Weekend radio.

Weekdays for me are mostly music. Weekends are NPR.

I like radio enough that even if I had a CD player in my car I probably wouldn't use it. (My kids have the nice stereos in their cars. I have a cassette player.)

Living on the Illinois - Wisconsin border, I am able to pick up stations from both states. They schedule their shows differently so what I miss on Saturday I can usually get on Sunday. Car Talk, Michael Feldman's Whad'YaKnow, This American Life and Prairie Home Companion.

One exception is 3 hours of Saturday Blues with Dan Klefstad, from 89.5 Dekalb Illinois. Saturday 1:00 to 4:00. Blues sound the best during the summer while working outside.

Anyway, I wanted to note the following show. All the segments were good listening. Interestingly it picked up on my own personal mispronunciation of MISLED.

Seems a number of people, along with your's truly, seemed to think MISLED was pronounced my zeld not miss led. A past tense of the word MISLE (my zell) which means "deceive"?? I mispronounced it for years before finally learning the real pronounciation.

It's in ACT II. It made me feel better. The segment also touches on Neilsen Families and unicorns. Segments one, four and five were really good too.


From WBEZ in Chicago This American Life

A Little Bit of Knowledge 7/22 Episode 293

Stories about the pitfalls of knowing just a little bit too little. Prologue. Ira describes the thing that we all do at some point: talk expertly about something we don't actually know anything about. It's so common, explains This American Life Contributing Editor Nancy Updike, some friends of hers invented an imaginary magazine devoted to such blathering. It's called "Modern Jackass." (4 1/2 minutes) Act One.

Small Thoughts in Big Brains. This American Life producer Alex Blumberg investigates a little-studied phenomenon: Children who get a mistaken idea in their heads about how something works or what something means, and then don't figure out until well into adulthood that they were wrong. (13 minutes)Song: "Zing Zing, Zoom Zoom," Perry Como Act II.

And Daddy Makes Three. Six-year-old DJ has two dads, Dan Savage and Terry Miller. DJ is being raised by two gay men, but he has a preschooler's understanding of what gay means. Which is to say, he doesn't understand it at all. Though he does oppose gay marriage. Dan, the author of the syndicated column and book Savage Love, tells the story. His latest book is Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America. (11 minutes)Act Three.

Sucker MC-Squared. Bob Berenz had a good job as an electrician. But he wanted to do something bigger. He came up with an idea for an invention. But as he studied physics texts to see if his invention could work, he happened upon the biggest idea of his life: a revelation about physics that would disprove Einstein, and Newton. That is, if Bob's right. Bob's friend, Robert Andrew Powell, reports the story. He's a sports writer and the author of We Own This Game, about youth football. (16 1/2 minutes)Song: "Modern Physics in Five Easy Verses," Bruce LesnickAct Four.

The Art of Adult Conversation. Writer Alexa Junge tells about the time when she was thirteen and she decided to have a "grown-up" conversation with her beloved grandmother. (10 minutes)Song: "Words as Weapons," Michael Fracasso