March 30, 2007

NPR Pledge Driving Me Nuts

Hello, my name is Sarah and I am an NPR news junkie. I do not give one dime to my local NPR station because...
I am sick to death of "A Prairie Home Companion", "Whad'Ya Know?", "Calling All Pets", and Classical Music all day long during the week.

Garrison Keillor's show is on twice a week here, as is "Car Talk". I'm not talking about different shows played on different days, I'm talking about friggin' repeats two days in a row. No, I take that back, when the Metropolitan Opera is not playing "Car Talk" is repeated on the same day! Gads!!! The people who call into "Calling All Pets" must NEVER listen to the show because they give the exact same animal behavior advice every week. And "Whad'Ya" is no longer funny, just annoying.

When my local station wakes up and figures out that there are other options for our listening pleasure such as "Talk of the Nation" or "Diane Rehm" of "Afro Pop" or ANYTHING else then maybe I'll cough up some moola but until then I'll dream of Sirius Radio with all of the NPR news shows I love.

March 16, 2007

American Idolization

I admit I've never seen American Idol and I never intend to but I just don't get it. I don't understand the American public's fascination with reality shows in the first place but watching a bunch of half-assed singers is like fishing for bottom feeders in my opinion. People like Carrie Underwood may be able to sing but they have no taste in music and they end up being clones of other surgically corrected "stars". And the public eats this shit up! No wonder this country is in the crapper right now. These are the same people who voted for Putch and his lackeys.

Which brings me to another point. I have an idea, for the next election let's do an Americon Idol game show. The politicians can appear on tv each week and give long speeches to con the public into voting for them and then we can vote via telephone or internet! There can be a panel that makes snide comments and has their own personal scandals. I think it might work and the voting will be just as fair as the ballot box is since half of those votes aren't counted anyway. Come one, let's get the ball rolling!

March 9, 2007

Daylight "Savings"

I guess I've had my head in the sand for the past two years because I just found out yesterday that daylight "savings" time is beginning this Sunday. What a crock. I am a morning person so I don't particularly care about having more daylight at the end of my day. Now when I get up for work on my early-to-work days it will be really, really dark and I'll have to use my flashlight to get to my car. Does this save any energy for me? Hell no! In fact, this will use up more battery power so it's a lose-lose situation.

Today on NPR they said that Benjamin Franklin came up with the cockamamie idea but isn't he the same guy who said "early to bed, early to rise..."? In truth, he didn't propose setting clocks differently so that urban legend is false. He proposed (to the French) that they get up earlier so they wouldn't have to burn so many candles in the evening. I guess the French were bitching about how many candles they had to buy in order to stay up so late and how expensive it was.

As far as saving energy goes I think the jury is still out on that one but I'd have to side with the naysayers and agree that the amount of energy saved is nil. I want my mornings well lit by gawd and I wish there was a way to ignore the whole thing without moving to Arizona.

March 2, 2007

Al Gore and His Environment

I watch the Academy Awards every year. I know, it's a silly show about something normal people shouldn't care about but it's a tradition for me. I don't have television service so I usually watch it on my tv with a rabbit ear antenna so the picture is very fuzzy. This year I was able to go to my bosses house and see it on a huge wide screen tv with satellite which was great!

What does this have to do with Al Gore and the environment? As you must be aware, Mr. Gore made a film last year, "An Inconvenient Truth" (which I have not seen) and it won the award for best documentary at the Oscars. As Al was thanking everyone and attempting to be a comedian I couldn't contain myself and was yelling at the screen "Maybe if you'd stop eating all those cows you could help save the environment!" Gads, he looks like he eats at McDonald's every day! Not that I am some sickly looking skinny vegan but good god!

Then, I hear on NPR a bit about Mr. Gore and his home in Tennessee. You can read it at http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB117271689203622916-lMyQjAxMDE3NzAyMTcwMTE2Wj.htmlwhich is an article in the Wall Street Journal. In a nutshell, Gore spends more on electricity in one month than most of us spend in a year. Come on, if he is gonna talk the talk he needs to walk the walk.
Rant over.