Operators, Sanity, on the Line

A political adage holds that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. I would like to add to this: a conservative is a liberal who has listened to seven solid days of a public radio fund drive.

I listened to WBUR's fund drive all last week and the week before, and by the end I was ready to rush wild-eyed into the streets, gibbering out the precepts of supply-side until they came with straitjackets to take me away. Governments that wish to flout basic human rights without risking their most-favored-nation trading status could strap dissidents into chairs and make them listen to this stuff.

Don't get me wrong--I love public radio. I rely on the BBC to relay the increasingly distressing news of our world in soothing British voices. I need NPR to inform me of my elected representatives' latest antics. I have been known to stand and applaud when Nina Totenburg lands a particularly well-aimed barb on Speaker Newt. (Not that it's particularly challenging to make fun of the distinguished gentleman from Georgia, but that's another tirade.)

Fine, so I adore NPR. But I love my little brother too, and when he starts whining for four hours straight, you'd better believe that it gets on my nerves. If he continued to cavil at half-hourintervals every day for two weeks, the phrase"infanticide" would begin to lose many of itsnegative connotations.

Of course, the obvious response is that WBUR'swhimper represents the equivalent of all the hoursof paid advertising I'd hear on commercial radio.But at least commercial advertisements offer somevariety--first they compare buying a particularmake of car to sex, and then they compare drinkinga particular brand of beer to sex, and then theyplug the station. Public radio has a morechallenging task: to make people pay for a servicethey'd get for free in any case.

To evade the ramifications of the freeriderproblem, WBUR attempts to persuade listeners thatthey have actually entered a contract to pay fortheir programming. Thus the following post-showpatter: "I hope you enjoyed the BBC broadcast wejust heard. And I hope you realize that that theBBC charges us hundreds of thousands of dollars tosubscribe to their services. Now weeeeeee spendthat money for that service because youuuuu toldus youuuuu wanted it. Weeeeee take that risk, andyouuuu owe it to us to make those telephonesring."

Huh? I took Ec 10, and the Gospel according toProfessor Feldstein says I don't owe WBURanything. And according to the doctrines ofclassical economics, I'm certainly not going tothrow my hard-earned money away when I can let myfellow listeners do it instead.

Then again, if we all followed the doctrines ofclassical economics, the world would be a bleakand uniformed place. So I contributed, of course,although research assistants aren't making muchthese days. But I wanted to be thanked profuselyand called a good liberal and maybe even given atote bag for my pains.

What did I get? More harangues. My radio isapparently missing the button that lets you mutethe endless pleas for cash once you've sent inenough money to assuage your own conscience.

The fund drive was mercifully ended onSaturday, right before I decided to put my radioout of its misery with a sledgehammer. They're notgoing to have another fund drive until next fall,they say. I'm beginning to wonder how large adonation they would require to dispense with funddrives altogether. Given that they raised hundredsof thousands of dollars last time, it would haveto be pretty huge.

Now if I could only find Gingrich's credit cardnumber..