Deeply Blasphemous

One of my regular "features" (if you can call it that) on my regular blog is a series of odds and ends I pick up while listening to NPR at work. I program databases and audit water quality data for the city where I live. Public safety and health and all very responsible, but very dry, as well, so having someone talk to me is helpful to pass the day. So, talk radio. Air America is propaganda for the Democratic party, and also only politics, which bugs me. The other talk radio station locally is propaganda for the Republican party, and what cultural stuff it has is stuff like Dr. Laura, which would cause my eyes to bleed at work, so bad call. So, that leaves NPR and the sports talk channel.

That isn't to say that NPR isn't propaganda. It is. It's just propaganda lite when compared to the other two. Plus, they have other stuff I like. For instance, they regularly have a group of local sommeliers that come on and talk about wine, and I dig that. So, I listen to NPR. But, the propaganda lite occasionally tickles me or makes me boggle, so I write about what I hear on my blog.

For example, the other day, without apparent irony, the announcer said this: "Flanked by veterans and their families, Bush accused the Democrats of political theater."

I laughed and laughed.

Today, two things on NPR interested me, in particular. Well, a few things interested me, actually. The news of the day is all about Alberto Gonzalez, which is fun because it's politics but lurid and corrupt enough to be titilating. Another topic lately has been the crash in not the housing market but in the lending money for housing market. To wit: Sub-prime loans are a racket and now those who got fucked are getting foreclosed on. Will the housing market crash be next? But, only two of the things that I heard interested me enough to write about.

First, the study that shows that working moms are irresponsible, selfish sluts who don't care about their children... oh, I mean, "Daycare causes some increase in negative behavior later in schooling"... oh, no, I mean "kids who go to daycare are less intimidated by the schooling system and therefore aren't as readily cowed by the authority figures within it." That last take is my own. The first take is how the news media seems to have decided to take the results.

(note: for a less biased word on the results that's less dense than reading the actual study, check here.)

I should not be be surprised. This is not the first time that the U.S. media has used whatever excuse was convenient to attack women - mothers in particular - who are anything other than wholly sacrificing of their own personal needs in favor of their husbands and children. Oh, and to those whose financial situations dictate that they must work, in order to live: Just fuck you, bitches. That sort isn't even invited to the discussion. And it's not even the working outside or within the home question, which is sticky enough, considering all that women are being asked to sacrifice for the sake of raising their kids, and that men are not asked, at all, to make any of the same sacrifices. No. Check out the the hack job the Today Show did on Melissa at Suburban Bliss. Mostly, it seems like they're looking for an excuse. Et tu, NPR?

The second thing I wrote on my post-it note to write something about (I keep a post-it with possible blog topics. I know.) was that the Tribune is being sold. They went on in some depth about Zell, who is trying to buying it and treated him like some kind of businessman-rockstar, blah blah blah. The thing is that both of the deals being offered to buy the paper involves using the $1.76 billion employee pension fund to leverage the purchase. This means that one business guy/group is going to give another business guy/group permission to clean out the employees' retirement funds in return for the paper. That's what I'm reading. Ugh.

I know! It's all so depressingly negative! But there were sea otters this morning, right?

Labels: Mommy Wars, news, NPR