The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: NPR

  • 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,…

  • Marriage Contracts

    I was listening to Weekend Edition on NPR the other day, and they were discussing the fact that in Israel, a woman cannot get divorced without her husband’s permission. Even a secular woman in that country is bound by this ancient Jewish practice. So if you have a vindictive husband with nothing to lose (the…

  • Not All NPR Stations Are Created Equal

    I am a loyal listener of National Public Radio. It is my main source of news and entertainment. It often inspires topics for this blog. Whenever I travel by car, I look up the NPR station for the area in question so that I can stay connected. It fascinates me how different one NPR station…

  • “Pre-Baffled”

    God, I love National Public Radio. I was listening to a guy get interviewed on the way to work this morning. He was talking about a book he had written about understanding the monetary system. I wish I had gotten his name or his book’s name, but I was driving. Anyway, he was saying that…