Puclic Radio and Beer

Josh Andrews points out that hipster beverage of choice PBR is sponsoring NRP's All Songs Considered, "the online ghetto where NPR execs send anything that smells "hip" or "indie"….What's next, Urge Overkill on Prarie Home Companion?" (When not blogging, Josh is senior content developer for Chicago's WBEZ, where, among other things, he administers the Chicago Public Radio Flickr group, that I mentioned previously.)

Beer and public radio reminds me of my favorite Saturday morning show. No, not Car Talk, but rather Chuck Mertz's This is Hell on WNUR, brought to us by National Beer. The highlight of yesterday's show was the interview with Time Wise, "author of two new books, "White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son" (Soft Skull Press), and "Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White" (Routledge). Tim wrote the Counterpunch story "Of Immigrants and 'Real Amurkans'"
Today's the first Sunday of the month, which means that WLUW will air the Drinking & Writing Brewery Radio show tonight at 6. The show explores "the connection between creativity and alcohol."

A couple of non-beer related public radio notes:

I had my first experience with XM satellite radio flying on Air Tran last month. I was overwhelmed, flipping back and forth between the country stations America and Hank's Place, Fuego (reggaeton), and Soul Street. Thus, I can now relate to the thoughts of XM subscriber Chris at Code Intensity:

I’m finding I rarely listen to radio. It just plain sucks, so it’s almost irrelevant that it’s free. If I don’t listen to it, then the cost doesn’t matter. XM on the other hand is awesome…. keep free radio, but at least make it compelling, otherwise, free or not, it’ll be irrelevant.

My new favorite weekend Chicago show is Lotus Beat on WNUR, the perfect soundtrack for a sunny Saturday afternoon drive down Devon Ave.– or Howard St., in my case yesterday.

Finally, on Thursday, NPR received a shout-out from Instapundit for a "really nice story" on troop re-enlistments.