Listening to NPR for over 8 hours a day can be draining. I prefer the morning programming to the evening programming for the simple reason that it is not as heavy. There is a lot of fluff in the morning, some feel good stories intermixed with the news and current events. I liken it to CNN’s iReport section, where average people report on average things and submit them for CNN’s approval to run with. It’s good stuff, really. The only downside I find is that the programming tends to loop about the 1.5-2 hour mark, so you are forced to listen to the same program. But, you learn new things the second time around, kind of like reading a book that you have already read again.

Then NPR kicks it serious and gets into the meat of their programming in the afternoon. Today, I am listening to Tell Me More with Sarah Bloomfield, director of the national holocaust museum. HEAVY. Switching gears, there was an interview with Jimmy Carter, the peanut man. Oh, and he was a U.S. President of lesser fame. I know him as a homespun peanut man with a winning smile. I imagine you can guess why they would want to interview Jimmy Carter. He took an unsanctioned trip to go chat with the HAMAS folks. Did he accomplish anything on that trip? Kinda. He got HAMAS to agree to some things they were traditionally hard-nosed about such as a cease fire in Gaza. Not bad Jimmy, not bad. Israel rejected it though, so people are still shooting when they feel like it. I find it bothersome that people would condemn his visit, saying it was not his place to visit the Middle East and that is relevance as Presidential figure has long faded. I can’t help but draw parallels to his past presidency and the current one. Who has more experience dealing with Middle East extremists? Who dealt with high oil prices? Who dealt with a recession-era economy? It might have been Carter, but I could be wrong since the federal government has repeatedly cut education funds since Bush took office. I might have been left behind!

But aside from that, I find HAMAS interesting. While classified by the Bush administration as a terrorist group with terrorist ties (despite their funding coming from Saudi Arabia, the US’ bedfellow), they don’t fit the traditional mold, do they? They entered an election and won, the democratic way. They are defending territory they believe to be theirs. They support healthcare and education. This is not state-sponsored terrorism, this is obviously an educated group of people. That being said, they definitely have some issues with Israel that are worrisome. However, it seems that they are willing to meet halfway with Israel with regard to Gaza. Jimmy Carter demonstrated this and for that I applaud him. Obviously I have way over-simplified the situation and by no means am I secret HAMAS supporter, like Barack (haha), but as I said I do find the group interesting.

See, NPR makes me all analytical in the afternoon when I should just be counting down the hours of the day till I get to pop the tabs on a couple of Pabst and have Lost blow my mind in a couple of hours. My roommate and I have an island adventure day where he gets to watch Survivor, I get to watch Lost, then we watch re-runs of A shot at Love, at which point we are drunk and stupid. The way I prefer to be.