I always assumed Diane Rehm must be a very very old because she sounds as though she is literally going to expire at any moment. Turns out she old, 74, but a voice disorder called Spasmodic dysphonia accounts for the near ancient sounding voice. Also, I imagined she would look like the Sue Johanson (talk sex with sue) but she doesn't at all, she's pretty




Anyway, did anyone hear The Story with Dick Gordan today called Out of the Moneypit? Didn't get to hear it all and didn't know if it was worth the half hour listen

2/19/2010 12:39:37 AM

hahaha occamsrezr and I were debating last week how old Diane Rehm is.

2/19/2010 12:41:33 AM

Diane Rehm is kind of a god-mother of NPR - been at her show for over 30 years. The voice disease just happened ~10 years ago, so she was already established enough by then to keep her show. Usually when she's gone for a week or two at a time, she's off getting treatments, and sometimes her voice sounds pretty strong for a few days after the treatments (i think it's some kind of steroid or something shot more-or-less right into the vocal chords). Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, also came down with a form of Spasmodic dysphonia a few years ago that basically prevents him from talking at all in a normal conversational tone. Interestingly, he can still whisper fine, he can read poems or books aloud, sing, and speak from a script in front of an audience, but he simply doesn't have a voice when trying to talk extemporaneously in a conversational tone. This leads to the conclusion that the disease is largely a defect of the brain in some way, as opposed to just your vocal cords giving out, because different parts of the brain handle different types of speaking.


Anyway, I read something a while about about Diane Rehm that is kind of mean, but hard to argue: "she has a face made for TV, but a voice made for nothing"

2/19/2010 12:59:54 AM

91.5 FM & 1360AM program schedules.


http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=587801&page=1
Had these lying around from that thread, figured I might as well put them here too.

2/19/2010 1:04:18 AM

I grew up listening to A Prairie Home Companion at my grandparent's house. I really like that show.

2/19/2010 1:07:26 AM

And speaking of The Story - that was my least favorite show on WUNC. Dick Gordon really gets on my nerves, basically attempting to make every story as heart-wrenching as possible, just trying to yank the tears out of his guests and his listeners. He's the kind who gives "bleeding heart liberals" a bad name. He used to host a show called The Connection when he was at WBUR in Boston, back ~2002-2006, before he moved to Chapel Hill. I liked The Connection - it was much more upbeat and more Fresh Air-like in that he talked to authors and musicians a lot.

Anyway, last July, I came to Boise, ID for a job interview, and first thing I did was find the local NPR stations (also happens to be 91.5, like WUNC). On the morning of my interview, I got in my car around 9 to get to the 9:30 interview, turn on NPR, and what do I hear but fucking The Story!
Of course, now that I have the job, I get to work earlier than 9:00 so I don't have to hear Dick Gordon, and Talk of the Nation is on from 12-2 here so that's what I can listen to around lunch time.


And on NPR in general - Morning Edition and All Things Considered are running a week-long investigative story on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day Bomber. They have their African, Middle Eastern, and European correspondants reporting on his back-story in an attempt to figure out his past and motivation. It's been very good, and it strikes me as something that the TV news programs, especially the cable channels, would never put so much effort into or report on as in depth as NPR is.

2/19/2010 1:09:23 AM

i love NPR.

i usually listen to Morning Edition on the way to work and All Things Considered on the way home.

2/19/2010 1:26:37 AM

I went on Frank Stasio's The State of Things live primary day coverage of the 2008 primaries. I was interning for a campaign at the time so I was pretty psyched to be on air-live plugging my campaign between noon & 1 when lots of people were on their lunch break and possibly listening to the program in the car as they headed to vote. Plus when you're a soapbox junkie talking politics is fun whether your on a campaign or not. That is one thing I like about WCHL, they'll let anyone do a political or community commentary any time, which I do all the time, and I've recorded commercials for my previous place of employment on there, and did some plugs for a pet food drive I started, so everyone at WCHL there knows me on a first name basis.

WUNC ended up taking a small segment from my time on there for one of their generic ads about WUNC that they played forever, but it didn't include my name. And for the next 6 months I had people coming up to me saying "I could swear I just heard you on the radio." True story.

2/19/2010 1:36:58 AM

Quote :

"The Story - that was my least favorite show on WUNC"

gah, I <3 that show! Its my favorite of their programing. Your right about it being tear jerking but the adversity, the struggles, the comedy, the day-to-day lives of other people are terribly fascinating to me.

[Edited on February 19, 2010 at 9:23 AM. Reason : silly jen]

2/19/2010 9:23:25 AM

I'm not really big on Human Interest stories to begin with, unless they are told in a unique or artistic fashion like on This American Life.

During the drought in, i think, early 2007 or 2008, he had a farmer on talking about the effects of the drought on his business. The farmer was a good ole' boy, a tough old country farmer. He was all-business, no emotion, and it was killing Dick Gordon because he couldn't get this guy to show emotion. He kept going down different roads like:
DG: "so, how many cows did you lose because of the heat?"
farmer: "Oh, about 10 I'd say"
"how does that make you feel?"
"well, it's a part of being a farmer, i spose"
"do you get attached to the cows?"
"nah, just doin' my job"

then after getting nowhere with that line of questioning, he tried to bring the farmers grandkids into it
"do your grandkids visit your farm?"
"yep, yep"
"Do they.... get close to the cows?"
"they enjoy being aroudn the anmials"
"do they..... name the cows?"
".... no, these are farm animals, not pets"
"do they..... cry when a cow dies?"
etc etc


also his bleeding-heart liberalism annoys me, even though i'm a Liberal. Now, I'm all about giving people a few chances to get back on their feet if something goes wrong, and I know that gov't and corporations really do screw the hell out of "the little people." But I also know that at some point, you have to take personal responsibility and pick a direction you want to go in life. Gordon will have people on who have screwed themselves in every way possible and are not even ashamed of it. For example, guests who are over their heads in debt who just got laid off from the gas station they worked at, who will happily admit they maxed out their credit cards to buy toys and bought a house in the middle of Cary with a mortgage 60% of their monthly income, and Gordon will inevitably paint them as the victim and reinforce their notion that they have no responsibility for the mess they are in. There are lots of real victims out there, and amplifying the voices of people who screw themselves isn't helping the cause.

2/19/2010 9:43:28 AM

I listen to it on a fairly regular basis and don't get that impression from the programing. Is it inspirational, emotional, heartfelt, and typically liberal by all means yes. However, it sounds like your take on it is that it's people that play the victim, don't take responsibility, and have a woe is me attitude. That's fine if that's your impression but frankly I can't think of a one of the top of my head like that. Furthermore if it was like that I don't think I would want to hear it. I know there was one about a CFO or top executive for a silicone valley company that lost his job when the market when bus but his story was about how he unloaded boxes at Home Depot and cleaned cages to make ends meet and how he learned how to be careful financially. The attitude of both DG and the person wasn't that he was exploited or underprivileged but more how he got through it. Just this week the segements that I heard were stories about first time home buyers that thought they could renovate the house, tried, and ended up having to tear it down anyway (with their own money), a Harvard law professor's investigation into the suicide of 3 gutmo detainees, and the life changes the occurred for this author and his wife when they moved into his son in laws house after his daughter's death (to help raise the 3 3 young kids). My point is that even when the program is on people that should have known better or gotten themselves into a mess the focus is on how they got out of it on their own, not on the handouts of others.

Either way, I probably fancy it because I am big on human interest stories, especially the funny ones. Like this non-practicing Jewish woman raising kids who married a christian, raising the kids Christian, but had no frame of reference on what do when issues came up with the Santa-claus thing, specifically how he didn't exist. You would have had to hear it but it was so funny to me because I remember that same panic when I did the "Mommy, santa isn't real"

2/19/2010 11:09:22 AM

Hi NPR. I love you.


see my thread for some other NPR appreciation. It's dead now though.
message_topic.aspx?topic=512858

[Edited on February 19, 2010 at 11:59 AM. Reason : add]

2/19/2010 11:59:14 AM

I, too, have appreciation for NPR: message_topic.aspx?topic=587801

2/19/2010 12:51:26 PM

some of the people and stances they take on some things are so hilariously biased it's awe inspiring.

they get, quite frankly, crackpots on the air and call the experts...

2/19/2010 1:05:21 PM

It's Science Friday!

2/19/2010 1:22:58 PM

yay ira flatow

2/19/2010 1:45:52 PM

^^lets keep science in the classroom, where it belongs

2/19/2010 3:03:47 PM

sorry y'all, i didn't see the previous NPR threads because i didn't look

sorry, n00b coming through

2/19/2010 9:54:55 PM

^^ YOU LEAVE SCIENCE FRIDAY ALONE

2/19/2010 9:58:52 PM

MONTHLY BEGATHONS

2/19/2010 10:06:17 PM

I <3 science friday and do NOT like The Story. Ugh, it annoys me to listen to. Also, Diane Rehm usually can't hold my attention, but I like the State of Things. And Car Talk, and wait wait. I know nothing about cars but Car Talk is always funny.

^ those are the days I actually listen to music stations

[Edited on February 19, 2010 at 10:09 PM. Reason : df]

2/19/2010 10:08:26 PM

I used to always listen to Marketplace on my way home from campus. I should see if they have a podcast.

2/19/2010 10:12:51 PM

I recently switched to Rush Limbaugh during the fund drives. Two weeks of listening to rush completely negates a year of listening to NPR.

When Dick Gordan speaks in whisper and ac-cen-tu-ates ev-er-y wo-rd ve-ry slow-ly I want to punch him through the radio.

Diane Rehm has a voice for print. Bitch gets BOTOX injected in her vocal chords and maybe gets cryogenically frozen or stored in a jar of formaldehyde between show tapings.

You can practically hear Ira Glass sucking dicks during the porno music interludes of This American Life.

I pity the sound engineer that has to listen to that prairie home fairy whistle between his teeth on every "Ssssssssss".

$10 says Frank Staccio is banging someone on his staff...who likes shitty indie music.

Click and Clack spend 1% of every program talking about cars and the remaining time snorting and deciding if bitches spell their names with an "ie". Their advice contains so little actual information it is actually hazardous to their listeners.

But I love the BBC world service. Those guys are such assholes. They'll invite a distinguished Oxford professor on for his technical opinion then argue combatively with him for no apparent reason other than to play devil's advocate. I also enjoy their thorough cricket coverage.

[Edited on February 19, 2010 at 10:25 PM. Reason : .]

2/19/2010 10:16:58 PM

Isn't Ira Glass married? Not that that really negates anything but yeah

2/19/2010 10:31:51 PM

I want one of those radio bookmarks so I don't always get glued to the car seat, sitting in parking lots listening to the end of the story and smoking way more than I should.

http://radiobookmark.com/

2/19/2010 10:38:04 PM

ahaha I've definitely done the same thing.

2/19/2010 10:44:40 PM

^^^ yeah, Ira Glass is a straight, married 40-something.
....despite sounding like an early 20's gay hipster

Quote :

"They'll invite a distinguished Oxford professor on for his technical opinion then argue combatively with him for no apparent reason other than to play devil's advocate."

i find it refreshing to hear the british style of interviewing. They don't let their guests get away with anything, unlike American interviewers, including most NPR interviewers (although they are better than TV journalists, of course)

Quote :

"When Dick Gordan speaks in whisper and ac-cen-tu-ates ev-er-y wo-rd ve-ry slow-ly I want to punch him through the radio. "

yeah, i hate that. i forgot about that trait

[Edited on February 19, 2010 at 11:26 PM. Reason : .]

2/19/2010 11:22:16 PM

i dont care what you fools say

this american life is damn good tv (never really listen to the radio series)

2/19/2010 11:29:12 PM

i'm not sure anybody said anything bad about TAL. It's good stuff.

btw, Radiolab is good stuff too. It's kind of like a This American Life show, but more science oriented. It's out of WNYC. have to download the podcast

2/19/2010 11:31:38 PM

haha, i do not like that aspect of the show. Forgot about that

2/19/2010 11:33:00 PM

Radio shows should't have "Acts". Or "Pages", if you're Paul Harvey.

On call-in shows, does anyone else get noticeably uneasy, nervous and agitated any time they put a caller on the air? I can just feel the oncoming wave of stupidity and feel utterly helpless to stop the inevitable awkward insanity that the host will have to deal with politely. Doubly so when the caller is from Morrisville, which is quite common on national NPR shows.

[Edited on February 19, 2010 at 11:46 PM. Reason : .]

2/19/2010 11:43:04 PM

I, too, think that The Story is an inferior program.

2/20/2010 12:00:59 AM

Quote :

"this american life is damn good tv"

They have a TV show?

2/20/2010 2:20:45 AM

^ two seasons made it to Showtime!

Car Talk was my gateway drug, followed by Wait, wait don't tell me! then Fair Game during its short run on WFAE (my local station), then anything Marketplace, then This American Life (ask me about podcasts!)... and now, about everything

2/20/2010 2:21:17 AM

When I was in high school my Dad and I used to listen to Car Talk and Savvy Traveler when we would be out and about having lunch on Saturdays.

Now I listen to Car Talk, Wait Wait..., and This American Life on podcasts. And I listen almost exclusively to NPR when I'm in my car.

<3 NPR

2/20/2010 12:20:59 PM

Quote :

"Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, also came down with a form of Spasmodic dysphonia a few years ago that basically prevents him from talking at all in a normal conversational tone. Interestingly, he can still whisper fine, he can read poems or books aloud, sing, and speak from a script in front of an audience, but he simply doesn't have a voice when trying to talk extemporaneously in a conversational tone. This leads to the conclusion that the disease is largely a defect of the brain in some way, as opposed to just your vocal cords giving out, because different parts of the brain handle different types of speaking. "

Scott Adams recovered from this, with a therapy of his own design, and is the only known person to recover from the disease, IIRC.

2/20/2010 12:27:20 PM

Sound Opinions is pretty good -- I wasn't sure if it was gonna make it at first, though.
I also enjoy On the Media, and of course, This American Life.

2/20/2010 3:19:53 PM

i hate hate hate diane rehm. i don't care if she has a disease that is eating her voice, she sounds HORRIBLE. i want to stab my ear drums when she comes on.

car talk gets annoying, but i'll still listen to it.

i love ira glass. he's 50 years old btw.

there are several people on there who smack, and that annoys me just as much as diane rehm.

i have never found wait wait don't tell me funny in the least.

that show about music can be kinda interesting.

the npr app is awesome.

[Edited on February 20, 2010 at 3:25 PM. Reason : ]

2/20/2010 3:24:39 PM

2/20/2010 4:19:17 PM

Quote :

"^^lets keep science in the classroom, where it belongs "

Huh?

2/20/2010 5:18:52 PM

i think your sarcasm meter is broken

2/20/2010 7:41:02 PM

Quote :

"Sound Opinions is pretty good -- I wasn't sure if it was gonna make it at first, though."

Kot is good. DeRogatis is an asshole, but that was true long before he was on the radio.

2/20/2010 8:39:33 PM

Quote :

"On call-in shows, does anyone else get noticeably uneasy, nervous and agitated any time they put a caller on the air? I can just feel the oncoming wave of stupidity and feel utterly helpless to stop the inevitable awkward insanity that the host will have to deal with politely. Doubly so when the caller is from Morrisville, which is quite common on national NPR shows."

Hello? Hello? Oh, wow, long time listener, first time caller. Thanks for taking my call! I'm such a huge fan of the show. Here's my retarded comment about a personal story of mine that barely relates to the topic and doesn't contain a question at all.

2/20/2010 9:44:50 PM

What irks me is people that are so used to that format that they call in and start their comment with "I'm a long time, first time, and..."

2/20/2010 9:52:50 PM

the story is hit or miss

2/22/2010 11:30:26 AM

^
Yeah -- it is painfully liberal most of the time....



^^^
^^
I've actually been on the air a few times, and I did it right. Before they put you on, they tell you, "They're gonna introduce you, saying your name, so then you can just go right ahead with your question or comments. As we only have so much time, please don't thank the host for taking your call." Despite this, around 1 in 5 people don't know when they're on the air, and even more proceed to waste time with their thank-yous.

"...and now we go to Tom in Raleigh. Tom?"
"Hello?"
"Yes, Tom, you're on the air."
"Do I talk now?"
"Yes, go ahead with your question or comment."
"Uh, first of all, thanks for taking my call."

2/22/2010 11:50:15 AM

I listen to NPR because it is the only talk radio I can get in my area. I get tired all of the liberal cock-sucking, but I do like to hear the other side's arguments. Some of the people on NPR are so arrogant (like Limbaugh arrogant) that they cannot even fathom someone having a different opinion. It is funny to hear coming from "open minded" liberals.

2/22/2010 2:20:18 PM

If you think NPR is Limbaugh level arrogant, you should listen to some old Air America stuff. By comparison Ed Shultz makes NPR look like the radical right.

2/22/2010 2:36:02 PM

i find it funny that the story and this american life are so similar in the kind of stories they present, but that the way they do it results in such a polarized opinion of them. i can not stand dick gordon's manner of speaking, or (as mentioned above) he tries to bring emotions into every little thing.

also, with the exception of the powdermilk biscuit song, garrison keillor should not be allowed to sing, ever.

[Edited on February 22, 2010 at 3:00 PM. Reason : -]

2/22/2010 2:59:04 PM

Quote :

" I hear that old piano from down the Avenue I sssssssssssssssssssssssssssmell the [insert regional midwestern item], I look around for you Oh, my ssssssssssssssssssweet, sssssssssssssssssweet, ssssssssssssweet old sssssssssomeone coming through the door It's Ssssssssssssssssaturday and the band is playing Honey, could we assssssssssssssssssssssssk for more "

2/22/2010 4:13:08 PM