ah...the airwaves

i've just listened to dr. helen caldicott being interviewed by local pacifica radio. at one point she said something like: i'd like to write a book, not a serious clinical or field study, but rather a set of musings; on why men kill? why fighter pilots watch snippets of porn before they take off on killing missions? why people rape? why both presidential candidates talk of "clean" coal and "safe" nuclear energy? why 1 million innocent people have died and another 5 million displaced in iraq in the last 5 years? if the us instituted the nuremberg laws and hung german and japanese generals for obeying orders, then why are we then asked to look the other way while the corpses pile?

this was towards the end of the interview, and it struck me, as i was jotting the main points down, (arbitrary musings by dr. caldicott are rare, all we get is research heavy exposes of the nuclear industry, and the pr firms and politicians who lie) i realized they were a fairly long list of questions that polite intellectuals can't ask themselves. ok. then, the interviewer, dennis bernstein, sounding noticeably choked up, began to softly wrap up the segment, gave out contact information, and thanked the doctor for her many years of public service and let her give some closing thoughts...for 4 minutes.

then i thought about another interview i listened to earlier today. it was on the npr show "fresh air," hosted by terry gross. while checking if gross' name was in fact spelled "gross", i noticed her stub of an article in wikipedia had this: "The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that Gross's interviews are 'a remarkable blend of empathy, warmth, genuine curiosity, and sharp intelligence.'" its a strong primer. i know.

the interview i heard was with michael pollan. he was spelling out what mrs. gross should already know. subsidized corn. reprocessed food. industrial organic mess. world economy based on branded dehumanized fast food freaks. local farming. happy family meals. good food isn't cheap, but its accessible, viable and scrumptious!! pollan was doing a good job, despite mrs. gross' i'm-unmoved-and-flippin-through-a-magazine "a ha's" and hurry-it-up-already grunts. then, playing devil's advocate, mrs. gross points out something like this: yes, michael, but don't you think americans are feeling the anti-intellectual stance of someone like sarah palin. you know, forget all that ecological footprint non sense and give me a cheap juicy fast food cheeseburger. taking a deep breath, pollan digressed from his rosy streak of foodie empowerment. admitted that the changing economy is difficult to traverse, people are stretched thin and cannot donate 10 hours a week to a local community garden, and international commerce and trade, as it is, looks as if it was planned by a bunch of drunkards playing monopoly for 47 hours straight all with swords drawn and asleep on their stacks of fake money. the segment was coming to a close. mrs. gross began referring people to pollan's new article in new yorker magazine called "an open letter to the next president" or some such name; pollan's laundry list of suggestions, advise and warning. mrs. gross found the idea that proposing the president use some of the 17 acres of the presidential lawn for farm use as "preposterous." pollan politely sidestepped her shrieking and invitation to have a good laugh with something like: why is that preposterous? its a beautiful lawn, sure. but the president, in tough times, should lead by example. he has a presidential cook. presidential chauffeur. why not a presidential gardener? (images of 'being there' sprang to mind)

at that point a demure mrs. gross read off what she needed to read off to close her show. light cocktail music chimed discretely. and subversive ideas finally subsided. and a whitewashed bbc world came on cue.

there is no gray area for npr. just the black that must be squashed by the white. decisively. and everyday.

next up: john mccain and john kerry, the war heroes. enjoy:



see you later down the trail...