Reason 56,783 You Should Be Pumped Your Tax Dollars Are Paying for NPR

On the Diane Rehm show yesterday: David Rothenberg, philosopher, musician, and "expert in inter-species duets," who has written a book called "Thousand-Mile Song," which chronicles the magic of whale songs and his attempts to perform with the whales by broadcasting his own music underwater.

Mmm-hmm.

Rehm offered a 51-minute interview with him, which included these incisive questions. Only on NPR...

How are you physically playing this clarinet along with the whales?

Was there any indication that the whales found what you were doing interesting?

At one point, a caller suggests that perhaps the whale songs are a form of prayer, at which point we get this doozy from Diane:

Do you think it could bring peace to the world through prayer?

It was so utterly ludicrous as to border on parody. Yes, Diane, whale songs broadcast around the world will undoubtedly stop the genocide in Darfur, the bloodlust of al Qaeda in Iraq, the nuclear ambitions of Ahmadinejad, and let's not forget the unchecked imperial lust of the United States of America, which is likely what she had in mind.

Either whale songs or Obama should do the trick. Come to think of it, Obama's foreign policy is about as unintelligible as whale songs. Peace is on the way! Suggesting that praying to Jesus or a Judeo-Christian God would bring peace would likely have gotten her fired, however.

I listen so you don't have to. But you're paying for it!