These things may be worth talking about (perhaps even dimly interesting) in a world where there is no war, no starvation, no child abuse, no forced taxation, and no Federal Reserve debt slavery. Unfortunately, that is not the world we live in. Talking about the physics of roller-coasters when tens of thousands of innocent people are incarcerated each year for smoking a naturally-occurring plant is circus-quality distraction on a grand scale. For NPR to pose as an objective and informative source for important news is borderline criminal.
Surely you jest? NPR is about the best we've got in this shithole country - contrast it to the mainstream media and NPR almost always looks objective. So they didn't spend enough time fixated on the world going to hell - who cares? They're still a hundred miles ahead of anyone else in this country, unless you're the type of mouth-breather who genuinely believes that climate change is a hoax or something.
It's weird to focus on NPR since there are a thousand better examples, but he does have a point when even the "best" source of news in this country looks like a pile of crap half the time.
NPR suffers from some of the same problems as for-profit news. They don't have as many advertiser concerns (although there are some when major corporations underwrite their broadcasting), but being almost entirely funded by donations and needing more listeners to get those donations, they end up heading in the direction of soft news because so many people find what's actually happening in this world to be "too depressing". I can't tell you how many times I've heard regular people give that as their excuse for not paying any attention to the news.
For me, and I suspect a lot of others even on the opposite side of the political fence, the constant injustices fill me with rage and a desire to know more. But that sure ain't how it works for everyone.
NPR is funded 15-30% through violent taxation - in other words, the money that funds NPR is taken from you, and you have no choice or say in how it's used. If you chose not to fund NPR, you will be taken to jail or shot.
That's why I focus on NPR in this newsletter (which is one newsletter of many). The "real" news may be depressing of painful to hear, but I think more people need to pay attention so that things can change. While they talk about the various color patterns on african toads, the government and bankers are robbing us blind. All I'm saying is: look, someone is robbing you while you're looking the other way.
P.s. I hope you'll subscribe. Lots more interesting articles to come. I cover bitcoin next.