There Are No LGBT Programs On National Public Radio

William F. B. O'Reilly, a consultant for Republicans and a newspaper columnist, stated in his column (published in amNew York, the free daily newspaper, on April 6, 2017) that "National Public Radio [is] home to New York's liberal intelligentsia." If National Public Radio (also known as NPR) is so liberal or progressive, why isn't there a weekly one-hour national and international news and public affairs program dealing with LGBT issues, events, and personalities? If I'm mistaken, and such a program exists, I would like for someone to let me know. I would love to tune in. WBAI, the listener-supported, and progressive, Pacifica station in New York, has a weekly show called Out FM that has been on the air for several years.

Gay Activist Cleve Jones's Memoir

I'm looking forward to reading (and reviewing?) When We Rise: My Life in the Movement by Cleve Jones, the San Francisco gay rights activist and founder of the AIDS quilt project. (I'm rarely on Facebook, so the last time I checked, he and I were still Facebook friends.)

 I learned about the book after hearing him being interviewed on public radio's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. I  heard him again today on another public radio show, Here and Now.

A Nigerian Short Story Heard On The Radio

I heard the Nigerian writer Teju Cole's short story, "Modern Girls," read on public radio's Selected Shorts via New York's WNYC on September 13, 2015. It is set in a school for girls in Nigeria during the early 1970s, around the time of the Biafran war. The quality of Cole's writing is so good that I want to read the story myself  as well as his other work, both fiction and nonfiction.

Stuart Hall, Public Intellectual, Dies At Age 82

Until Michel Martin spoke with Duke University professor Mark Anthony Neal about scholar Stuart Hall on her daily NPR show Tell Me More, I had never heard of Hall. Their brief conversation made me want to learn all I can about this public intellectual and "godfather of multiculturalism," who recently died at age 82 in England, where he had lived since emigrating there from Jamaica in 1951.

I look forward to seeing the  documentary on his life and work, which was premiered last year at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. I also look forward to reading his books and articles.

The trailer for The Stuart Hall Project is available on YouTube.

Curtis Sliwa's Disdain For "Brainiacs"

The Voice of the People
New York Daily News
220 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017
February 11, 1994

Dear Editor:

I have heard [Guardian Angels founder] Curtis Sliwa refer to intellectuals as "eggheads"and "brainiacs." Anyone who uses such disparaging terms as these has no respect for the inquiring mind and has no place on the program lineup of [public radio station] WNYC, a cultural and intellectual oasis on the AM radio dial. Plus his brand of radio would attract to the station the know-nothings and loudmouths who predominate on other talk shows.

Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

This letter was published on February 26, 1994.