Tonight, in a little less than 2 hours, the first St. Louis Symphony Orchestra radio broadcast of the 2010-2011 season is set to begin, on KWMU, 90.7 FM. It's the first such Saturday night symphony broadcast by KWMU under a new agreement. Last year, the station which did the symphony broadcasts was KFUO, 99.1 FM. However, as July 6, 2010, KFUO 99.1 FM ceased to exist as a classical music station, after 62 years. This is because of a corrupt, slimy and thoroughly unethical business deal involving two elements everyone at DK loves to hate, fundie bigots and corrupt Republicans, whereby the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod sold KFUO FM to a Christian rock outfit, Joy-FM (Gateway Creative Broadcasting).
So where does the "Cardinals" part of this SNLC's title come into it? It comes in because members of the St. Louis Cardinals participated, by proxy, in the murder of the classical station by aiding and abetting Joy-FM's sleazy behavior. The Cardinals, former and present, are Andy Benes and Albert Pujols. More below the flip.....
To give credit where credit is due, the Post-Dispatch's classical music critic, Sarah Bryan Miller, has done great work in following the machinations of this deal (sample, after the deal was done, here). If you want to dig up her articles, feel free, as she's done all the work and I don't need to reinvent the wheel. Miller noted in this article, regarding Benes and Pujols:
"Although Gateway, based in Des Peres, was in debt at the time it filed its application with the FCC, it has since raised $2 million in pledges and contributions toward the purchase. Much of it has come from or been raised by St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols, retired Cardinals pitcher Andy Benes, and their wives, DeDe Pujols and Jennifer Benes."
In of itself, while unfortunate, that's not a big deal, that the Pujolses and Beneses helped with that fund-raiser, which took place last November. They're private citizens too, and they're free to fund-raise for whatever organizations they want, even if I don't care for those groups. The unethical and corrupt part comes from the timing of the fundraiser, in the context of the announcement of this sale. Miller covered this in a P-D "Culture Club" blog post here, A group called "The Committee to Save KFUO-FM" and the Radio Arts Foundation did some digging, and noted (again, the particular point related to Pujols and Benes):
"Gateway stated that it had the money when it first applied in October - and it did not.
In plain terms, the complainants allege that Gateway lied to the FCC on their application."
Remember the timing here:
(1) The formal sale of KFUO to Joy-FM was announced in October. At the time, Joy-FM claimed that they had the money in hand.
(2) The fundraiser headlined by Pujols and Benes was in November.
So why would Joy-FM claim to have the money in October, but then have to do massive fundraising afterwards for this sale? The answer is obvious: Joy-FM didn't have the money at the time. Basically, Joy-FM lied through their teeth. Miller said as much here.
"They don't seem to have actually had the money when they told the Federal Communications Commission they did, back when they filed their October license application to buy KFUO-99.1 FM's license from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod - but Gateway Creative Broadcasting, doing business as "Joy FM," says they have now met their $2 million pledge goal."
In spite of all this, the FCC, in their stupidity, approved the deal anyway. I wrote e-mails of protest, as did many others here, to all 5 FCC Commissioners, about this sale. Fat lot of good it did, but at least I registered my tiny voice in all this, FWIW.
In short, Joy-FM lied and cheated their way to a wider signal, and destroyed an established St. Louis institution in the process. And they got away with it. So if you're a fundie bigot, the rules of honesty and integrity don't apply to you. You can lie, cheat, and break all the rules, as long as you claim to do "God's work".
Plus, nobody at the Symphony dares to say a bad word about the Cardinals, in spite of the team's role in this despicable sale. St. Louis is a sports town, after all. Just looking at the SLSO Blog, you will not find a single word of criticism of the Cardinals, or of Pujols or Benes (keyword search here). Likewise, in Eddie Silva's blog post tributes to the station here and here, again, not a word. People at the orchestra will still root for the Cardinals and wish them well, in spite of how the Cardinals erased from the map an institution of great value to the Symphony, as well as the wider community. I wonder if anyone at the Cardinals organization has the faintest idea of the implications of what people in their group did, namely, where one well-established St. Louis institution helped to destroy another.
One letter writer to the P-D, however, has no such inhibitions, from back in July:
"I completely agree with Bill McClellan's recommendation that the Cardinals trade Albert Pujols. It should be immediately. I don't have the faintest interest or understanding of baseball, but he should be traded away to the farthest team from St. Louis for contributing to the death of KFUO Classic99. Let him wreak cultural havoc in Siberia."
Plus, Pujols has been affiliating himself with some pretty bad company, as witness his recent appearance at B-ck-the-Bigot's recent rally. But guess what: people here will still wear jerseys with #5 and Pujols' name still on them. People here will still look up to him, and gloss over and forget the bad company he's kept.
In some fairness, I have heard that Pujols actually is a very decent individual, politics aside. We all know people like that, who have appalling political convictions, but who are actually quite civil one-on-one. I've never met Pujols, and I never will. He's a bigshot with lots of influence, and I'm a nobody with no influence.
Is there anything redeeming in all this? No, not really. The fact that Joy-FM got away with this, aided and abetted by Pujols and Benes, is frankly further proof for me, as if you needed it, that there is no benevolent force (God, for some) that watches over everything, to see that the good guys/gals win, and the bad get punished. That's not how the real world works, and none of this would have happened if that were the case. (Nor would teabaggers, B-ck, P-l-n, L-mb--gh or other bigoted wingnut scum like that even be walking the earth.) There's nothing redeeming about people like them without conscience, morals or integrity doing foul things and wreaking havoc on the larger population.
All we have now, with regard to at least the Symphony casts, is KWMU taking on the reins, and good for them for doing this. I'm booked tonight, so I'll miss the first one. I'm actually going to the hall for the same program tomorrow. The radio casts can reach an audience well outside St. Louis, for those interested in this particular orchestra. Happy listening to them, and if any of you reading this plan to listen, to you.
In the meantime, time for the usual SNLC protocol below, namely your loser stories of the week......