Lies, Damned Lies, & the News | Autobahn
Michigan Radio (based at WUOM in Ann Arbor), one of my two local N.P.R. affiliates, has launched a disconcertingly persistent campaign to acquire my motor car & a great many other motor cars. I am used to N.P.R. advertisements enticing listeners to donate their motor cars to the local N.P.R. station, which will then sell the motor car & use the proceeds to fund station operations/pay N.P.R.'s extortionate program fees, but yesterday I heard two such adverts in less than a hour, & each of those adverts at least twice throughout the day. What goes on? Has the replacement of the staid Talk of the Nation with the pompous Here and Now emptied N.P.R.'s coffers? I have a Car Talk T-shirt & a B.B.C. mug from the halcyon days in Ann Arbor, before N.P.R. cast the Iraq War as the Vietnam War (rather, their inaccurate, conventional-wisdom narrative of Vietnam) & proclaimed Barack Obama the Pharaoh of the Two Lands; it is far better for N.P.R. to be supported by freely offered private donations than through the (necessary) coercion of public taxation, but National Propaganda Radio will never get its filthy mitts on the Lumi, the Distaff Son of the Mousemobile.

Also yesterday, I heard the following: "Support for N.P.R. comes from Al Jazeera America…" I'd just like to note that the current Emir of Qatar became the Emir of Qatar just recently (June 2013), when he overthrew his father, the previous Emir of Qatar, in a palace coup. Keep it in the back of your mind, when N.P.R. reports on the Middle East, that your "public" radio station is bankrolled in part by the Emir of Qatar's petrodollars.

The Rebel Black Dot State Song of the Day
Semisonic, "California" from Feeling Strangely Fine (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: The Golden State, land of myth & promise.