NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE VIEWS OF WAMU OR AMERICAN UNIVERSITY.
Dear Loyal Customer,
Thank you for your letter complaining about our decision to increase the interest rate on your
World Conqueror Gold Mastercard to 29.99%.
Our policy is to ignore complaints which we find inappropriately expressed, inordinately passionate, or pleading, but we are making an exception in your case because of your weirdly appealing British accent.
We note your explanation that you took ten days vacation a…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on November 6, 2009 at 8:00pm —
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Folks who are ancient enough still to be drooling over Paul Simon's epic album Graceland will remember one of its unfathomable but deliciously-sounding lines;
"
Its all over the evening news - all about the fire in your life on the evening news." I've never had a clue what he was on about. But I know that when I came to America the Evening News really counted for something…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on October 6, 2009 at 10:30pm —
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When the manager of the Liverpool soccer team said in the 1960's that the sport was more than a matter of life and death, thankfully he was joking. These days, its hard to know if folks know the difference.
We do know that many professional sportsmen and women will sell their own mothers to win these days. Witness the baseball doping scandal, soccer's various betting scams, and the vast sums demanded by football players and boxers alike.
But even sadder is when a rare attempt at sportsmanship…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on August 21, 2009 at 4:00pm —
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Apparently Kim Jong il, North Korea's population-starving and mistress-loving "Dear Leader", is a big fan of Hollywood. His favorites, according to Wikipedia, are Rambo, Friday the 13th, Godzilla, and anything starring Elizabeth Taylor. And now the man who is scared of flying and goes everywhere by armored train is the envy of Hollywood, as well.
He's pioneered a whole new way of enticing big names to play guest star. How those horrid little entertainment shows (Entertainment Tonight, Extra) no…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on August 5, 2009 at 1:00pm —
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The BBC are being allowed back into Zimbabwe eight years after they were thrown out by the brutal Mugabe regime. CNN is also close to an agreement with the new government.
The awkward arrangement under which Morgan Tsvangirai became Prime Minister, albeit with Mugabe lurking behind his shoulder as "President", seems to be a sign that the country is turning its wounded face to the light.
For years, the BBC tried to film the rape of farms and property surreptitiously, smuggling in reporters on t…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on July 30, 2009 at 10:00am —
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NBC's Tehran bureau chief, Ali Arouzi, appeared live on
Meet the Press on Sunday and told David Gregory that although they were still not permitted to cover the rallies there were (so far) no restrictions on what they could say. With CNN covering the story from the US and London and giving extensive coverage to YouTube videos and Twitter, it was strangely reassuring to see a live journalist against a Tehran back-drop, even if…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on June 21, 2009 at 5:30pm —
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AS USUAL, THESE ARE MARK'S VIEWS ALONE. NOT HIS EMPLOYERS' VIEWS.
A very distinguished journalist and former colleague of mine, John Simpson, the BBC's Foreign Editor,
managed to get arrested over the weekend in Tehran trying to cover the protests.
This wouldn't have scared John. In fact, he always relished an event which promoted his profile (although he will hate me for saying this). But he's a dedicated public servi…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on June 16, 2009 at 7:00pm —
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My barber had a go at me this morning. As usual, it had gotten far too long. The guy in the next chair was almost bald.
"How old are you? 49? How come you only come in here every three months? What's the matter with you?
Do you know how much some men would pay for hair that grows like yours, especially at your age?"
"It fends for itself" I respond.
"It looks like it" he says before grabbing his comb.
The older I get, the more it grows. Guess I'm very fortunate. Never thought of it that way b…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on May 6, 2009 at 3:30pm —
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REMINDER: THESE ARE MARK'S VIEWS . NOT WAMU's, NOT AU's, NOT ANY OTHER 'U's VIEWS.
Washington's
news-talk commercial radio station has an "Answer Desk" these days.
I was hoping they would get my mortgage refinanced, my kids admitted to the Beauvoir School and arrange a climatic change to the pattern of mid-Atlantic Spring tornadoes.
Sadly, they couldn't even answer the most fundamental of contemporary questions: "Can you catch swine flu from…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on May 3, 2009 at 9:00pm —
2 Comments
Thanks to all who have responded here and elsewhere with your thoughts about our complaint to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs about the shameful treatment of our reporter David Schultz, who was stripped of his equipment by armed security guards as he interviewed a veteran who agreed to speak with him. Just to keep everyone up to date, here is David's feature and other stories on WAMU 88.5, and the
letter from WAMU 88.5 General Manager Car…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on April 14, 2009 at 2:00pm —
1 Comment
Watching the
TV pictures of a couple of hoodlums smashing a window at a London branch of the grandly named but lately disgraced Royal Bank of Scotland reminded me of a scene from a movie which other tragic forty-somethings might recall. In "Crocodile Dundee", Australian outback-dweller Paul Hogan is released onto the mean streets of New York and is confronted by a mugger, to whom his response is "…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on April 1, 2009 at 11:00pm —
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(These are Mark's views, not WAMU's, not AU's, not any other 'U's)
There are waves of blue crocus, white snowdrop and yellow daffodil in Dumbarton Oaks in Upper Georgetown.
And the best reason for my seasonal optimism is the four months which have elapsed since the vet gave my…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on March 26, 2009 at 10:00pm —
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U.S. media chiefs urge release of reporter in Iran
Reuters
NEW YORK: Major U.S. and British broadcasters and news publications on Tuesday asked Iran to make public the charges against an Iranian-American reporter held since January 31, and requested an international organisation be allowed to visit her in jail.
National Public Radio, ABC News, BBC News, PBS, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News Channel and Feature Story News called for the release of Roxana Saberi, 31, a journalist who has worke…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on March 11, 2009 at 9:00am —
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Walking Pundit (my ailing 9-year-old golden retriever) in the woods this morning there was a bunch of warning posters on the trees:
"Rabid Raccoons sighted. Keeps dogs on leash." (- that'll be the day). There was a helpful picture of the dangerous beast for the benefit of us ignorant urban types, which from a distance could have been taken from nearby bushes. But on closer inspection it seemed to have been cut and pasted from a wild animal website.
We were walking through Dumbarton Oaks, a spe…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on February 19, 2009 at 4:00pm —
3 Comments
I marched late into work the other morning without saying hello to one of the janitors. Normally we'd give each other a cheery if polite greeting. But I'd just had a tough phone conversation and I was preoccupied and late.
I didn't see her bending awkwardly into the hallway cupboard where her supplies are kept.
Our janitors are employed by independent contractors. They work as hard as anyone in the building, in more challenging circumstances (smelly food, forest-threatening piles of newspapers…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on February 12, 2009 at 11:30pm —
3 Comments
PLEASE NOTE:-
THESE ARE MARK'S VIEWS. NOT WAMU's VIEWS, NOT AU's VIEWS, NOT ANY OTHER 'U's VIEWS.......
Vivian Schiller, NPR's new Chief Executive Officer, has a unique window to slay the dragon which has pitched many public radio stations against the mothership these past few years - the web.
At a public media conference a few years back a station delegate, fed up with paying top dollar on behalf of his listene…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on February 2, 2009 at 2:00pm —
3 Comments
.....said many listeners over the past month or so. But I didn't. Wisconsin Public Radio did. They are the people who produced "Calling All Pets" but couldn't absorb the cost any longer.
Now for the good news (or bad, if you are one of those who expressed relief when "Calling All Pets" was euthanized).
We've had some discussions with local veterinarians, the great folks at the National Zoo, and others, and pending further discussions we may be reviving the slumbering beast.
I'm planning a num…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on January 21, 2009 at 3:30pm —
10 Comments
Internet subscriptions are like getting a tattoo. Great idea at the time, but painful and frequently impossible to remove when you come to your senses. For some web-based businesses they appear to have become a perpetual sleeping earner, so long as the ancient art of stonewalling is part of your employee training.
Years ago, I opened a modest AOL account. That was back when we all needed help navigating Al Gore's great new invention. The monthly deduction of $6.95 has lurked on my credit card e…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on January 5, 2009 at 3:00pm —
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I was amazed to find that my American University class in Multi-Media Management,starting in mid-January, is already fully subscribed.
Believe me, despite the Great Depression 2, candidates who want to forge a media career in 2009 are still valued, whether its radio, TV, web, print, or all of the above, so long as they have important stories to tell.
As a journalist, manager, and coach, I have learned to distinguish between those aspiring to be famous (or at least recognized by their moms) and…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on December 29, 2008 at 10:30pm —
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A lot of our favorite shows would never have survived the "focus group" stage of inception. Car Talk springs to mind. Prairie Home Companion is another. Some hard-nosed statistician would have shot them down in flames.
But by the same token, you can't just sit down and open the mic. These days, the least a successful start-up public radio production takes is a great idea. Try big resources, investment, and a high degree of blind faith. Not to mention gall, guts, opportunism, deluded optimism, s…
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Added by Mark McDonald WAMU 88.5 on December 10, 2008 at 2:30pm —
2 Comments
