Update from the front

[jchrisobrien]

NPR is my new friend on the way into work. There are moments when I get profoundly embarrassed because I don't know what's going on in the world. If you want to have a discussion about whether power fists or force weapons are better picks for your veteran sergeant, I'm right there. If you want to talk about public school issues or the problems inherent in our current economic system, I'm pretty much resigned to being a listener. Listening to NPR won't turn me into an expert, but it will (and is) exposing me to more news, more commentary, more opinions to help me form my own opinions. Just this week I learned about the power struggle between Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, Universal will be lowering the price of their CDs from $18.99 to $12.99, and the NFL is adding Rush Limbaugh to their Monday night football lineup. Next step on my overall re-education is a subscription to National Geographic.

Gala is an incredibly good album from Lush.

This morning, my first paycheck (for three weeks) was lying on my desk. Goodbye bills and debt, hello warm glowy responsible feeling!

Comments

[atalanta.livejournal.com]

temper the NPR with something less biased (or not biased in the same direction!) :)

[silas7.livejournal.com]

Most of what I've heard so far is just news, and not commentary on said news. Although there can be bias in regular news as well.

I've tried a few links for some of the pages you mentioned before, but I don't remember them.

[atomweaver.livejournal.com]

Yes, Fox News biases away from NPR quite nicely, if you can hold down the resulting bile ;-)

BBC international is another option:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/

[mvoid.livejournal.com]

Gala rocks like Dokken, except swirly and good.

[captain-grim.livejournal.com]

I balance my NPR morning news with Robin Quivers' news. I like to think that, somehow, I'm getting a more complete picture.

And anyway, there are no boobies on NPR news.

[silas7.livejournal.com]

wow, I didn't know that NPR was that biased.
Interestingly enough, there was a program on about partisan news sources last night. :)

NPR

[lst103.livejournal.com]

Even though NPR (whose offices are in DC) offers the most complete News and Information as any radio station could, I will say it is liberally biased. I am not saying that this is a good or bad thing.

When I took a class at Elizabethtown College on International Relations, our professor recommended a subscription to the Christian Science Monitor - because of it's world view and the other newspapers in the US tend to be slanted on way or another on mostly domestic news with little coverage of the world.

Most publications/news/info is online. Of course I get e-mail notices from the Washington Post now. Sure is less paper than the regular version and you can decide what news is important to you.

There is way too much information out there. Overload is inevitable. Decide for yourself what is important and what isn't and be informed about what you care about. It will take some initial sifting, but in the end it is totally worth it.

On another note - "Slugs," commuters from Northern Virginia into the District for work and then back to Virginia - among a ton of unwritten rules about how to be a good "slug" driver is to either not have your radio on, or if you do, the station should be NPR. The reasoning is that NPR is the least offensive channel on the dial and is very popular down here.

Why do people slug? Allows drivers to use the HOV lanes and helps other commmuters get to work. Even though, technically, it's hitchhiking. DC tried to crack down on it and totally failed. It's accepted practice now.