Saturday, June 07, 2008

NPR Almost Makes Me Cry

I'm not a crier. I'd like to be--awful stuff keeps happening and it would be awesome to just burst into tears, but all I can do is a big gulp and a lip wobble. The last time I was incredibly close to crying was at my dad's funeral, but I was so angry at my grandmother for her attempt to throw herself into the coffin, if I had started to cry someone would have touched me, and I might have punched them. Then I would have gotten excommunicated and The Don would not be proud.

NPR had 2 pieces lately that almost made me cry. Wibble, wibble. "In 'A Dog's Life,' One Student Finds Strength" we've got a moving story on literacy, children and the power of reading to help you to sort out your life. Good for you, Mark Federman.

Normally I hate "Fresh Air," but Terry Gross had a wonderful conversation with Marine Lt. Col. Steve Beck and Jim Sheeler, a journalist who spent years chronicling Beck's work ministering to the families of fallen Marines and guiding them through the notification and details of the deaths of their family members.

And maybe not cry so much as want to slap people: Cleveland, the city whose "housing boom" wasn't built on a good economy or housing scarcity, but instead powered by the criminal and stupid. Seriously, if this is your potential workforce, do you want to do business here?

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