WTF NPR?

My displeasure with the existence of NPR precedes the recent controversy with Juan Williams. Interesting too is that my dissatisfaction is more over the form than the substance of NPR. I dislike how it exists, not that it does.

I actually enjoy NPR, at least much of it. Car Talk has its moments, Science Friday has taught me a lot, and Morning Edition, politics aside, is really not a bad reporting show. I even like Terry Gross' Fresh Air, without which I might never had survived three years of commuting on I-95.

My objection though is that it's funded (in a small part) by the federal government.

I argue that NPR should drop the "P" and just be a national radio station. The federal government has no business subsidizing a public radio station. Should it also subsidize a national opera? Ballet? Scuba diving course? Ham radio station? Website? Where does it end (it's telling that in various forms, all of these are being subsidized by Drunken Uncle Sam).

What it comes down to is that the well educated want a nationally subsidized radio station. They justify it to themselves by believing the effort assists the impoverished- as if exposing the poor to Click and Clack will yank them up by their bootstraps. Or the elites of the US don't care about justification, and just want to hear Bach when driving in rural Nebraska.

You know- I don't think this needs any more explanation. If you want Bach- buy a CD or satellite radio. Don't tax the rest of us for it.