A Conservative On NPR

Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater.  Driving home from work today, a journey of forty-five minutes, I grew tired of my normal radio pre-sets.  KCRW falls on the dial between two local Christian radio stations and a show on investments caught my ear.  In typical NPR style it was divided into a number of smaller segments one of them on families in Joplin that survived the tornado thanks to God’s intervention and good investing.  This particular story had a mother tell her daughter to climb into an old chest, ‘for fun play’ as the tornado hit.  Afterward they found themselves in a house with a stairway leading nowhere and a complete view of the skyline---the roof had been blown away.  The thought occurred to me as it has a number of times I’ve listened to NPR: they know how to tell a good story.

Searching the dial on road trips I am always thrilled to find a broadcast of Prairie Home Companion, Car Talk or The Splendid Table. Other times I’ve wiled away hours listening to stories about music or aspects of the human condition. The stories resonate at soul level. I laugh, sigh and stay entranced as I am drawn into the story.

There has been some controversy these last years regarding funding public television and radio. I suspect part of that is because some conservatives state the news reported on NPT is liberally slanted. Honestly I have no clue either way. I don’t get my news from them but they are often along with me as travel companion in my car.

In the scheme of things funding public radio is inconsequential.  What is of consequence is relationship wisdom and auto advice from Tom and Ray (with Chief Legal Counsel from Dewey, Cheetham and Howe) and Americana from our own national treasure, Garrison Keillor.  If the day comes that they chuck the funding it may be the baby going out with the bathwater.  He'll be awfully cold out there in Lake Wobegon.