Driving for a delivery today, I was listening to the Saturday news cast on NPR. As usual the Saturday morning program was an eclectic mix of hardcore news, rehash of the top stories of the week and other diverse topics. They spent a good bit of time on the major sport/college/abuse story coming from Penn State and the burgeoning revelations of other schools. It rehashed the political antics of the Keystone Cop-like chorus ( have a look at this definition, it is more appropriate then I thought) that is the Republican Party. Then they started a story about some kind of music that I was not interested in. I tried to listen to the story, tried to find something that was interesting about the story, but kept asking myself, “Why am listening to this story?” I grumbled why are they doing this story when there are so many other stories that they could do.

That stopped me short.

“Wait a minute here, why do I listen to the radio–and this program in particular?” The answer, “Diversity.”

When a program showcases a subject I am not interested in a debate rumbles around my brain. The thinking goes something like this:

• This is boring
• Why am I listening to this uninteresting article
• Wait maybe it will get to something I can relate to
• Nope
• This is a long boring story

At this point one of two things happen:

1. I either turn the station
2. The story ends.

When I changed the station this time, I felt funny, almost like I was betraying a trust, perhaps narrowing my horizons. Yet I told myself, “I just don’t care about this thing they are talking about.” I turned to the AM band and the sound of bluegrass and Old Time Music banjoes and guitars blasted through the speakers. There is something about the loud rackus sound of a banjo flowing through a melody that just brings a smile. Finally the melody ended and a commercial came on, after it was over the show went to a ballad of long melodious tones singing of some heartache. I went back to the FM dial and got more information that I probably won’t use much of.

And now we come to the purpose of this post. There are so many topics here, but I’ll just stick to my musings while I was driving and bemoaning the folly of the story I was listening to. Why was this program making me listen to an article on some obscure genre of music?

HUH?

Diversity, silly man!

O so, diversity is OK when it interests me, yet boring when it does not fit into my comfort zone? This line of thinking slammed against my wannabe progressive thinking like one semi truck into another. So what am I to do? I get tired of hearing the same topic done to death, yet when something else comes along, I object and wonder why did they do that story, then turn the station.

So I wonder, does diversity really only work when it is within my narrow parameters?

This brings two questions to mind.

The first is, do you like this post? A simple one work reply is all I want here.

Now if you want, please go ahead and say what you think about my ramblings in the comments section. I am interested in your thoughts, so please leave a comment.

olc

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