It's been a long while since I ventured a post at TPM Cafe.  I suspect it was having to admit I didn't understand the new format for posting.  I've swallowed my pride and hope to have something moderatly useful to say from time to time.

I wake up to NPR.  Sometimes, like this morning, I think  of it as the best of poor choices.  Why I should have to listen to Newt Gingrich  and Norman Ornstein seriatum with Cokie Roberts following closely thereafter is beyond me.  But I've gotten used to a conservative bias on the station that lets its reporters moonlight on Fox and CNN, and maybe I need an adrenaline rush to carry me over to my first cup of coffee.

What got my goat this morning was NPR's self promotion for its coverage of tomorrow's Inauguration activities.  I wasnt' awake enough to  do more than provide a very  rough paraphrase.  The sales point was "need pictures? turn on  the television, turn the  sound down, and  listen to  NPR."

Sorry, that won't wash.  I'm going back to my most reliable standby, Good old Stodgy C-Span.  C-Span reminds me of some of the educational films I was shown in high school...produced by Encyclopedia Britanica, dreadfully serious, black and white, and trustworthy.  I watched the  conventions  on C-span?  Was I amused?  Not particularly.  Did it get the story unembellished, and uninfected by the village pundits trying  to tell me  what  to  think about what I  saw and heard with my  own eyes and  ears?  Yes.  Rather than sit back and be spoon-fed pap, I had to trust my own Brain.  Kant  would have been proud of my choice.

So my computer is going to be tuned to C-span's Inauguration  Hub.    I'm listening to it now..a call-in  segment where the host actually lets the callers talk--and doesn't tell the other listeners to think about what the callers have do say.  I can decide which are savants and which are jerks all by my self. 

So thank you, C-Span, for treating me as an adult.  I'm expecting some of the cafe habitues will be listening as I will.  (I don't know  if I'll  be ready to start at 6. a.m--Maybe I can crank myself up--we'll see.