funding of npr
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