There's something to be said for a country with an intelligent, articulate female head of government who has basic respect for the law and human decency. That could have been our country now, had it not been for selfish, narcissistic, fauxgressive purity troll jerks who refused to vote for the female Democratic POTUS candidate with basic respect for the law and human decency in November 2016 (and who are ready to reinstall the current selfish, narcissistic jerk for a 2nd term as POTUS this coming November).
In other words, we are not New Zealand. One modest way in which New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern showed how a head of state can behave in a classy, decent manner, without trying to appeal only to a specific hardcore base, is with respect to a recent proposed move by Radio New Zealand to downgrade classical music programming, as reported initially here on RNZ's own site back on February 5, with a further article (among others) this past Sunday. (And yes, it does sound odd, for RNZ features to cover this story, except that when you read thm, the coverage actually is pretty even-handed.) In brief, AFAICT, the plan was to:
* Plan a new radio program centered around popular music, aimed at the youth market
* To make room for such a station, move RNZ Concert, the current classical network, off FM over to an AM band and streaming service
* Make that new AM/streaming classical all automated, i.e. fire the RNZ classical radio staff
Fine, some of you may think: classical music, all DWEM music, elitist, small audiences, not relevant in today's world. In short, who cares? It’s further ironic because the classical music crowd in general is a rather small, hardcore base. Purely in terms of audience numbers, if that were the only criteria, then it would make sense to downgrade classical at a radio network. But given the sonic nature of classical music, you need the best sound, which AM does not provide compared to FM, to state the obvious.
Per this later article from RNZ, Prime Minister Ardern expressed, quite diplomatically, that maybe this wasn't such a great idea:
"I feel very strongly about this. When I came in as Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, one of the priorities I had was access - that we need to broaden the access of all New Zealander to the arts.
"I understand that RNZ has obligations to all New Zealanders, and it is their view that they are not catering for one sector. But it is my view as arts minister that one does not need to come at the cost of another.
"My frustration here is that I see this beyond a programming decision and into a structural decision."
But note my choice of word several paragraphs back, namely "was to". This is because, after a lot of protests from NZ radio listeners, classical artists like Kiri Te Kanawa, and even a past NZ Prime Minister, Helen Clark, expressing her voice of protest, RNZ pulled back from its proposal, as noted here. This later report notes how Prime Minister Ardern modestly upped the rhetorical ante:
‘Today's news that RNZ Concert will still be broadcast on stereo-suitable FM beyond May was all but inevitable after the PM declared on Morning Report yesterday she was "frustrated" by RNZ's proposal - and then "more than miffed" soon after on Newstalk ZB.’
A cynic could argue that in her earlier statements, about "one does not need to come at the cost of another", that's just political rhetoric of trying to be all things to all people. But that's the point about being leader of a nation; she has to serve multiple constituencies, not just one.
As to how this situation with RNZ Concert will fully play out, we'll (well, 3CM the loser will) have to wait and see. This is obviously not an important issue in the grand scheme of things. But the larger point from the outset still stands, namely how good it is to have a smart, competent female head of government who knows how to behave. If Amy Klobuchar or Elizabeth Warren were our side’s POTUS nominee, I would be tremendously happy with either of them as our POTUS.
With that, time for the standard (now bi-weekly) SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories for the week….or, since this is now a bi-weekly series, last week can count as well :) .