And then I wrote...

by Dick Schilling, "Editor Emeritus"

... that there are many things I enjoy on public radio. But lots of things I don’t enjoy as well.

Wisconsin comes in clearest on my home radios, but the station is so much a house organ for leftist causes that I find it hard to listen. Even to the “entertainment” shows, which feature “jokes” at the expense of conservative candidates about nine to one. That does not surprise me, since the education establishment is the source of much of the broadcasting, and Wisconsin’s governor has not been the best friend of education financing in that state. Wisconsin Public Broadcasting has openly opposed him each of the three times he has won an election.

The Minnesota programming I get is from Rochester, and is sometimes not very strong. But I find less politicking there so listen whenever I can.

So I was really disappointed Sunday morning when a “news” program on that Minnesota station editorially slanted a story toward sympathy for Muslims ... on the 15th anniversary of the killing of about 3,000 people when Muslims flew planes into the World Trade Center towers!

Don’t blame Muslims, they said. Maybe they do wear clothes odd to western eyes and maybe their prayer habits seem strange. But you don’t see pictures of Catholics kneeling and taking Communion, or Jews with coming of age rituals, they said.

But to ignore the fact that the source of most sectarian violence since 9-11-01 is radical Muslim practitioners is to ignore the facts.

It wasn’t Catholics or Jews or atheists who were responsible for the trade centers, or massacres in Boston, California, Florida, Paris or Brussels, etc., etc. And in most cases, the criminals made clear who they were by invoking Allah’s name.

So go ahead and remind us that not all Muslims are guilty of murder of innocents, gays, wives who stray, and non-believers. That certainly is true. But don’t confuse tolerance with blindness.

That afternoon, I again happened by that same station, and the same program was being rebroadcast. Do you suppose they ran it all day? If so, why?
And why does the government continue to fund public broadcasting. They have as many advertisers as commercial programming; they just call them something else.

Also irritating me over the weekend (sometimes it doesn’t take much) was how nasty the mosquitoes were. I had to fight off a swarm of them Saturday when I wanted to pick a pepper, and one even followed me into the house. Then Sunday morning, first when I raised the flag and later when I got the newspapers out of the box, I was viciously attacked just feet from my garage door!

Later while shaving, I was buzzed in my own bathroom. Although aging and slow of motion, I still have some talent in spatial relationships, perhaps, because I grabbed her (only females attack) in flight. And I got a spot of blood on the palm of my hand for my effort. There was no one else around, so I assume it was my own blood, which she had surreptitiously gathered without my knowing it.