Dear NPR: What’s so funny about death threats?
Remember those misdirected death threats from unhinged anti-Koch addicts that Doug Powers spotlighted last week?
Refresher here.
Well, government-sponsored National Public Radio — erstwhile guardians of civility — apparently found the death-threat misdirection amusing. A segment last Friday on NPR’s Morning Edition made light of the plight of Iowa businessman Dutch Koch — no relation to libertarian businessmen Charles and David Koch.
Philip Ellender, President, Government & Public Affairs, at Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC, called the NPR hypocrites out:
I am writing to raise deep concerns about a Morning Edition segment that aired on April 22 and apparently made light of death threats that had been leveled at gentleman in Iowa but that had been intended for our company.
The item was read by hosts Mary Louise Kelly and Renee Montagne, billed as “our last word in business,” and was clearly framed as an amusing take on the news. Kelly and Montagne made sport of the fact that a Mr. Dutch Koch shares the same surname as that of our company, even musing that he’s also been “confused with the big soda maker” – Coca-Cola, it seems. Kelly quipped that “he does not say which cola he prefers” before cutting away to what sounds like bongo drum music.
But there is nothing even remotely funny about a person’s life being threatened and NPR ought to be ashamed that simple fact of decency has to be pointed out. Here, for example, are three recent stories that NPR has aired about how disturbing and profoundly wrong it is when death threats are made – no matter what motivates them. It is the most depraved, lowest form of discourse and it is also a crime.
* http://www.npr.org/2011/02/08/133600386/Assange-Extradition-Hearing-Continues-In-London
* http://www.npr.org/2011/01/15/132956616/Vitriol-Debate-Timely-Even-Without-A-Shooting
* http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/11/10/131218517/bishop-robinson
As I’m sure you know, that “Last Word in Business” time block is fully intended for lighthearted, laughable items. In recent broadcasts, for example, it has featured reports on smart phones that aren’t so smart, a budget airline’s attempt to market upright seats as “pre-reclined,” and a restaurant accused of “poor taste.”
What is especially perplexing is that NPR has stated many times in recent months that it has a “goal of promoting a civil conversation” and has often reported on calls from national leaders for a “new civility” in public discourse. So I would like to ask for some formal explanation of how NPR could have allowed a segment on this subject to be presented on the air in this fashion?
***
Bad taste is all the rage at NPR these days, huh?
Recent: Hey, NPR: Fund your own lame liberal humor — and leave my family alone
Related: Hannity, “Behind the Bias”
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Clearly, he does not understand the translation for the liberal code phrases “civil conversation” and “new civility.”
They make perfect sense if you don’t get hung up on the literal meanings…
Being a Navy brat, I grew up everywhere. When we lived in the south, I was shocked at how the “Negroes” were treated offbase.
Now, I am one. I don’t like it one bit.
Ah, just the kind in which the left revel in using toward those whom they despise.
You keep using that term. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Of course, we all know that civility is only required of the right. The left is free to go about their business of crass stupidity and what they consider “humorous”. People on NPR actually think they are “classy” and “highbrow”. What is frightening is that they truly believe they are funny. They are being subsidised by you and me, the taxpayers. This crap HAS to stop!!
“It is the most depraved, lowest form of discourse…” Don’t worry, they’ll top it by the end of next month.
After getting wind of the tasteless ‘humor’ aimed at MM ( in the midst of an ongoing family crisis no less ) off “Wait.. Don’t tell me!” I contacted NPR immediately.
Rather I tried. Their Ombudsman aren’t exactly accessible and for leaving a msg? We’re still waiting for an explanation and apology from their last flurry of insults.
It’s good to know my tax dollars are going toward this.
Leftists being uncivil? That nevah happens!
/sarc
/sarc
/sarc
/sarc
/sarc
….
(how many /sarc tags are required to deal with that level of sarcasm?)
I guess they’re feeling all chipper again since John “Crap Sandwich” Boehner found the common ground allowing them to hold on to their taxpayer funding. Thank you John! Now don’t go all blubbery on us again.
Do you think for a minute they consider any Iowa businessman a real person?
Spare me, if you do.
The term Untermenschen applies here.
I don’t know about ‘chipper’, emboldened maybe? Either way, there’s no excuse for their behavior. None.
Most TV news shows follow a similar formula. They have a circular file segment at the very end. I guess that’s so you’ll be left laughing because the other 29 minutes and 45 seconds aren’t worth the waste of breath.
In this case, the liberals have outdone themselves. Death threats because of a mistaken identity. Har – har.
Of course, it was strange that liberal NPR actually aired this. Think about it; they told the world that liberals are too stupid to do simple research and then profiled the wrong people and threatened them with death. AND…NPR is known to support he liberal agenda.
It’s amazing this even got air time.
Exponentiation is represented by two asterisks followed by the exponent.
i.e. 2**3 is two cubed.
Your example would be /sarc**5
Just when I thought I was the only person who notices ill (or no) manners any more;
Thank you, Mr. Ellender.
Where’s the beef? If you take the 90 seconds to listen to this segment, the only thing NPR makes light of is how people think this guy is involved with Coca Cola.
And, the DNC. And, CBS. And, MSNBC. And, anywhere liberals feel comfortable and safe from retribution, or violent retaliation from those they abuse.
Besides poor taste, they all have one thing in common:
COWARDICE!
The females especially at NPR roil me when i hear the smugness in their voices about people who have political views outside their moralistic framework of rehashed Marxist_quasi Hegelian dialectic. They will be the first to suffer when the hyperinflation of their god in the white house comes home to roost. Their mantra of “living simply so others may simply live” will be replaced by the horror of not being able to afford to shop at “Whole Paycheck” or even at the local “big box” chain of grocers whom they abhor because they will have to be directly exposed to an underclass their “values” have been responsible for reifying as a permanent one. Too bad they can’t just gentrify them permanently out of sight by a Pelosi Galore sponsored “affordable housing” condo project for the “moderate income” class to which they’ve attached themselves.
Please allow me to continue to vent. NPR is worthy of spit let alone hard earned tax dollars that are not required to get “diverse” programming for free on the World Wide Web. I cannot imagine the thousands of percentage points that their inferior and inferiorating media product is inflated beyond fair market value.
On the WWW i read some of the best analysis of the news of the day, retrospectives on the times of our lives from decades past, and have access to musical archives that go beyond West Virginia folk music remakes that are B grade at best, yet NPR pushes off on us as being some great revival of some sort. (I got nothin against West Virginia— but as President Snow Job seems to want to disembowel the coal industry, NPR seems to be running propaganda cover with their WV folk music hit pieces on how evil coal is.)
These two harridans will continue to dig their own media graves with this poor karmic choice of encouraging violence. What ever happened to the hair legged feminists who abhor violence? Oh I forgot. That is only against violence affecting their zip codes. The NIMBY crowd knows no shame.
But what are we to expect from the shameless acceptors of tax payer dollars to fund their livelihoods? It has become so automatic to an entire class born after 1960, the whole “non-profit” mantle of moral authority crowd, you know, the ones who are “uniquely qualified in the world” to tell you what to eat, how to screw and with what, and where to spend your charitable contributions (Tides Foundation anyone?)
These two especially make me sick: as if they ever earned an honest, non-subsidized dollar in their lives.
/Vent off.
This? From Captain Touchy?!!
So when do the NPR babboons get defunded?
Just after the Planned Parenthood vultures, and not in the forseeable future, as evidently both are politically protected species.
Except for that part where they say, you know, “death threats”.
They didn’t make light of the death threats. They made light of people confusing him with Coca Cola.
Roger that, Capt.
Growing up, the main social barriers were attributed to rank.
I went to school with Officer’s brats, but didn’t socialize with them. We lived in enlisted housing, and stayed out of officer’s housing. My folks danced together at the NCO club, and I life-guarded at the NCO pool.
The neighbors were all races. I remember in Blytheville, Ar. (Armpit of the Air Force) we had Chicanos next door, Blacks behind us and across the street, and a white family on the other side of us that nobody on the block could stand (they were thumpers.)
I went to the Jr. Prom with a beautiful Black/Puerto Rican girl. My father was opposed to the date….her dad was a Major. (I’m not white, but Celt)
( Does The Left have like an Equivocation University or something similar? )
So… this deranged guy wants to get even with a person, party or group that he feels has ‘wronged’ him or poses some sort of threat, however baseless. He carefully draws up plans and is loaded for bear:
However, due to his obvious disconnect w/ reality shows up and injures or even kills an entirely innocent and unrelated party.
God that is so funny!
/sacr**5
Hangfire said:
Well don’t tease us! How’d the rest of the date go? “Wait don’t tell me”, wrapped her dad’s car around a telephone pole and spent the rest of the summer working to pay it off.
( I knew it! Just like ‘mine’ ) God I’m so embarrassed.., for ‘you’ I mean.
Well, her dad was real impressed (/sarc) with my ’40 Buick. He “briefed” me on what was expected of me. I guess he figured I was “safe” since he had seen me at Mass on Sundays as Lector or Commentator. I was a Life Scout. Must be a good guy.
His mistake………
She was beautiful. Built like a brick healthfood store. Her dad was Black, her mom was PR. Her name was Aida, and is probably still quite the beauty.
40 years ago.
Get NPR out of the US and the US out of NPR ! Give them to the UN just before we kick them off our shores !
so you’re a very pale blue?
Just if I stand up too quickly or try and tie my shoes.
I lived on Redstone Arsenal in the early 60s. My father was a major and had just been riffed. So at that time he was a SSGT. We lived in enlisted housing which was mostly white but there was a smattering of other races.
I also went to school with the officer’s brats. We had to commute to Decatur because that was the closest catholic school. On the way home, the officer’s kids were dropped off first, then the enlisted kids. Even though we passed by much of the enlisted housing first. My older brother was livid and caused a window on the bus to drop onto the arm of the colonel’s daughter. He caught hell for that; he had to kneel on the bus, hands clasped together as if in prayer, all the way home the next day. He made his own knee pads out of foam rubber for the next infraction.
Yes… now, I suppose it was? We lived in Base Housing in Long Beach, CA ( mid-80′s ) and it was fairly as you describe. Never kept exact count but it was roughly equal thirds of Whites, Blacks and Hispanics.
Not me–I’m so white that I’m blue. It matters not if I sunbathe (which I cannot do). If I get burnt, it peels off and I’m just as pale as I was before. My Scots-Irish father was at least ruddy.
When I was 9 and 10, I used to have tanning contests with my latino brother-in-law. He and I were nearly the same level of dark. Now, I look like Casper the friendly ghost I’m so white. Scots-Irish father, Irish mother. As pasty as you can get.
..clinging to their Bibles and firearms, according to JFKerry.
Aye, and I could use a pastie about now. Or a bridie. With a pint’ o bitters.
Or shopping in Walmart or going into the military b/c it’s the only employment they can ‘get’ blah, blah.
Kind of funny though, being Polish and Bulgarian, most of the year ( even in dreary old Oregon ) I’m darker, much darker than Mrs. Will ( Filipina ) In ways that doesn’t mean a whole lot as saying Filipino is a lot like saying “American”.
{nod, nod. wink, wink. Know what I mean?}
Conservatives and Independents are just too stupid to understand sophisticated humor and civility.
Hangfire said:
Mrs. Will is finally breaking down. Her cousin ( and that means a lot of different things in Little Manila ) but Nita lives in Vegas where it’s sunny just about year round.
Some of her friends from work are throwing in the towel on OR’s weather ( and economy ) and several recently purchased homes in the Dallas-area. She’s becoming increasingly isolated as much of the old guard at her employer moves on to greener pastures.
And yes, The Dreary Weather here means you eventually succumb to drink, join the grow your own crowd or likely as not prefer.., ‘indoor activities’ much of the year.
My liver’s shot and still have to submit to pee tests so it narrows it down a bit.
I’d take The Dalles over Dallas.
I remember being able to see cows between Dallas and Foat Wuth. Now, the two have grown together. Rush-hour traffic goes as far north as Denton. The DFW metroplex is huge.
Hangfire,
The Dalles actually sees quite a bit less rain than we ever would, in any given year. Still, OR got problems. We often discuss the runaway entitlement mentality of the PEU’s from coast to coast but ‘I’ will insist it started here!
Landing a state/gov. job here was like “hitting the lottery” as far back as the late 70′s. Across the board our teachers etc. are as expensive as high COL areas. Our newly elected ( and often recycled ) Governor Kitzhaber has proven anything but a rubber stamp for the PEU here and they don’t like the belt-tightening language a bit!
We’ll see.
The late ’70s is when a mass exodus from Califruitia started to metastasize up in Oregon and Washington. A second wave in the ’90s kind of finished the job.
Exactly. Pick up any voter’s pamphlet from the mail and candidate after candidate shows under their Education:
CSLB/UC-Berkley/Santa Monica Community College etc. etc. Michelle did a great article here after the ’08 Election about “The Bluing Of Texas”. Even though most counties continued to fall Red ( they did so by a lesser margin each successive election cycle! )
So Bay Area Tech co’s pull up their tent stakes and head for the Lonestar State ( of course bringing their Liberal VIEWS w/ them every step of the way! ) Come for the Business Friendly environment ( Stay to RUIN it! )
I sent NPR a message and copied the text in an e-mail to my representative urging defending of NPR.
I am more likely to become red-faced.
Looks like National Pinko Radio frailed up again.
(FRAIL…courtesy of Farscape series. Used instead of the slang word for intercourse…as in WTF “What the Frail”.)
That’s right. Their daily humorous “last word” segment wasn’t supposed to be funny *this* time.
What’s it like being a water carrier for every bad idea and thought that liberals come up with?
When the GOP gets Whigged.
Hopefully,you urged “defunding.” NPR already has one too many defenders on this thread.
NPR: (yawn) It’s like what you peasants say, shite happens! Now go away or we will taunt you a second time!
T-Bone,
The Mumia thread has gone beyond done; it`s well into picking the nit until there is barely the memory of the nit being picked.
Spacey, Hangfire, Rogue and few others are far more entertaining and way less irritating ! N`est pas ?
Meanwhile, PBS anchor says 2012 Will Be “The Most Racist” Election Ever.
2012 will be the most racist election ever because the left will make it the most racist ever !
Got that right. Once you have played all of your cards, pull the race card.
Cain/West 2012! Yeah, let’s have that racist election!
They look at these two gentlemen the same way they look at Clarence Thomas.
West/Cain 2012! We need a strong military.
VPat, That would shut the racist rants and accusations down before they start ! My current faves – maybe we can convince West to answer the call and shore up Cain on his minimal weaknesses ! Hope so !