National Public Radio
Apr. 8th, 2005 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusWhen I lived in New York, I used to listen to NPR, America's National Public Radio network. In fact, you could even say that I had NPR partly to thank for being there in the first place. The prize exhibit in my successful application for an O1 visa (for "aliens with extraordinary ability in sciences, arts, education, business or athletics") was a CD of my appearance on NPR's All Things Considered.
When I listened to NPR, the thing that I liked best also had something alien about it. It was a mantra that was read out between the programmes by a man I imagined as an Asian American, if he wasn't actually a Vulcan. "This program" said the robot voice "has been made possible by grants from The Annenberg Foundation, The Ford Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation". Despite the neutral tone, there seemed to be a satisfyingly human message in there. "Fuck off, conservatives, we have liberal billionaires," it seemed to say. The more I heard this mantra, the more satisfying I found it. In the end it seemed to me to be a kind of poem full of rich dead people who wanted to change the world. It was weirdly moving.
This morning, prompted by a discussion about NPR on a message board, I decided to look into how a typical foundation comes into existence. Who were these "rich dead people"? I chose the MacArthur Foundation to research.
"John Donald MacArthur (1897-1978) was one of the three wealthiest men in America at the time of his death, and was sole owner of the nation's largest privately held insurance company. In the 1960s," says the Foundation website, "Mr. MacArthur's attention turned to real estate and development. He conducted his business at a table in the coffee shop of the Colonnades Beach Hotel, in Palm Beach Shores, Florida. He owned the hotel, and he and his wife lived in a modest apartment overlooking a parking lot... 
Catherine T. MacArthur (1909-1981) was one of five children born to Irish immigrants who had settled on the South Side of Chicago. Her father was active in Democratic politics in the city."
The MacArthurs sound like "worldly ascetics" in the classic Max Weber style. The website outlines the mission of the foundation they established like this:
"The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private, independent grantmaking institution dedicated to helping groups and individuals foster lasting improvement in the human condition. MacArthur has awarded more than $3 billion in grants since it began operations in 1978 , and today has assets of more than $4 billion. Annual grantmaking totals approximately $185 million."
There you have it. 19th century-style philanthropy by people who did very well out of capitalism and want, in a patrician sort of way, to help the kinds of poor people they once were themselves, but don't essentially want to change the structure of the system which allowed them to accumulate their billions.
Here are some of the highlights of the MacArthur Foundation's presentational video. I watched it so you don't have to.
1. It emerges that MacArthur was incredibly mean, so mean he didn't even spend anything on himself. He certainly didn't have any particular liberal mission or ideological orientation. He just needed something to do with the billions he managed to accumulate. He said "I've made the money, it's your job to figure out how to spend it."
2. The MacArthur Foundation claims to be "thinking outside the box", neither left nor right, Republican nor Democrat. Yet their positions (a woman's right to choose, supporting the International Criminal Court, ecology, concern for the ageing, and the study of poor neighbourhoods in Chicago) are all broadly Democratic ones. At one point we see a shot of a Human Rights Watch publication exposing arbitrary detention and torture. You can almost see Blair and Bush flinching.
3. Outgoing head of World Bank Wolfensohn testifies to the Foundation's sterling work investing in Russian human capital, saying "The World Bank, together with the MacArthur Foundation, is building on the intellectual strengths they already had in the Soviet system as Russia joins the new world system." Hard to imagine his successor teaming with the liberal foundation or crediting anything to the Soviet system.
4. The MacArthur Foundation's president says (over shots of NPR headquarters) "Institutions matter because they endure. Individuals come and go." The main problem he sees currently is "the increasing disparity between rich and poor". Which is ironic, since immensely unfair concentration of wealth is the sole reason for the Foundation's existence.
Big Bird Meets Cash Cows is a Conservative News article which says "ouch" and "stop it" about the work of the foundations, NPR and PBS:
"There is an important moral case to be made that public broadcasting as we know it has outlived its time. The proliferation of broadcast outlets can bring a wide range of political and cultural viewpoints to the airwaves. By contrast, PBS seems stuck in a programming rut with a moderate liberal bias. For every mainstream Ken Burns blockbuster there's a Frontline expose of man-made chemicals destroying life on the planet. Worse yet, there are the self-help marathons and specials masquerading as public-spirited "cultural" programming. Why should taxpayers or even private donors subsidize this peculiar melange?"
The thing that concerns me about this is the mealy-mouthed failure of spokesmen for the MacArthur Foundation, for example, to say they have an ideologically-rooted program. Charity is good, of course, but it's a poor second to fixing the primary systems which allow inequalities, and sometimes serves merely to perpetuate and do PR for the iniquitous system. There's also the fact that the very Protestant "good works" carried out are not necessarily good science when they're science, or good art when they fall in the aesthetic field, like the photographer who's documenting Kurdistan "in the shadow of history". It's always this pompous universalistic humanism that emerges, with its ideology that "this is not ideology, this is creativity and human rights for the good of all mankind". Then again, a lot of the work is indisputably important, a step in the right direction. Or is it? Didn't we decide the other day that the "intentional fallacy" applies just as well to political "authorship" as to writing? It doesn't matter what the author intended, what matters is results. Mightn't a program with liberal aims end up helping conservatives just as easily as a program with conservative aims might end up helping liberal causes? And just what is "lasting improvement in the human condition"? Couldn't the foundation just give everyone in America a free washlet toilet?
When I listened to NPR, the thing that I liked best also had something alien about it. It was a mantra that was read out between the programmes by a man I imagined as an Asian American, if he wasn't actually a Vulcan. "This program" said the robot voice "has been made possible by grants from The Annenberg Foundation, The Ford Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation". Despite the neutral tone, there seemed to be a satisfyingly human message in there. "Fuck off, conservatives, we have liberal billionaires," it seemed to say. The more I heard this mantra, the more satisfying I found it. In the end it seemed to me to be a kind of poem full of rich dead people who wanted to change the world. It was weirdly moving.
This morning, prompted by a discussion about NPR on a message board, I decided to look into how a typical foundation comes into existence. Who were these "rich dead people"? I chose the MacArthur Foundation to research.
"John Donald MacArthur (1897-1978) was one of the three wealthiest men in America at the time of his death, and was sole owner of the nation's largest privately held insurance company. In the 1960s," says the Foundation website, "Mr. MacArthur's attention turned to real estate and development. He conducted his business at a table in the coffee shop of the Colonnades Beach Hotel, in Palm Beach Shores, Florida. He owned the hotel, and he and his wife lived in a modest apartment overlooking a parking lot... Catherine T. MacArthur (1909-1981) was one of five children born to Irish immigrants who had settled on the South Side of Chicago. Her father was active in Democratic politics in the city."The MacArthurs sound like "worldly ascetics" in the classic Max Weber style. The website outlines the mission of the foundation they established like this:
"The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private, independent grantmaking institution dedicated to helping groups and individuals foster lasting improvement in the human condition. MacArthur has awarded more than $3 billion in grants since it began operations in 1978 , and today has assets of more than $4 billion. Annual grantmaking totals approximately $185 million."
There you have it. 19th century-style philanthropy by people who did very well out of capitalism and want, in a patrician sort of way, to help the kinds of poor people they once were themselves, but don't essentially want to change the structure of the system which allowed them to accumulate their billions.
Here are some of the highlights of the MacArthur Foundation's presentational video. I watched it so you don't have to.
1. It emerges that MacArthur was incredibly mean, so mean he didn't even spend anything on himself. He certainly didn't have any particular liberal mission or ideological orientation. He just needed something to do with the billions he managed to accumulate. He said "I've made the money, it's your job to figure out how to spend it."
2. The MacArthur Foundation claims to be "thinking outside the box", neither left nor right, Republican nor Democrat. Yet their positions (a woman's right to choose, supporting the International Criminal Court, ecology, concern for the ageing, and the study of poor neighbourhoods in Chicago) are all broadly Democratic ones. At one point we see a shot of a Human Rights Watch publication exposing arbitrary detention and torture. You can almost see Blair and Bush flinching.
3. Outgoing head of World Bank Wolfensohn testifies to the Foundation's sterling work investing in Russian human capital, saying "The World Bank, together with the MacArthur Foundation, is building on the intellectual strengths they already had in the Soviet system as Russia joins the new world system." Hard to imagine his successor teaming with the liberal foundation or crediting anything to the Soviet system.
4. The MacArthur Foundation's president says (over shots of NPR headquarters) "Institutions matter because they endure. Individuals come and go." The main problem he sees currently is "the increasing disparity between rich and poor". Which is ironic, since immensely unfair concentration of wealth is the sole reason for the Foundation's existence.
Big Bird Meets Cash Cows is a Conservative News article which says "ouch" and "stop it" about the work of the foundations, NPR and PBS:
"There is an important moral case to be made that public broadcasting as we know it has outlived its time. The proliferation of broadcast outlets can bring a wide range of political and cultural viewpoints to the airwaves. By contrast, PBS seems stuck in a programming rut with a moderate liberal bias. For every mainstream Ken Burns blockbuster there's a Frontline expose of man-made chemicals destroying life on the planet. Worse yet, there are the self-help marathons and specials masquerading as public-spirited "cultural" programming. Why should taxpayers or even private donors subsidize this peculiar melange?"The thing that concerns me about this is the mealy-mouthed failure of spokesmen for the MacArthur Foundation, for example, to say they have an ideologically-rooted program. Charity is good, of course, but it's a poor second to fixing the primary systems which allow inequalities, and sometimes serves merely to perpetuate and do PR for the iniquitous system. There's also the fact that the very Protestant "good works" carried out are not necessarily good science when they're science, or good art when they fall in the aesthetic field, like the photographer who's documenting Kurdistan "in the shadow of history". It's always this pompous universalistic humanism that emerges, with its ideology that "this is not ideology, this is creativity and human rights for the good of all mankind". Then again, a lot of the work is indisputably important, a step in the right direction. Or is it? Didn't we decide the other day that the "intentional fallacy" applies just as well to political "authorship" as to writing? It doesn't matter what the author intended, what matters is results. Mightn't a program with liberal aims end up helping conservatives just as easily as a program with conservative aims might end up helping liberal causes? And just what is "lasting improvement in the human condition"? Couldn't the foundation just give everyone in America a free washlet toilet?
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MacArthur fellowships come and go
Date: 2005-04-08 09:20 am (UTC)A former MacArthur fellow I know had a humourous cartoon from the New Yorker on his office wall. It showed a senior professor in a tweed jacket chatting at a cocktail party with a shapely 20-something. The balloon over the professor's head said "Wish I'd met you before my Genius Award ran out".
Re: MacArthur fellowships come and go
Date: 2005-04-08 09:27 am (UTC)And another person I met once at a party was in the last year of his 5 year MacArthur "Genius Grant". He spent most of the party desperately hitting on a first year mainland Chinese graduate student 25 years his junior. A sorry sight.
Re: MacArthur fellowships come and go
Date: 2005-04-08 09:31 am (UTC)Re: MacArthur fellowships come and go
Date: 2005-04-08 09:48 am (UTC)Re: MacArthur fellowships come and go
Date: 2005-04-08 12:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-08 01:43 pm (UTC)Even Bill Gates, who has added to his billions by kissing some serious Republican ass, has the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation... and their money is going to some rather nonconservative causes, such as providing reproductive health over in Africa, generously helping the homeless, eradicating diseases, providing free community access to technology, funding libraries, low-income and minority scholarships, etc.
Given that he could easily kick off with an estate of several hundred billion dollars, it should give us some hope that long after Microsoft has gone the way of the robber barons, carpetbaggers, and railroad tycoons, Mr. Gates will still be offering us pennance for his sins.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-08 10:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-08 02:27 pm (UTC)I remember the messages at the end of children's television on PBS, but the only one that sticks out is "And Viewers Like You." While listening to the radio, however, the list of foundations sounds far more important. One of the foundations even "provides challenge grants to help expand the capacity" of smaller organizations (they occasionally provide blurbs about the foundations during the list.) While I like NPR, PRI, and WNYC quite a bit, I am more swayed by the pleas of WFMU (http://wfmu.org), because they don't take any government or corporate money... they're totally listener funded and manage to only have one marathon a year.
The repeating sonds of NPR on my commute are the lead-in theme music, the standard introduction by the personality, and the foundation list. These audio cues provide structure and identity for the station and the individual shows.
Repetition of a message is exceedingly effective... There is no reason why I should be aware of specific foundations, but reading your list above I immediately realized that you didn't mention the Kresge Foundation, which is often part of the mantra. While reading your list I did hear the two voices (the one you describe and a neutral female analog) that announce the list every day.
As to the washlet, I think I might be a bit scared of it.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-08 02:56 pm (UTC)two points
Date: 2005-04-08 03:37 pm (UTC)As I attended the fund-raising parties they were filled with people running foundations similar to McArthur. Behind the closed doors of these ridiculously catered and fancy events (all a ruse to ensure the guests of their societal importance, meanwhile taking a chunk out of a campaign budget that could have been better spent elsewhere), these people were all flattery and idealism. Back in their offices the following day, they were cautious, holding tight to their checkbooks and waiting until they could see the implications of a public endorsement (which save for the blessed unions of our blue collar city, rarely occured).
More and more I think one of the most negative side effects of capitalism is its ability, through fear of losing wealth or occupation, to sever the cord between what is humane and what is good business. For me, this gets at the heart of what you stated earlier about the "failure of spokesmen for the MacArthur Foundation, for example, to say they have an ideologically-rooted program. Charity is good, of course, but it's a poor second to fixing the primary systems which allow inequalities, and sometimes serves merely to perpetuate and do PR for the iniquitous system." People are pussy-footing around their desire to take a stand and say, "Yes, our intiatives with this foundation are proudly rooted in liberal ideals." But their silence or their cop-outs only allow society (and by this I mean American society, I don't feel knowledgeable enough to extend this theory beyond our borders) to continue its shift to the right. And the Republicans of today are not the Republicans of old. Current Republicans seem to have severed their cords entirely, so that the humane isn't even part of their frame of reference. It's really rather scary to live in America right now.
2. Who is the photographer documenting Kurdistan? And are any of his photos available yet?
In response to the New Center
Date: 2005-04-08 03:49 pm (UTC)When will it be okay again for the Left to be the Left?
Re: In response to the New Center
Date: 2005-04-08 04:10 pm (UTC)I'm really curious to see how things will change in the Democratic Party under Dean's leadership. He is not afraid to call a spade a spade, yet his own politics seem to fall close to the new center. At this point, the left side of my brain is doubtful he will be able to initiate any meaningful change, but the right side is bursting with visions of swift ass kickings to members responsible for the near self-destruction of the party.
Your point about reluctance to reference or preserve Obama's message is well-taken. Candidates are campaigning as islands in their fear of associating with the wrong person. I think most see politics as a career which leaves them trying to anticipate how political associations will affect their bid for the presidency twenty years done the road. I wish they'd just get over it and stand for what they stand for.
Re: two points
Date: 2005-04-08 04:31 pm (UTC)The Kurdistan photographer I mentioned features in the third of the MacArthur video presentations I link in my piece. Her name is Susan Meiselas, and she's published Kurdistan: In The Shadow Of History on the basis of her MacArthur-funded travels.
Re: two points
Date: 2005-04-08 04:44 pm (UTC)Re: two points
Date: 2005-04-08 05:23 pm (UTC)I'm at work so while I can get away with reading posts from time to time, watching a video presentation...especially when I have a pile of files from Kenya to Japan to Iran waiting form my evaluation determination.
Re: two points
Date: 2005-04-08 06:22 pm (UTC)AHMERUHKUH!!! (http://americawestandasone.com/video.html)
Re: two points
Date: 2005-04-08 10:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-08 03:39 pm (UTC)listening to NPR on iTunes
Date: 2005-04-08 03:41 pm (UTC)Thank you,
Mr. Anonymous
The times, they are a changin' (unrelated)
Date: 2005-04-08 03:56 pm (UTC)http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0007GA9WQ.16._AA260_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Most surprising was the bright red, CCCP uniform, which I first saw on a young dad while visiting the Museum of Science & Industry with my girlfriend and younger sister. The pictures of the CCCP sweats aren't available on the Target webstore, nor is there any mention of them, despite a full line of t-shirts, shorts, and the sweats. Interesting stuff, to me, in that I was surprised to find something like that in the stores of a nationwide chain. Che Guevara has long been a t-shirt icon amongst the typical high school, mall-going, suburban "counter-counter-culture" consumer, but I've never seen anything like this.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-08 04:56 pm (UTC)These numerous foundations, although the hallmark identifiers of NPR, don't seem to be enough to protect public radio from bad choices influenced by the commercial market. Detroit's NPR affiliate, WDET, held an emergency fundraiser last year in supplement to it's biannual calls for cash, claiming it would protect the programming we all love. Shortly after this fundraiser was a "success", shows cut and replaced with "variety" music programming included Car Talk (in the city that unleashed the auto), The Tavis Smiley Show (in a city that is 85% black), This American Life, Fresh Air, The Thistle and Shamrock and locally-produced The Arkansas Traveler Program. The reason for these cuts according to this station was to "remain competitive" in the radio market and win more listeners, which is clearly not the mission of National Public Radio. How can we popularly-liberal Americans safeguard our institutions from the erosion caused by market forces?
Fortunately, living in Detroit allows us to steal radio funded by the taxes of Canadian citizens, and CBC-2 supplies the Detroit area with its only source of daily classical music, nightly experimental bizarreness, and weekend indie/punk.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-08 07:27 pm (UTC)And we don't mind! :) Speaking of taxes used to fund cultural programming, does anyone here know what the tax regime is like in Japan?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-08 10:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-08 11:10 pm (UTC)they are the one's that put corn syrup in every possible food, which is why americans are so fat = because the corn industry is the most heavily subsidized in the country.
For the record,
Date: 2005-04-08 05:05 pm (UTC)Though I now live in New York, I don't have a radio and don't listen to WNYC. Growing up,however, I listened to Colorado Public Radio (KCFC) and Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ), which both are supported by businesses, who sign on as "underwriters." A midlevel ultraliberal radio journalist from my home town (most famous for his books of interviews with Noam Chomsky) has a book on this:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0896086542/qid=1112979796/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/002-0580314-7259260?v=glance&s=books
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-08 05:48 pm (UTC)F..f..luxus Wordcore
Date: 2005-04-08 07:55 pm (UTC)rigorous wings, hard musk of a birdcage, choppers form crescents over california
the moon's thirst for our magnetism is often palpable to those giving birth
mulligatawny was launched on upper street, where I fractured my left leg
almost all of bob marley's eleven children still deny his legendary, seemingly endless flatulence whilst on stage
those with no knowledge of their true birthday most often pick mid april
the first word formed on earth was 'no', and the last will be 'yes'
happenstance. circumstance. circumhap. pencum. stan pencum
Stan Pencum was the inventor of grenades small enough to be carried between the teeth and cheek. these could be spat at the enemy and had enough explosive power to unsettle for half an hour.
Lady Beaverboard finds her husband's use of the servants most amusing. He onced hitched a scullery maid's petticoats over her back and had her as she swept the hearth. The girl was in such a state of shock she returned to Wales, it was said
several witnesses said the eggs came on heavy handed, the pan was provoked, others argued
True story: Iggy Pop once read an adult classified by a girl looking for "a guy with the body of Iggy Pop and the brain of Leonard Cohen". Iggy knew that Leonard was in town that week, so he called him and told him about the advert. He suggested they meet up with this girl and have a threesome, but Leonard said it wasn't his sort of thing.
cheek leverage, canine sluice, molar expander, tongue cruppers, spit martingale, lip protractor,
jaw level. Taiwanese men, it is said, never speak of cabbage after the age of thirty. this is regarded as bad
luck urbanospreys.org.uk
Re: F..f..luxus Wordcore
Date: 2005-04-08 08:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-08 10:17 pm (UTC)Oh
Date: 2005-04-08 10:37 pm (UTC)Could you link to All Things Considered's Momus bit, or is even available online?
Re: Oh
Date: 2005-04-09 06:55 am (UTC)http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/archives/1998/980402.atc.html
Re: Oh
Date: 2005-04-09 08:03 am (UTC)right, forgot, could've just done a search, and now i have.
this one (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1069468) is nice, contains one of those taboo songs...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-09 01:46 am (UTC)Now that I am older, I wonder what exactly that means for public television stations in the northern United States. Canada exports money to fund cultural production in the US ... strange and funny. I suppose this just adds to the argument that Canadian and American cultures are tied together in knots, but the knots are getting frayed these days.