DIANA REPUBLIC

I listen to National Public Radio a lot on my car radio. There doesn’t seem to be any one radio station that plays a mix of music that I enjoy. I know, shocking that there are no hip hop/folk singer/rap/rock stations. Even when I can find a station that is playing a song that I like: it is invariably followed by three that I don’t. And then there are the DJ’s, a tribe of people who are raised to really enjoy the sounds of their own voices.

NPR, while somewhat dry and left leaning, is informational. It provides a great deal of insight into foreign affairs as well as human interest stories locally. Let’s face it, the nightly news keeps drifting closer to Entertainment Tonight both in depth and subject matter. So rather than listen to DJ drivel and lame music and in an effort to get more than the television news offers, I listen to NPR.

Bob recently joined me in this endeavor. He shut down the sports talk radio and the classic rock stations for a little NPR action. (I can deal with the classic rock stations but the sport talk radio makes me completely crazy – a bunch of frustrated ex-jocks with too much time on their hands.) He seemed to be enjoying it at first. He was soaking in all the knowledge, but…well… the economic conditions are affecting everything.

Bob came home the other night with an anxious and depressed look about him and began peppering me with questions. “Can the bank just call in our home equity line of credit and make us pay it back?” “How much debt do we have?” “How much do we pay for ..?” and “Can’t they just stop trading on the stock market to keep it from crashing?”

“I think I have to stop listening to NPR.” Bob said. “It is too depressing.”

I have noticed that there are fewer uplifting stories being reported on NPR (or anywhere else). People are losing their homes and their small businesses and the layoffs just keep coming. I, however, can listen to this and be glad that while we are not immune to this recession, we are going to be OK.  We have had to make some changes to get by in this new economy, but it is nothing compared to what most of the country is going through.

Quickly I responded, “Maybe you should go back to sports talk radio.” As much as it hurt me to do it, it was the right thing to do. Somehow the angst that overcomes me when I listen to fat guys in their underwear drinking warm Budweiser ranting about quarterbacks and pitchers is the same feeling that Bob get when he listens to economic tales of woe. His response is fitting, mine is intolerant.