Last night at a Library Friends meeting a couple of us found ourselves talking to a recent retiree about the pleasures of listening to Public Radio during our work day. She is now in a position where she can telecommute and wasn't familiar with public radio. I gave her the information to look up her local station (she was visiting from Houston) and it occurred to me that I wanted start an NPR thread here at Mudcat. Quite often I reference or link to NPR radio programs in my posts here. I started a thread ages ago about reading newspapers and its second version is running now. Here's my companion public radio thread.

This morning I heard one of those stories that needed mention, and will start this out. It was a sad one, Scott Simon discussing the loss of Lou Stamberg, the husband of NPR news legend Susan Stamberg. I've posted the link. The page in my link will allow you to listen to the story.

Like the newspaper thread, this thread is established as a place to call attention to good and useful stories that we as listeners hear on NPR and PRI and those other sources that feed into our local NPR stations. Comments and discussion of stories are welcome, however, it's not intended as a place to argue the merits of left or right radio or to slam either.

Ever wonder what the person behind the voice looks like? I found an alphabetical list recently (I went looking up someone because in September they reassigned a number of program hosts and reporters and I wanted to know where the old ones went to and who their replacements were.) Visit here to get a look and a short bio of many of them.

If you live in an area that isn't served by NPR then you can listen online. My station is KERA-FM in the Dallas/Fort Worth/Denton market, and is at http://www.kera.org/radio/. Other stations can be located by visiting http://www.npr.org/stations/ and entering your zip code.

I should note that though I'm running this as a "BS" thread, I get a great deal of musical information through NPR. I've discovered performers from around the world I wouldn't have encountered any other way and immediately ordered a CD to make sure I don't lose track. (I heard a jazz singer on A Prairie Home Companion last week, Inga Swearingen, who knocked my socks off and I'll get her CD or add it to a wish list). So this isn't just news-oriented, its anything that NPR carries. We also have some very good local programming at KERA in Dallas, and I may link to those from time to time, though their podcasts don't stay active for very long, just a few weeks. (I still miss Glenn Mitchell, our amazing talk show host and music collector who died suddenly in November two years ago--age 55--just gone. Those of you who are lucky enough to have heard Glenn for years like I did probably remember the swift onset of tears at the horrible news that he was gone.)

When commenting, make "blue clickies" to the programs if you can, or post the URL and someone will come along and make the link. There's a world of great stuff on the radio.

Stilly River Sage