Yoel L. Arbeitman complains:

>I must say that I get quite disgusted with my two NPR stations (all
>talk of the very banal "intellectual" type, very banal) telling me all
>day long just how wonderful they are.  In fact the almost omnipresent
>BBC news tells me the same, how profound and thorough they are.

This self-congratulation and self-advertisement is hardly new; it has
been creeping up ever since the last two decades of the 20th century.
The fact is that the very successful economic model of the western
hemisphere --the acceptance of whose success, of course, was encouraged
by this same self-congratulatory rhetoric-- is based on a few highly
"successful" strategies:

(1) Always claim superiority.
(2) Never accept blame; settle out of court.
(4) Praise yourself; nobody else can be trusted
        to get it right.  Never make the mistake of
        qualifying your praise, either.
(5) Make sure that your critics take the fall
        for all the ills of the period.

And, best of all,

(6) If it's good for Business, it's good for everybody.

If I appear to change my mind about any of these Items, that's because
you misunderstood me.  BTW, that should be item (7):

(7) We reserve the right to change any of this at any time.

Anonymous

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