I have enjoyed NPR since the mid-8o's when I was an impressionable college student. During the long run by the former president of NPR things changed and the phrase that comes to mind: the fish stinks from the head down. NPR still has some wonderful shows on air, but now?, GK, npr is in the rear view mirror of your life and the new future you have created since leaving is far more interesting and informed.
I shouldn't have said anything about NPR and I regret that. It's not my problem, it's in the past, and I am looking forward eagerly to 2022 when I plan to reassemble the old PHC cast and do some shows. I saw Buster Keaton perform at the Minnesota State Fair when he was in his 80s, with a stooge holding the ladder and whacking him with it, and why retire if you still love the work?
Mr. K, I happily pay to read your column but let's be honest, it's merely the seed that produces the fantastically entertaining bijous from you and your readers in the Posts to the Host. It's like getting two subscriptions for the price of one. Thank you, twice.
Mr. K, So you don't read much due to eyesight issues? Please give your optometrist another crack at it. There are so many wonderful writers who aren't dead yet. Min Jin Lee, who wrote Pachinko and Amor Towles, who delights with A Gentleman in Moscow, might just join your list of favorite writers. Of course, there are always audiobooks! Merry Christmas and be well.
Tak skal du have! A thousand Thanks! There are so many interesting "facts" that surface on this GK and Friends substack! Lois Pratt commented that "Grandmom was a snob, though her uncle's ancestors were descended from the Mayflower."
Actually, some Mayflower descendants ignore the fact that they should have shared that claim with the folks on the Speedwell - including my ancestor Jonathan Eddy. Those two ships left the port together, but the Speedwell had problems with its mast, took on water, and had to return to England. There was an "undemocratic" division that got us off in historically diverse directions, right there in the Atlantic! The "Paying passengers" of various ilk, Jonathan Eddy included, were piled back into the Speedwell, while the religious Leiden Separatists went on to Plymouth Rock with the captain of the Mayflower and their fellow religionist. (Wikipedia: Speedwell: Ship)
It can be little, accidental things like this that can be the roots of big divisions! In my youth, it was a big deal that a Protestant sect had founded the first European Colony in America. This is not true by any means. My Dutch ancestors landed in what we call New York City with Heinrich Hudson in 1607. Jamestown, in the "Colony of Virginia" was chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607. They didn't get along with the locals, so that colony didn't persist. Mayflower's occupants were luckier.
None-the-less - it seems to me that when I was growing up, those who wrote history books were interested in saying that some religious Protestants were our "Founding Fathers." (and mothers). Things haven't changed that much, have they? Critical Race Theory is getting a lot of flack in Texas, even today, for suggesting that white is the only acceptable skin color!
People of one religious persuasion or another, or none; folks of European or Asian, African or Indigenous ancestry, those of us who can trace our family trees in America back 400 years, or less than ten - we can all count ourselves "Americans" if we choose!
When we've been in the audience for "The Prairie Home Companion", we've sung "God Bless America" together. I doubt if most of us have looked at our fellow audience members, and wondered how long or short their roots are in America. That's one of the gifts of being an American - we all know our ancestors have arrived here from somewhere else - even the "Native Americans" whose relatives crossed the Bering Straights on ice, millennia ago!
There seems to be less "Mayflower snobbery" in the USA today than there was in Lois Pratt's grandmother's day! Hopefully, we're making some progress in defining "Who is an American?"
Your bitterness at being thrown under the bus by MPR and left there by the NPR "family" is wholly understandable, but indiscriminate hostility is not a healthy state of mind. NPR is not the BBC, nor should it pretend to be; but it still serves a vital function in this country's mediasphere. You know that.
I do not know that. In the world of January 6, with chaos on our doorstep, it has become irrelevant. It is a warm quilt for us liberals, but it doesn't do much for our sense of reality.
To the contrary: NPR has been consistent and courageous in calling out GOP lies. In its absence, Fox would be even more toxic... hard as it is to imagine that. It's not irrelevant to me.
But as I say, I understand your position and I remain a fan. I've been listening to you for more than forty years, I never miss the Writers Almanac, I've read most everything you've written, my wife and I (and her late parents, once) attended several of your Nashville shows at the Ryman. I'm sorry you were so shabbily treated at what should have been the triumphal conclusion of a marvelous radio career, and admire the way you've (mostly) put it in proper perspective. Please carry on.
Thanks, Phil. I'm a happy man and feel very lucky as I near 80 but I have no loyalty to NPR at all. As someone said, "Don't let yourself get bit by the same dog twice." Once was enough. I'm on to other things.
Phil! It seems to me you're looking at this from a limited perspective. This whole #MeToo movement seems to have been capitalized on by some people with "political motives" - whether party politics, or just "politics" within their working group. Mr. Keillor was far from the only host to have mud slung at him, simply because the "Higher-ups" might have found him "too Independent" or whatever. There was another host at WGBH in Boston who got a similar treatment. All the while, a certain Presidential Candidate at the time said some very offensive things about women, and managed to bull his way into the White House all the same.
I had a #MeToo incident at my place of work. I failed to report it because I doubted the effectiveness of the man in charge of HR. I can testify that these #MeToo issues are often far from "straight-forward."
From where I stand, I wouldn't accuse our host of "indiscriminate hostility" at all! When someone looks at the lay of the poker cards, and realizes that the deck is stacked - it seems to me that that can lead to very legitimate outrage.
We just lost a long-standing governor in New York State, most likely from some behind-the-scenes playing with #Me Too. I'll be glad when we go back to more "standard" ways of evaluating the behavior of those in highly visible situations. There can be so much more to "He Said - She Said" than what's chosen to focus on!
If you were mistreated, would you sit in a corner and sulk? I tried that, when this fellow worker ambushed me and made me stroke his penis. I left the room, feeling like Lady MacBeth: "What! Will these hands ne'er come clean?" I physically couldn't wash the disgust out of them. I drove and drove and drove until I found myself in a rock pile in the desert. Somehow, the size of those rocks, so gigantic compared to my own puny self, finally calmed me down enough to feel I could go on living.
These public power plays, with sexual inuendos, can really be disturbing to our psyches. It seems to me, as one who never said anything about my #MeToo incident, that it's far healthier the way Our Host is reacting than if he were just to cower in a corner and weep!
I hope, Phil Oliver, if you ever get into a #MeToo scenario, that you allow yourself to be honest about your emotions! These days, #MeToo can be a lot more complex than the superficial reality! You might think about ceasing to be The Wizard of Oz's "Tin Man" and search around for ways to have a heart!
I wonder what you mean about "a gratuitous diatribe?" What I was attempting to do was to differentiate between a #MeToo physical situation that actually did cause a lot of emotional distress, and a casual email note that might have been interpreted in more than one way.
When it comes to unsolicited sexual encounters, beneath the window dressing, we are all physical animals. Men may think it's "nothing serious to respond to what "Peter" is telling them to do. What I was trying to say, in writing of my actual experience, is that there's a lot of innate chemistry involved which can sometimes take an encounter in wholly unexpected directions.
It's not only women who can legitimately complain of "#MeToo!" One of the hitchhikers I picked up on the fringe of suburban Reno, was a young man in his early twenties. He looked me over carefully before he got in the car. Once he felt safe, he told me this story. He had been on the floor of a casino when a woman began paying attention to him. He was in a light-hearted mood and said "Yes" when she invited him up to her suite. Once there, it turned out there were several women there, each looking forward to his "Service." For a while he went along, but in time, his energy plummeted. Nevertheless, they kept him a virtual prisoner - and "slave", for nearly a week. He finally found an opportunity to escape - and that's when I stopped for him by the roadside. Clearly, what he was describing was a nightmare to him.
If you (male or female) haven't been pressed upon unwillingly - it may seem like a "gratuitous diatribe" to become aware of someone of one gender being pressed to function for one of the opposite one. Some men seem to think that #MeToo is frivolous. What I was trying to clarify in my initial post is that even if nothing outward happens, serious crossing of acceptable gender boundaries can result in significant distress on the part of the recipient.
Perhaps, if you fashion a mental image in which you are the one with a #MeToo complaint, you might have a little more sympathy for those who have been imposed upon.
Gracie: too many "quotation marks" in your letter to bother reading it.
I have enjoyed NPR since the mid-8o's when I was an impressionable college student. During the long run by the former president of NPR things changed and the phrase that comes to mind: the fish stinks from the head down. NPR still has some wonderful shows on air, but now?, GK, npr is in the rear view mirror of your life and the new future you have created since leaving is far more interesting and informed.
I shouldn't have said anything about NPR and I regret that. It's not my problem, it's in the past, and I am looking forward eagerly to 2022 when I plan to reassemble the old PHC cast and do some shows. I saw Buster Keaton perform at the Minnesota State Fair when he was in his 80s, with a stooge holding the ladder and whacking him with it, and why retire if you still love the work?
Mr. K, I happily pay to read your column but let's be honest, it's merely the seed that produces the fantastically entertaining bijous from you and your readers in the Posts to the Host. It's like getting two subscriptions for the price of one. Thank you, twice.
Mr. K, So you don't read much due to eyesight issues? Please give your optometrist another crack at it. There are so many wonderful writers who aren't dead yet. Min Jin Lee, who wrote Pachinko and Amor Towles, who delights with A Gentleman in Moscow, might just join your list of favorite writers. Of course, there are always audiobooks! Merry Christmas and be well.
Thanks for the advice. I've been seeing opthalmologists. You think an optometrist might have a better idea?
OK, that's it. I promise no more attempts at light humor. The books are fantastic though.
GK -
Wes Gordon had a good story about an ancestor who was drafted
to fight for the Confederacy. In reply you encouraged the
telling of "a ground-level story of the suffering of ordinary
people." _Cold Mountain_ is such a story. I published a
much more modest one, _An Incidental Casualty_. It's on
amazon.com. A fellow family history researcher sent me a
copy of a day book kept by my great-great-grandfather in
1864, when he served in the 161st New York Volunteer
Infantry. He was one of ten cousins who served in the Union
Army. Two died and four came home wounded (including him).
That day book became the basis for the book I wrote. I wrote
so that my grand-kids might understand some of the cost of
the American Civil War.
Peter E Schilling
Tak skal du have! A thousand Thanks! There are so many interesting "facts" that surface on this GK and Friends substack! Lois Pratt commented that "Grandmom was a snob, though her uncle's ancestors were descended from the Mayflower."
Actually, some Mayflower descendants ignore the fact that they should have shared that claim with the folks on the Speedwell - including my ancestor Jonathan Eddy. Those two ships left the port together, but the Speedwell had problems with its mast, took on water, and had to return to England. There was an "undemocratic" division that got us off in historically diverse directions, right there in the Atlantic! The "Paying passengers" of various ilk, Jonathan Eddy included, were piled back into the Speedwell, while the religious Leiden Separatists went on to Plymouth Rock with the captain of the Mayflower and their fellow religionist. (Wikipedia: Speedwell: Ship)
It can be little, accidental things like this that can be the roots of big divisions! In my youth, it was a big deal that a Protestant sect had founded the first European Colony in America. This is not true by any means. My Dutch ancestors landed in what we call New York City with Heinrich Hudson in 1607. Jamestown, in the "Colony of Virginia" was chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607. They didn't get along with the locals, so that colony didn't persist. Mayflower's occupants were luckier.
None-the-less - it seems to me that when I was growing up, those who wrote history books were interested in saying that some religious Protestants were our "Founding Fathers." (and mothers). Things haven't changed that much, have they? Critical Race Theory is getting a lot of flack in Texas, even today, for suggesting that white is the only acceptable skin color!
People of one religious persuasion or another, or none; folks of European or Asian, African or Indigenous ancestry, those of us who can trace our family trees in America back 400 years, or less than ten - we can all count ourselves "Americans" if we choose!
When we've been in the audience for "The Prairie Home Companion", we've sung "God Bless America" together. I doubt if most of us have looked at our fellow audience members, and wondered how long or short their roots are in America. That's one of the gifts of being an American - we all know our ancestors have arrived here from somewhere else - even the "Native Americans" whose relatives crossed the Bering Straights on ice, millennia ago!
There seems to be less "Mayflower snobbery" in the USA today than there was in Lois Pratt's grandmother's day! Hopefully, we're making some progress in defining "Who is an American?"
Your bitterness at being thrown under the bus by MPR and left there by the NPR "family" is wholly understandable, but indiscriminate hostility is not a healthy state of mind. NPR is not the BBC, nor should it pretend to be; but it still serves a vital function in this country's mediasphere. You know that.
I do not know that. In the world of January 6, with chaos on our doorstep, it has become irrelevant. It is a warm quilt for us liberals, but it doesn't do much for our sense of reality.
To the contrary: NPR has been consistent and courageous in calling out GOP lies. In its absence, Fox would be even more toxic... hard as it is to imagine that. It's not irrelevant to me.
But as I say, I understand your position and I remain a fan. I've been listening to you for more than forty years, I never miss the Writers Almanac, I've read most everything you've written, my wife and I (and her late parents, once) attended several of your Nashville shows at the Ryman. I'm sorry you were so shabbily treated at what should have been the triumphal conclusion of a marvelous radio career, and admire the way you've (mostly) put it in proper perspective. Please carry on.
Thanks, Phil. I'm a happy man and feel very lucky as I near 80 but I have no loyalty to NPR at all. As someone said, "Don't let yourself get bit by the same dog twice." Once was enough. I'm on to other things.
Phil! It seems to me you're looking at this from a limited perspective. This whole #MeToo movement seems to have been capitalized on by some people with "political motives" - whether party politics, or just "politics" within their working group. Mr. Keillor was far from the only host to have mud slung at him, simply because the "Higher-ups" might have found him "too Independent" or whatever. There was another host at WGBH in Boston who got a similar treatment. All the while, a certain Presidential Candidate at the time said some very offensive things about women, and managed to bull his way into the White House all the same.
I had a #MeToo incident at my place of work. I failed to report it because I doubted the effectiveness of the man in charge of HR. I can testify that these #MeToo issues are often far from "straight-forward."
From where I stand, I wouldn't accuse our host of "indiscriminate hostility" at all! When someone looks at the lay of the poker cards, and realizes that the deck is stacked - it seems to me that that can lead to very legitimate outrage.
We just lost a long-standing governor in New York State, most likely from some behind-the-scenes playing with #Me Too. I'll be glad when we go back to more "standard" ways of evaluating the behavior of those in highly visible situations. There can be so much more to "He Said - She Said" than what's chosen to focus on!
If you were mistreated, would you sit in a corner and sulk? I tried that, when this fellow worker ambushed me and made me stroke his penis. I left the room, feeling like Lady MacBeth: "What! Will these hands ne'er come clean?" I physically couldn't wash the disgust out of them. I drove and drove and drove until I found myself in a rock pile in the desert. Somehow, the size of those rocks, so gigantic compared to my own puny self, finally calmed me down enough to feel I could go on living.
These public power plays, with sexual inuendos, can really be disturbing to our psyches. It seems to me, as one who never said anything about my #MeToo incident, that it's far healthier the way Our Host is reacting than if he were just to cower in a corner and weep!
I hope, Phil Oliver, if you ever get into a #MeToo scenario, that you allow yourself to be honest about your emotions! These days, #MeToo can be a lot more complex than the superficial reality! You might think about ceasing to be The Wizard of Oz's "Tin Man" and search around for ways to have a heart!
My goodness, what a gratuitous diatribe. Hope you feel better.
I wonder what you mean about "a gratuitous diatribe?" What I was attempting to do was to differentiate between a #MeToo physical situation that actually did cause a lot of emotional distress, and a casual email note that might have been interpreted in more than one way.
When it comes to unsolicited sexual encounters, beneath the window dressing, we are all physical animals. Men may think it's "nothing serious to respond to what "Peter" is telling them to do. What I was trying to say, in writing of my actual experience, is that there's a lot of innate chemistry involved which can sometimes take an encounter in wholly unexpected directions.
It's not only women who can legitimately complain of "#MeToo!" One of the hitchhikers I picked up on the fringe of suburban Reno, was a young man in his early twenties. He looked me over carefully before he got in the car. Once he felt safe, he told me this story. He had been on the floor of a casino when a woman began paying attention to him. He was in a light-hearted mood and said "Yes" when she invited him up to her suite. Once there, it turned out there were several women there, each looking forward to his "Service." For a while he went along, but in time, his energy plummeted. Nevertheless, they kept him a virtual prisoner - and "slave", for nearly a week. He finally found an opportunity to escape - and that's when I stopped for him by the roadside. Clearly, what he was describing was a nightmare to him.
If you (male or female) haven't been pressed upon unwillingly - it may seem like a "gratuitous diatribe" to become aware of someone of one gender being pressed to function for one of the opposite one. Some men seem to think that #MeToo is frivolous. What I was trying to clarify in my initial post is that even if nothing outward happens, serious crossing of acceptable gender boundaries can result in significant distress on the part of the recipient.
Perhaps, if you fashion a mental image in which you are the one with a #MeToo complaint, you might have a little more sympathy for those who have been imposed upon.
.
.
TO UPDATE
A CHRISTMAS LETTER FROM 2005
Twas just after Christmas and in Baldus’ House
We two still stayed busy, especially Walt’s Mouse
As we come to the end of two aught twenty one,
We thank God and the Docs; we’re still having fun.
We visit the grandkids, Iver, Zinnea and their dad.
And now perhaps monthly cause they always seem glad.
Eric’s VRBO’s and TerraVista keeps him as busy as a bee,
But he finds time to travel to mountains and sea
Melissa’s work in Makato is still very cool,
I think with her Bachelors, she is done going to school
Her pets, Scarlett, Silky and Atticus, keep her at a fast pace.
and in her spare time she seeks a new place,
Jan’s driving her Lincoln to Tennis, Coffee and walking.
She tends to her flawed husband who barely hears her talking.
With the passing of time Jan keeps denying her age.
Reading books keep her vibrant as she absorbs every page.
Walts is recovering Mayo’s adept use of the knife,
The back is improving and he is feeling no strife.
He hopes to break 90, both in golf and less girth.
(Always watching the Bank to increase our net worth)
Walt meets sister Sharon each month on first Tuesday.
Jan often will join them to be in the news fray
Talk of Heidi, and Jacob, and George and of Coral
As well as kids, grand kids, spouses, family and morals.
A new season is coming and so is two aught twenty two.
The years been a bummer, with Covit and masks.
So here’s wishing you joy with sips from a flask,
As you join with your loved ones, and hear of good cheer
As the Baldus’ wish you a
HAPPY NEW YEAR