The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: National Public Radio

  • Do You Even HEAR Yourself?

    It happened again the other day. I was listening to NPR on my commute to work, and I heard something that almost made me swerve off the road. When am I ever going to learn? I can’t even tell you what the story was about, such was my level of outrage afterward. All I know…

  • On Being Busy

    Ever since StoryCorps contacted me and told me they wanted to include my 2009 interview in their anthology Callings, and oh, by the way, NPR wants to feature you in Morning Edition, and Parade Magazine wants to do a piece on you as well, and O Magazine would like to speak with you, and wouldn’t…

  • Set Your Alarms!

    I recently wrote about my micro-fame experience. Well, it seems I’m still riding the crest of that wave! I’m going to be on NPR’s Morning Edition on Friday, April 15th! They’re doing a 3 minute excerpt of my StoryCorps interview to promote the upcoming book. It’s always been a dream of mine to be on…

  • Moving Ten Meters South

    Recently I listened to a speech by Noam Chomsky on my local NPR station, and one of the many things he said that struck me was that given the unprecedented rise in temperatures on this planet, it’s as if we all are moving 10 meters south every single day. Okay, that kind of freaked me…

  • Oh, My Aching Back

    I’m not getting any younger. My back can attest to that. I wake up several times a night because the pain in my lower back makes me feel the need to shift positions. I can’t remember the last time this was not the case. It makes for a very tiring experience. Many months ago I…

  • Bone Records

    I heard an amazing story on NPR’s All Things Considered the other day. Apparently in the 1950’s in Russia, censorship was so fully in effect that you couldn’t get Western rock n’ roll music. Even being in possession of such music could send you to prison. Censorship in all its forms tends to backfire. When…

  • Rete Mirabile

    I love learning something new! On my drive in to work today, I was listening to National Public Radio, as is my custom, and I got to hear Bird Note, a 2 minute podcast that is a weekly staple of some NPR stations. I always look forward to their segments because I learn so much…

  • The Thirty Million Words Initiative

    If I haven’t said it recently (but I’m fairly sure I have), I absolutely love National Public Radio. I learn so much from NPR that I probably would never know otherwise. Case in point: the Thirty Million Words Initiative. One of my all time pet peeves is parents who do not read to or communicate…

  • Vowels, Consonants, Climate

    I just love National Public Radio! It constantly causes me to look at the world through a whole new lens. This story, in particular, almost made me late for work because I refused to get out of my car until I’d heard the whole thing. Language lover that I am, now I’m even more focused…

  • The Majority Minority

    The other day I was listening to an interview on National Public Radio. The woman who was speaking was a refugee from Yemen who had to flee that country under a hail of bullets, and had lost everything she ever had. She was discussing how hard it had been to get out of the country,…