Maine public radio cuts back its music.

Maine public radio cuts back its music for more talk | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

This is never easy for public radio stations. After all, we invite listeners to invest in the programs.

Major changes always result in heat and some defections in the short run. Having 4,000 members threaten defection made a lot of staff members sit up and notice when we changed formats.

My past experience with change has yielded surprises. Replacing the opera with coverage of the shuttle disaster resulted in dozens of heated complaints. Coverage of the Pope's death in place of the opera resulted in even more complaints. We temporarily changed programming to offer coverage of the 9/11 disaster. One listener was so incensed by the change he threatened to blow up the station. (We called the police.)

In one case statistics suggested almost no audience and poor loyalty for a stand-alone weekend program. It was easy to understand why. The program had nothing to do with the rest of the schedule. I took the program off the air. The response was really light. There were literally a handful of negative comments. In fact, there was hardly a ripple. Within a few weeks after leaving the station, the program was back on the air. One of the members of that small ripple was able to dangle a check from a foundation in front of senior management. They went for it.

Will UConn join ACC? Maybe not.

An article in the Huffington Post is suggesting the ACC voted to include Louisville for all sports.

Louisville To Join ACC After Conference Presidents' Vote: Report

If true, this is blow for UConn sports. An article in this morning's Hartford Courant pointed out there would be a lot more money for UConn Athletics by joining the ACC.

My impression from the local media was that UConn was a lock for the ACC. Was the local media jumping to conclusions? Cheerleading? Did I get the wrong impression?

The pundits had it wrong. So did many journalists.

WSJ gets lost in the weeds with the Romney campaign

Ryan Chittum of the Columbia Journalism Review suggests the Wall Street Journal has it wrong about why Mitt Romney lost the election. That is because they paid too much attention to the political pundits. He contends, and I agree, that enough people understand that the economy cratered because of the policies that came before the crash. Voters intuitively understand that the recovery is going to take longer than the pundits want us to believe and, indicators are that the economy is on a slow road to recovery.

Also...Pundits are invested in their opinions. They're getting paid to have opinions. The opinions don't need to be true or based in fact.

Politics/Most Have Enough Information

SuperPac's and the candidates are set to spend millions to sway your vote. Contrast that to a survey by the Pew Research Center that says most of us already have enough information about President Obama and Mitt Romney. 92% of those surveyed say they have what they need to know about President Obama. 69% of those surveyed say they have what they need to know about Mitt Romney.

According to the survey results there's a wide partisan gap in what people want to know about Romney.



This is not a surprise. If you look at the results of the Wisconsin recall vote for Governor Scott Walker. There was not much movement in the results from the election to the recall election despite millions spent by sources outside the state to sway the voters. It is believed, through polling, that the voters had made up their minds in advance of the recall. The millions spent was aimed at the undecided which was a small percentage of the voters.

Previous Pew research shows the widening partisan gap between Republicans and Democrats. The money being spent will be aimed at the voters who have not decided... a portion of the Independents.

Since the advertising dollars spent will not be that effective...wouldn't it be nice if the money was spent to create jobs? I'm just sayin'.

Election Year Issues - Banking

Bank Reform

Eliot Spitzer: Clean Up The Banks 

Eliot Spitzer was the guest for On-Point on July 23rd to talk about "Clean Up the Banks."

Among the key issues...

• No significant changes in regulations since the failures of 2008.
• To Big to Fail...these banks are even bigger.
• Fiduciary responsibility is being ignored.
• Greed

Spitzer points out the ideology that got traction began in the 80's with the Reagan Administration when deregulation began in earnest. The checks on banking put in place during the Great Depression were stripped away. The breaks came off. The major crisis of the economic crisis were going through was only a matter of time. Proponents of deregulation assured us the bankers would regulate themselves.

Spitzer recounts a conversation he had with lawyers for Merrill Lynch. They admitted their guilt but, they said they were not as bad as their competitors. They viewed this as a defense! As if there is a sliding scale of unethical behavior. Spitzer calls it moral relativism. In other words, Merrill Lynch cheated their clients out of hundreds of millions while their competitors were cheating their clients out of billions.

Election Year Issues

Here's a list of election year issues.

• Distribution of Wealth.
• Growing poverty rates.
• Big Business - Monopolies.
• Banking Regulations.
• Big Business Influence in Politics
• Labor Laws.
• Public Health.
• Immigration.
• Environmental Issues.
• International Trade.
• Equal Opportunity Issues.

The list is from 1900. All of these issues were addressed in the period between 1900 and 1914 in what is known as the Progressive Era. They came about as issues because of changes in what drove our economy from agrarian to industrial. The changes were made to make the lives of average citizens better. In many cases, they did. We are going through a change again from national and regional to global. The issues above still have relevance. 

Etiquette and the Real Life Survival Guide

The Real Life Survival Guide is gathering for another recording this Sunday. The subject is Etiquette. I remember being taught etiquette by my parents. I also went to refresher course as an adult with my wife. The focus was proper etiquette at formal dinner occasions. I think my wife wanted me polish a few of my social skills. At the final class I made a mistake when cutting my meat. In my defense, I'm usually polite.

Because I help produce RLSG, I wanted to know more about etiquette. Was it something from the past? Had the rudeness of partisan politics and postings on the internet made it obsolete?

I found a few articles on talking about politics at social gatherings and at home. An article published by Reuters advises, "Know your goal. Think about the purpose of the conversation, and whether you should even be having it. Are you seeking information? Advocating a point of view in the hope of changing someone else's mind? Venting frustration?"
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/10/04/us-etiquette-politics-idUSTRE6931O620101004
Despite knowing deep down that your opinion is truly enlightened, you might want to keep that thought to yourself.

Social Media has etiquette. Reuters published an article on the etiquette of Pinterest.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/02/net-us-etiquette-pinterest-idUSBRE8610IU20120702

The News and Sentinel of Mobile has an article on intersection etiquette. Jim Parker wrote that for many, intersection etiquette was non-existent after last week's big storm.
http://newsandsentinel.com/page/blogs.detail/display/1106/Intersection-etiquette-non-existant.html

The focus of an etiquette class would seem to be important. NY State Senator Marty Golden wanted to teach some of his Brooklyn constituents proper etiquette. Golden's class was pitched as teaching the proper etiquette skills for women to get ahead in the business world. Among the skills the class would teach women to "sit, stand and walk like a model" and how to "walk up and down a stair elegantly,"  The class is being roundly criticized for focusing on the wrong issues. Golden cancelled the class.




You can find out more at CBS news.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57466407/n.y-sen-marty-golden-cancels-feminine-etiquette-class-after-outrage/

The Real Life Survival Guides program on Etiquette will air on WNPR in a couple of weeks. It airs Sunday at 4:30pm. The shows are also available on-line at the Real Life Survival Guide's website and wnpr.org.

Thank you for your time.