A Tiny Jolt Of Humanity (UPDATE: Well, No)

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While listening to the droning, self-important, sonorous, dolorous thrum of National Public Radio news the other day, a brief, almost strobe-light-like flash of levity, of playfulness, of fun leaked through, as refreshing as the first shoot of springtime flowers jutting out from beneath the thawing ground; one of NPR’s newscasters, one of their weekend female anchors, has apparently chosen the air name “Whizzer Johnston”.  Like some kind of starting pitcher for the Red Sox from the fifties.

I’m still smiling, thinking about it. What a wonderful choice!

The world is not such a bad place, after all.

UPDATE: I’m told her name is Windsor Johnston. Good Lord – we’ve gone from the best NPR name ever to the worst inside of two paragraphs.   Why not “Shoshonna Gaia-Cohen”, for crying out loud?

Oh, well. And so we trudge on.

10 thoughts on “A Tiny Jolt Of Humanity (UPDATE: Well, No)”

  1. She took the name of her favorite Canadian whiskey. Maybe her “air middle name” should be “Coke”?

  2. Remember when NPR wouldn’t pronounce a Hispanic surname without adding just a little ‘Spanish lingo’? If they were consistent in doing this with other ethnic groups, I’m imagining “Windsor Johnston” would require affecting a New England WASP accent like Katherine Hepburns.

  3. Mitch–funny you haven’t had anything to say about the weekend’s biggest story… the midnight-hour attempt by the WIGop to gut Wisconsin’s longstanding open-records law. I know you’re a big Walker supporter. Just wonder how you square this with your oft-stated admiration for the WWII vets from many nations who gave their lives so we wouldn’t have to sing Deutschland Ueber Alles before football games. A citizenry with no access to the workings of their government is different from a citizenry living under totalitarianism how? Please explain.

  6. Republican sources told The Journal Sentinel that Assembly Speaker Rep. Robin Vos (R) and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R) played an influential role in pulling the package together. Vos confirmed that he was aware of the proposals before Thursday’s vote, telling Wisconsin Public Radio Monday, “Almost all of us in the leadership teams were.”

    He claimed that lawmakers were interested in the changes as a way to protect constituents from being targeted by outside groups through open records law, as well as to encourage a “collaborative discussion” during the legislative process.

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/walker-involvement-in-records-law-changes

    Wow! Why would constituents need to be protected from outside groups? Didn’t our WW2 vets give their lives so that people could go to the voting booth without fear of repercussions?

  7. Why consider something as sweeping as an open records law on a Thursday night before a holiday weekend in a omnibus budget bill?

    Because it allows sweeping changes to occur with out a record of who voted for it…

  8. “Because it allows sweeping changes to occur with out a record of who voted for it…”
    No politician has ever done that before!

  10. Walker’s office grudgingly admitted involvement after the governor was outed by state senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald as having suggested that changes to the Open Records Law be shoehorned into the budget.

    However, today the governor tried to blame the whole thing on the Legislature.

    Kinda getting hard to see how this fella sees himself as becoming President.

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