NPR, Radio West

I know that Kerry Jackson of Radio From Hell fame has a man crush on Doug Fabrizio from KUER's Radio West. And really, why wouldn't you?

I have listened to Radio West on and off throughout the years and love his topics of discussion. My favorites are when he discusses books with their authors. One that has always stuck with me is his interview with Ken Silverstein, the author of The Radioactive Boy Scout: The True Story of a Boy and His Backyard Nuclear Reactor.  I listened to this interview back in 2004 and was fascinated. Of course, this was when I listened to his rebroadcast interviews at 7pm driving home from Simmons because that's when I was lucky to get off of work that early... but I digress. His show is great. He makes you want to buy the book. So, of course I added it to my 100+ item Amazon.com wish list. And, I still haven't read it, but I will. One day.

(I also was listening to Doug the day he interviewed Nancy Workman and she walked out. It was awesome. Here was the exchange. And reading it here really doesn't do it justice:
Workman: "Oh my goodness. Hey, if you're gonna talk like that..."
Fabrizio: "Talk like what?"
Workman: "See you later, Doug. Thank you very much.")

Anyway, the reason I am writing this post? I was listening to Radio West on Friday night (October 22) as I was driving home, yes 7pm, and heard this wonderful, amazing interview. Doug was out of the office, so Jennifer Napier Pearce was filling in. The interviewee was Reza Aslan, a scholar with crazy credentials. He is a Muslim, born in Tehran, and well spoken with an amazing view on religion, humanism, and our world. I was so impressed with his interview. Ms. Pearce played a clip of former Pres. Bush talking after the September 11 attacks and obviously wanted him to say something degrading about Pres. Bush, but instead of doing that, he spoke with common sense. (Quite honestly, the clip was sort of out of context of the discussion they were having and I think she wanted to incite reaction from him - thanks NPR! - and he didn't feed into it at all.) Please listen to this interview (yes, it's an hour long) here.

Radio West Interview with Reza Aslan

What impressed, excited, heartened me the most? Mr. Aslan's contention is that the phrase "The War on Terror" feeds into Al Queda and what they view as their mission. By calling the war in Iraq and Afghanistan a war on terror turns Al Queda members into soldiers and thus justifies their cause. This is the problem with "The War on Terror." He says it so much more eloquently than I do here and makes the case that Al Queda does not represent the Muslim world, which so many of us try to point out, but are drowned out by the loud far-right wing members of our society.

Why am I so passionate about this? My little sister was just married two weeks ago. She married a Muslim man. But, it's not how I identify him first. He's funny, he loves the Lakers (boo!), he's from Afghanistan, he's taller than me and he is madly in love with my sister and will take care of her for the rest of her life. He makes her laugh. A lot. And, yes he is Muslim and doesn't eat pork and misses out on eating my grandpa's sausage, but who cares. He is a good man. We love him. His family is a good family. His mom makes really good rice too if you want the recipe.

Noelle and my brother-in-law Gharzai

So, if you want to hear Mr. Aslan speak, he will be at the Salt Lake City Library tomorrow night, October 25 at 7pm. It's free. Here's the info. And, he has also written a couple of books. So, I have added another to my 100+ item Amazon.com wish list. And I will read that one too.

NPR, a prologue

I admit it. I listen to NPR. I also admit that I don't agree with everything on NPR. I think too often they take take political correctness to the absurd. It's almost as if they think, "We represent the left. So, we're going to be as left as we can."

That's why I really love listening to Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal. He just oozes intelligence. And, yes, he does lean left-ish, with a dash of "what the hell are we doing people?" And he sounds sexy. (And he is!) But more importantly, you don't don't have to be a business person to enjoy his show or to learn something. He breaks things down into layman's terms.

His interviews, pieces, etc. are interesting because they are long form-ish and his staff goes out and finds stories that I never would find anywhere else. This was one story that I found particularly interesting (and sort of bounced around in my head when I was thinking of this blog).

Billboards seen as a potential revenue stream

Read this article. It will take you 3 minutes.

What caught my attention was that Ky led the story (on air) with a line mentioning Chicago facing a $654 million budget gap. The fact that NPR would allow anyone of it's contributors to even say anything remotely untoward about Chicago was heartening to me. Let's not beat around the bush. When you read anything about "Chicago politics" it's said with a laugh. But this is serious business. Fall in line or lose your job. And now it's led to a $654 million shortfall. Hmm.

My other praise of Kai Ryssdal? A couple of years ago he judged a contest on Good.is. It was a contest to "Make sense of the financial mess." Now I am sure that this infographic is somewhat simplified, but it is honestly the best explanation of what happened 2 years ago that I have seen... to this day.

Winner of Good.is contest Part 1

Winner of Good.is contest Part 2

Unfortunately, Marketplace is just one half of one hour on NPR. So, what else is on NPR? Coming up next: NPR, Radio West.

*Credit for editing goes to Jared Rabner. Rockstar. He available for hire.

Some random thoughts

This blog thing is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I always think of great topics as I am driving on the freeway. In fact, people who look at me in my car probably think I am crazy, because I am sure I talk to myself about these topics. It would be much better if I remembered to use the voice recorder function that I keep forgetting that I have on the iPhone.

So, here are two very random things I bring you today. Unfortunately, I am letting someone else do the talking for me this morning. But, that's ok. Please read this blog link. I agree completely.

Deliberately uninformed, relentlessly so [a rant] (from Seth Godin)

And, in case any one is looking for an early Halloween present for me (BTW, we can talk about my love of Lost at a later date):

Valet Parking

Unfortunately, this rant is more of a "preaching to the choir" post. However, let's talk valet parking dear readers.

Do you use valet parking when you go to a restaurant, hotel, mall or (this is the one I always end up using) at St. Mark's Hospital? Does it say "Free Valet Parking" when you park there? Do you know that free is not really free? In other words, please tell me you tip these poor guys (it's always guys, so don't give me the feminist argument) to run backwards and forwards and put up with whatever attitudes people are sporting that day.

I was at St. Mark's last week and got some money out of my wallet to tip the valet. A gentleman was waiting for his car, but going around and looking to see if people had money in their hands to tip the valets. Not because he wasn't sure if he should do it, but he was actually guilting people into doing it. When he saw that I had my money in hand, he said loudly, "I cannot believe people in this city. They are so rude. Nobody ever tips here."

Now this guy was a little bit extreme, but I think it had more to do with the fact that he was dying from cancer and really didn't care what people thought of him. (There's another blog entry - why, when people find out that they are dying, or when you get to a certain age, you really don't care what comes out of your mouth?)

However, I can attest to what this man said about people tipping in Utah. "Nobody" is taking it a little far, but very few people do, in fact, tip or tip decently. Do you know that the guy at the valet stand is making less than, or at the very least, minimum wage because his employers assume that you will tip? It doesn't even have to be a big tip. When I hand these guys $3 it's like they've won the lottery. And the person getting into their BMW or Jaguar can't even be bothered to hand over a dollar.

Some people say it's a generational thing. This might be true.  My friends and I are 20%ers at restaurants.  My parents are usually 15-18%ers. Some say you have to work in the service industry (or have friends who do) in order to understand tipping.  This is probably the most true. I know too many people who worked too many crappy jobs to put themselves through college and realize that the same holds true even now. People are still doing these crappy jobs to put themselves through college.

So, do you tip the valet? Will you now?

Speaking of Books

Some of you may know that I am a total bookworm. It's sort of ridiculous. I'm the girl whose mother had to tell her to go outside to play when I was little. "Natalie, put the book down. You need to go outside and play." Seriously. I would have been some parent's dream.

So, really, the job at B. Dalton was a dream job. And, it taught me a lot about this community. Because, as a Catholic school girl, I was pretty sheltered (trust me, this is all going to come together). Around the time I worked at the bookstore is around the time that St. Oprah started her bookclub (the first one). This was before publishers truly understood the Kool-Aid Ms. Winfrey served her followers. Women would come into the bookstore THE DAY that she delivered her sermon proclaiming the book she had found as the "Best Book Ever" and we were helpless. Clueless.

Here's a typical exchange:
Customer: I need to get Oprah's book (keep in mind, Oprah had not written the damn book).
Me: I would be happy to help you. Do you have the title of the book?
Customer: No.
Me: Hmm. How about the author?
Customer: No.
Me: Well, I really need that information in order to find it.
Customer: The book has an orange cover and it's about (using her hands) that big.
Me: Oh. That one? Let me show you where we keep the orange books that are about (using my hands) about that big.

I believe the first book she chose was The Deep End of the Ocean. Highly readable. Mass market appeal.

The next book she chose was Song of Solomon.

Toni Morrison. For those of you who don't know, Toni Morrison is an African American author who writes about African American issues and can be quite graphic in her novels. When this selection was chosen, we sold many of these books. Within 1-2 weeks, most of these books came back. One woman told me it was too "descriptive."

All of this brings me to my trip to the bookstore last night. I was there to purchase a book for my bookclub (we'll see how this goes - I am not sure about this whole bookclub thing) and of course got sidetracked. I don't take a quick trip to the bookstore. I take a 1-2 hour trip to the bookstore.

I was standing in front of the new non-fiction section next to a woman who was paging through the new Jonathan Franzen novel, Freedom, which has been chosen as the new Oprah book. Which is ironic seeing as how he put up such a fuss the last time she chose his book. But, that's a different story.

Now, yes, I am going to make a judgment here. This woman looked utterly confused that Oprah would choose a book such as this. She kept reading the jacket, picked it up, put it down. She was the stereotypical Oprah junkie who looked like she would be more comfortable reading Twilight than a highly praised work of fiction. (Two side notes: a. I will rip on Twilight throughout this blog, so get used to it and b. I think Jonathan Franzen is kind of an egotistical asshole, so it's not like I really want to read his book either.)

Here's the funny part. While I was standing in front of the non-fiction section I notice that the biggest misogynist in the world has written a new book. I honestly thought this man couldn't possibly have any further exploits to write about. And, once again, people prove me wrong. One thing about this man, he's honest about it. He knows he's an asshole and doesn't try to pretend he's not. So, I pick up the book to read the inner flap and laugh because I cannot believe that there are stupid women in this world who choose to be exploited by a man such as this. The content doesn't so much offend me as confound me.

I set the book down and pick up Jon Stewart's new book. And, I see the woman who is afraid of the Jonathan Franzen book pick up Mr. Misogynist's book. She looks at the flap for about 5 seconds, sets it down, gives me a dirty look and speeds off to another section of the bookstore.

I pretty much laughed for the entire time I was in the bookstore every time I thought about it. But, why are people so afraid to read something out of their comfort zone?

The Death of Common Sense

When I was 18 years old and graduated from high school, I got my first job. Yes, I was spoiled and yes, I know that and no, I don't want to talk about that. But, since I like to do things big, I worked 3 different jobs. One at Larry Miller Toyota as a runner, one at Lerner New York (for about 1 shift a week - stupid) and one at B. Dalton Booksellers. BEST JOB EVER.

I went away to school after that summer, but would continue to work at B. Dalton during Christmas and summers when I came home. One of the books that came out was called The Death of Common Sense. Now, this is a book that has to do with law and litigation and how law is "suffocating America." I never read it. However, the title of that book has stuck with me forever.

It is more apropos than ever. Because, in my ever so humble opinion, there is no common sense. From small decisions to large decisions. And I am just as guilty in lacking common sense as the next person.

This blog (I hope) will serve the purpose of pointing out incidents, news stories, every day occurrences and the like that severely lack common sense. Be kind as I get my feet wet. I look forward to engaging in civil discussion and rousing debate.