Radio Sweethearts

image: “$1.00 on any gun” by taberandrew on Flickr

IN THIS WEEK’S RECAP:
Genocidalympics, Second Amendment Anecdotes, The Night of the Living Newspaper Industry, Bhutan, A Dad Who Makes Decent Jokes (For Once), and Something About ESPN That I Don’t Really Care About Because I Don’t Watch Sports (I Listen to Public Radio).

Even with that said, those things, unless I digress badly on the second one, are after the jump. R/S, go!

The episode begins with Brooke Gladstone’s statement that it’s been extremely difficult to get a good grasp on the number of people who have lost their lives in conjunction with recent political protests in Tibet. Which brings up China’s recent human rights record - and the fact that they’re hosting the Summer Olympics this year.

And, like that, we’re onto the next story. We know Bob Garfield reads this site. I don’t know if Brooke does, but someone at “On the Media” is making it really difficult for us to separate the stories enough to properly recap them, even if it’s cool that they’re tying so many short stories together thematically.

The transitions in the actual show are usually extremely graceful when done by Brooke, and when Bob handles the transition, it’s awkward like your dad hitting on your girlfriend. Brooke had a blurb about China leading into a story about the Olympics, and this is how she handles the transition: “the pictures of protesting monks are starting to have Olympic-sized ramifications.”

I’m used to hearing bad puns in the show. But they come from Bob, not Brooke.

This required a brief, online R/S editorial meeting which consisted of the following:

Matthew: Brooke is so fucking with me.
Matthew: Grrr.
Matthew: And I hate that I may not be crazy for saying that
Kerry: What do you mean?
Matthew: “BROOKE GLADSTONE: Whether the West is entirely right or partly wrong, the pictures of protesting monks are starting to have Olympic-sized ramifications.”
Kerry: She wants to be Bob, but she can’t quite bring herself to. It’s like she’s taking night classes at the Bob Garfield School of Metaphor, Simile & Cliche but can’t commit to being a full-time student.
Matthew: I’ll bet she’s taking night classes. All night long.

So about the Summer Olympics? Brooke says they’re being protested somewhat politely by a group called Dream for Darfur, whose original motto was, and I’m not kidding: “China, please bring the Olympic dream to Darfur.” That wasn’t forceful enough, it seems, to move China to take serious action to stop the killings in Darfur, so they’ve switched to “Genocide Olympics.”

I was mildly disappointed to find, upon looking at the “On the Media” website, that it wasn’t spelled “Genocidalympics,” but whatever. That particular appellation may be better suited to the 1936 games anyway.

The next story is “Bound for Glory,” a history of political protest and the Olympics. See how I did that? It was nice. No bad puns were used in the transition. 

After a break, there’s some comment on the D.C. handgun ban that, as Bob explains, “was struck down by an appeals court and which the Supreme Court is now considering.”

I don’t think it is unconstitutional. I can see where both sides are coming from on this; it’s taken me years, but I finally came to the conclusion that the Second Amendment is as important as the First (unless you’re a journalist or an artist, but that’s a matter of reverence. And Kerry and I? Both very reverent people).

But the thunder in my appreciation of the Second amendment was kinda stolen in Bob’s interview with Slate Magazine’s Dalia Lithwick, who points out:

The last time the Supreme Court heard a major, major gun case was in 1939. I sort of joke people were wearing fedoras and driving Packards. And what the court pronounced is actually the opposite of what you just said and most people believe. The court said, no, it’s not a personal right to pack heat.
It’s a right that’s very much constrained by the first half of the Second Amendment, the part that we don’t know, that says: “…a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
So the question really for the courts has been settled. This is a right that goes to militias. If your National Guard wants to assert a Second Amendment right, that’s fine, but you as Joe, guy on the street, do not have a right that flows from the Second Amendment.
And that’s the really interesting part is that the American public has a whole different, and, as you suggest, almost antithetical notion of what the law says.

And I’m sure we all know someone with an “antithetical notions of what the law says.”
Here’s some topics from this week’s episode that I didn’t get to:

1. The State of the Newspaper Industry: they’re gonna be OK, but not having classifieds or full-page ads on the internet scares them. (Don’t let it scare you! Walk toward the soft fuzzy glow of new media! - K)
2. Dude Who Did Deadpan Characters and Whose Daughter Made A Documentary About It: Kinda funny. Kinda. Not my thing, really.
3. Something About ESPN That I Don’t Really Care About Because I Don’t Really Pay Attention To Sports, Spending My Time Instead Yelling At Either the Radio or CSPAN: pretty much just said all I have to say about that one.

Today’s post was a largely incoherent jumble written after a largely incoherent interview with PUBLIC FREAKING RADIO by Matthew, and edited… by Kerry, who makes it work like Tim Gunn.