The Gals of Monday Morning

Now listen gang, I'm all for women in the media, but from 5AM onward, NPR's 'Morning Edition' was almost a non-stop 'Today' show of featurettes featuring their finest lineup of female reporters, covering everything from playing around with polygraphs to noting the 'nasty perfume' hanging over a Libyan conference on Darfur, to tromping about the Vermonty Fall Colour in search of sappy maples under the pretense of a Global Warming angle. Plus, there were plenty of cutesy-pukey little pause fillers, from Annoying Music to insufferable anecdotes too brutally awful to mention. Grand Central Stationing it all was a cheerily chirpy Renee Montagne, who just about outdid them all in making your Monday morn a darn super experience.

But - but - why was I lying there in the pre-dawn gloom, tense, tightened up, instantly in a bad mood, despite a restful night with pretty positive dreams, my wife nearby, and our faithful hound, curled up, tuckered and grunting with pleasure? BECAUSE, the whole dumpster full of audio slop that I'd been subjecting myself to, in search of straight news, was entirely drenched in narcissistic, smug, self-absorbed, Mall-minded, dumbed-down, Fox-ified, blathery CRAP!

(Two horrific car bombings in Iraq, and Porter Wagoner expired . . .)

I know, I know, Nationalistic Puffball Radio's demographics have surely shown that the rising audience for NPR is probably (white middle/upper class) women in their 30s-40s (i.e. ranging from Annette Bening's character in 'American beauty' to Volvo-driving Sudoku moms), while the guys in their lives either prefer Rush and Michael 'Smeghead' Medved, or else 24/7 ESPN. So, NPR's gotta get boutique-y right fast if them corporate sponsors are gonna make NPR truly bloom and boom.

Know what I feel like doing? Watching 'The View' every morning. I think Barbara Walters and her gang probably provide more sanity and insight than the ding-dong dullness of the Mall-rat-run radio station from hell, once known as National Public Radio.