I feel solidarity with NPR listeners today.
As I drove home from the grocery store this morning, I turned on the NPR news-and-humor program Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.
They had reached the point in the program where they play a game called Ask the Listener. The idea is, a listener calls into the program, and then the host, Peter Sagal, quizzes him or her with a few questions about contemporary events. Then after the listener answers, Sagal explains the news nugget that prompted the question, which in turn gives the program's panel of comedians an opportunity to riff on the topic.
This post would be more interesting if I had been listening closely enough to have heard the actual questions being asked, but in truth, I was only half-listening. So I didn't quite catch the questions. But what interested me was the studio audience's reactions to the answers and related news topics. The answer to the first question (whatever it was) was "gambling". Sagal then went on to note that legalized gambling has become a $300 billion industry in the US. And he noted that Americans spend more money on gambling each year than on movies, music concerts and museums - combined.
Upon hearing that last fact, the NPR audience started booing, lustily (for an NPR audience). And as I was steering my car through the suburban neighorhood, I was booing right along with them.
The next question was something along the lines of, Which auto manufacturer's pickup truck model has missed its sales goals more spectacularly than the legendary Ford Edsel? And the answer was, the Tesla Cybertruck. At the news that Elon Musk's signature pickup model has been a colossal sales bust, the NPR audience burst into cheers - and as my car tooled down our street toward my driveway, I cheered, too.
In case you are not an NPR listener, perhaps I should explain that, as a general rule, the studio audiences on this program are not exactly vocal in the same way that, say, a studio audience on a daytime television show is vocal. To the best of my knowledge, there is no sign flashing in the studio telling people when to cheer and when to boo. They are usually the model of good-humored decorum.
It seems pretty clear that these two topics are touching a nerve among the (probably narrow) slice of Americans who are Wait Wait Don't Tell Me live attendees and radio listeners. Whoever they are, I felt a kinship with them this morning. It's kind of a comfort to know that there are people who more or less think like me out there.
There are a few (actually very few) Tesla trucks around here. What they remind me of is when our older son was in Cub Scouts and they were doing the Pinewood Derby. Where they gave the kids a block of wood and said, "go for it, carve a winner!". The Tesla truck body style looks like it was carved by a grade school kid from a block of wood.
ReplyDeleteSounds like the Tesla self-driving model isn't doing too well either. Needs some accident avoidance tweaking.
I'm not familiar with Ask The Listener, but it sounds like an entertaining opposite sketch.
I live in a deep blue county. I have seen a couple of cyber trucks (there is one living somewhere quite close to our home but I don’t know which street) but few. I don’t think of the Boy Scout Pinewood cars and trucks when I see one but of Nazi vehicles. The one that lives near me is gunmetal gray. They look evil to me.
DeleteCareful, Jim! You are on the road to becoming an egghead libtard!
ReplyDelete"Wait, Wait" is a gateway to Scott Simon's lugubrious essays about poor people, and then on to harder stuff like "This American Life" with its many sympathetic gay and trans contributors.
Get back to the National Review! Invest in some crypto! Turn on "Proud to be an American" and some Alex Jones. Monitor yourself carefully for the next month, and lie down if you feel an urge to vote for candidates named Mohammed or Jesús or, worse, some black woman!
lol! Jim is not there yet but there are signs for hope. If I could go from conservative GOP volunteer and donor to being a libtard, then Jim can probably make the leap also. I was a long subscriber to National Review many decades ago. One of their writers, Jim Geraghty, now writes for the WaPo and I have been surprised at the low quality of his analysis. Buckley is probably turning over in his grave at the decline in the intellectual quality. My WaPo subscription expired yesterday. So I won’t be wasting time anymore reading all the advice columns. Their news reports were usually pathetic and most of the op eds also. I mostly read George Will and the proliferating advice columns. But I will miss Carolyn Hax.
DeleteWhen I had a WaPo subscription, Carolyn Hax was the main thing I read, in addition to a few columnists who aren't there anymore. If you have a NYT subscription, "Asking Eric" is pretty good. He is a practical kind of guy.
DeleteYes, yes, the Washington Post, fair enough. But you're missing the earth-shaking news: Ross Douthat is leaving (has left?) the NY Times!!!
DeleteThis just in: Pope Leo meets with Patti Smith! https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2026-07/pope-leo-xiv-patti-smith-meeting-singer-poet-vatican.html
ReplyDeleteTwo people with vastly different versions if "Gloria" finding common ground. An oddly sweet meeting.
I saw that too. They are both from Chicago. Patti Smith wasn't my kind of music, but I always had a soft spot for her. She was just who she was.
DeleteI also saw that, and was inspired to read up a bit on Smith. A committed artist. Seems Pope Francis had her do concerts for him twice. For her part, she seems to have been a bit of a religious traveler and, as far as I know, never has identified as Catholic, but has felt an attraction to Francis of Assisi, and so was excited when Pope Francis was elected. There was some kind of bond between them.
DeleteSome good news in an area that I’m passionate about - Rubio is restoring at least some humanitarian assistance, including some food and medical. It’s pretty minimal at the moment but it’s a start. USAID was the very first agency that Musk went after - with a vengeance. I’m wondering if it’s because he hates black Africans - not just in South Africa but all black Africans. A lot of humanitarian aid goes to the poor in Africa. The Ebola spread in Africa is also asking them nervous. Dismantling the medical infrastructure that had been built over many years may come back to bite them.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear that Rubio is at least doing that much.
DeleteMusk probably does dislike black Africans. His motto was "move fast and break things" and that is what he did. He turned his army of boy geniuses loose without knowing or caring how many people he hurt. Plus he was strung out on Ketamine. I will never forget what he said about "throwing USAID into the wood chipper".
Since Musk is the richest man in the world, he could do a lot of good with his money if he wanted to. But he doesn't appear to want to, maybe that would be "toxic empathy" or something.
DeleteMusk has said he has Asperger's, a classification no longer used for autism. He and some other pronatalists tout their autism (or whatever it is) as a superior phase of human evolution that looks only at statistics and outcomes without factoring in emotional attachments and concerns. Musk measures his superiority of intellect by the fact that he is the richest man in the world. He can out-run, out-lawyer, and out-gun any government or legal system that tries to make him take consequences for his actions. Grimes, Canadian mother of some of his kids, has been unable to get him to follow custodial agreements or prevent him from just taking off with one of the kids whenever he feels like it and sending it back when he gets bored. He refers to X, whom he was dragging around the White House, as his "emotional support human." He works employees to the bone; if you aren't sleeping in a cot in your office, you're fired. He mocks work-life balance. There's more than racism here. There's utter contempt for humankind.
DeleteI know very little about autism. But I recently watched a crime drama about an autistic woman who solves crimes in York England. Since her mind works differently she puts facts together differently than others. The actor who plays the young woman (the character is not a detective) is a 23 year old autistic woman with ADHD. It’s streaming on PBS and is called Patience (the name of her character). Part of the story is her emotional development and learning to make connections and forge relationships— colleagues, friends, and, eventually a boyfriend.I thought it was interesting - a somewhat different cop show. According to reviews, experts in autism say it’s well done. A tv reviewer at the Guardian totally pans it based on the first episode. I thought it improved as it went on. Has anyone else seen it?
DeleteAutism advocates have tried to separate themselves from Musk and his ilk. My kid has a learning disability that would be considered "on the spectrum." We had to work with him a lot on picking up cues and info that he often ignored or just couldn't see. There is tremendous pressure to get on a pharmaceutical merry go round, which is very hit or miss, and mostly just dopes them up like zombies. I am dismayed when TV shows try to make out people with spectrum disorders as oddball geniuses ("Sherlock") or to valorize a mental disability as a superior mindset as Musk does. The reality is quite different.
DeleteWe watched the first season and liked it. One of the main characters was Patience's boss, who mentored her. But she has a different boss in the second season, and we haven't watched it yet, didn't know if we would like it as well. She and the original boss seemed to work very well together.
DeleteI would recommend watching a subsequent episode rather than the first one to get a better idea of what the show is like.
The thing about people "on the spectrum" is that they are all different from each other, and are affected to varying degrees, and in different ways. Some can live relatively normal lives, and some are quite disabled.
Spectrum disorders is a catch-all for a whole bunch of things, and, yes, they are all quite different.
DeleteSome people like the term neuro-divergent, which sounds cool and science fiction-y and less judgmental than "autism spectrum."
The ability to live "normal" lives is not a straight line. Stress and mental health factors affect the ability to maintain concentration and focus.
Everybody thinks they know better than you about how to deal with your kid and fix him cuz they saw a TV show about it.
Oops, sorry, that sounds like I'm condemning people who watch "Patience." Haven't seen it. Don'tbwant to. I understand no one here is telling me how to raise my kid.
DeleteWe like "Patience". One of the better police-procedural efforts to appear on PBS in recent years.
DeleteWe also like "Professor T". I think his 'divergence' is based more on past trauma than autism, although I 'm not completely sure of that.
Katherine, I just finished season 2. At first I wasn’t sure if the new boss would be as good as in the first season, but it works.
DeleteI stopped watching Professor T. It’s too dark for me. I’m an escapist and didn’t continue after a few episodes. Although I did watch Broadchurch which was pretty grim. I generally stick with the Morse type mysteries, and the almost satirical Midsomer Murders.