Steve Schwartz waxed (it) eloquently,

>It seems to me that public radio has a mission to educate, not to confirm
>the comfortable predisposition and prejudices of the audience.  *That's*
>the only way I can justify the money I give it.  We don't all have money
>to educate ourselves, particularly when it involves an initial capital
>outlay (the hi-fi system) plus ongoing expenditures of CDs, tapes, DVDs,
>or whatever.

I have to admit that a big part of my contribution to our local NPR
station is for this.  I recently likened it to contributing to environmental
causes.  I won't be visiting a rainforest soon but I want to help support
its existence.  It gives me back a more diverse world. And oxygen.

With the amounts I give I could buy a few dozen CD's whose combined
listening time might even compare with the amount of time I get to listen
to NPR.  But I like knowing NPR is there, even if I can't listen as much
as I'd like.  As an educator in animpoverished state, I think (well, I
hope) that some of this somehow comes back to me in my students.  They
breathe the local oxygen even if they don't listen themselves.  They
might have parents who listen, for instance.

And I feel likewise about the news programs and the classical, blues
and jazz, etc.  I don't listen at night so I don't hear much besides
the classical, but I do support it all.  And I love the news programs
(especially "To the Point").  But I often think we'd be better off with
separate stations for news shows and classical music.  The only reason
for having them on the same station, it seems to me, is economics ---
if you can't support them separately, maybe you can support them as
strange bedfellows.  Divided they fall?

And hey, I can also use our local stration to proselytize.  "Please play
this selection.  I already own it, but the the ignorant, unwashed masses
need to hear it." Such a service needs to be paid for!

Rick Mabry
Shreveport, LA