It is a gorgeous day on the California coast. PL is cursing Ruth Seymour and the KCRW cultural oligarchy again. We’re right there with him. KCRW has become a futuristic corpo-public radio monster. As if this community college station was not powerful enough in the Los Angeles basin, now, through Podcasting, KCRW is cornering the market of thought and opinion and shaping the parameters of taste across the globe. 24/7/365. Just take last weekend’s New York Times Magazine. Their adoration of Nic Harcourt and his championing of the little guy musician and composer. Elevating the Finnish teen with his hip-hop beats and ProTools set-up. A truly global event is happening. Community radio is being abandoned for good.
PL wants to clarify his rant against Ruth Seymour. She was interviewing the head of the U.S. set up and run radio network in Iraq. Our own Tokyo Rose to convert the innocent youth of Iraq to free market capitalism and titillating hip hop sexuality. Ruth was lobbing one softball after another to Mr. Big Brother, cooing and murmuring “fascinating,” as he described, deadpan, his project as having one of the largest “news staffs” in the Middle East. Ruth’s only challenge was to mention that Radio Hooray for American got triple the funding of PBS and NPR. PL personally hopes that NPR collapses entirely. The stations will survive, and will be forced to scramble for local talent to fill the newly vacant programming hours. No more Robert Siegal and his patronizing nasality, Lisa Mullins and her bullying of the occasional lefty spokesperson, Day To Day’s privileged snickering at the sufferings of the world.
We’ll miss you, NPR. We’ll miss you Shirley Jihad. That’s right, jihad.