Timing:

When things are sort of average, time just moseys along its predictable forward arrow. It's the extremes that make time rhyme and loop back upon itself. In this wet heat, I'm sweating away in my office, flogging the mouse and keyboard--but also, I'm burning my bare feet on the asphalt, slogging down the road in 1965 Indiana to get a fudgesicle and a Royal Crown Cola. And I'm drinking sweet iced tea in the sun on a back step in Towanda, Pennsylvania while my grandfather slaughters his younger male relations at the billiards table in the funky cool of his basement. And if there is a thunderstorm tonight, the long rumble will be the echoes of every storm I've watched boil up from the west, as I've rocked on a long succession of porch swings.

Who's catching fireflies
just to let them go again?
Which summer is this?

This Dead Air is Brought to You by...

Thanks to all of you who have made contact with NCPR and your representatives in Congress to weigh in on the proposed cuts to public broadcasting. The bill is scheduled for a vote today in the House of Representatives.

It may seem unduly self-serving for public broadcasting stations to use their media to report on this issue that affects their interest. However, public funds are only part of the mix--a minority part--of support for public broadcasting. The proposed federal action puts in jeopardy the value and even the continued existence of community institutions that are, in largest part, the fruit of the private investment of hundreds of thousands of individual donors. As a public broadcaster, we owe our supporters some explanation, and some opportunity to protect what they have built in this decades-long partnership between government, individual donors, charitable and commercial institutions, journalists, artists, producers, broadcasters and listeners. While all of us at NCPR would much rather focus on making public broadcasting instead of defending public broadcasting--a little hot air is much preferable to a whole lot of dead air.

Breaking the Deal:

While all programs can expect a little pain in a tight budget year, the cuts proposed for public broadcasting now before the House Appropriations Committee (45% cut in Fall 2005, zero funding in two years) attempt to dismantle a sucessful public/private partnership that has enriched public life in the US for decades. Taxpayer contributions to North Country Public Radio generate four dollars in private support for every tax dollar received--an enviable record for any federal program. Many public stations will not survive this level of funding cut. Those that will, and I number NCPR among them, will be hobbled in their efforts to fulfill important aspects of their public service mission. Hardest hit will be rural and small market stations that have less in the way of alternative support resources.