They want a radio service that has people talking around the water cooler." As happy as I am to see Sheilagh "You're so sweet, you make my teeth hurt" Rogers get the axe, it sounds like the CBC brass is off on a 120 second goosechase. Last month, I wrote a letter to the staff at WBUR's The Connection that, more or less, sums it up for me :

For 18 months I lived on Martha's Vineyard and pined for the CBC, every day feeling grateful for the advent of Internet radio.

Eventually, I moved back to Montreal and life was good. I remember hearing the announcement that Dick Gordon was leaving the CBC to assume hosting duties at The Connection and thinking it was "our" loss.

[Even] before his departure, Sheilagh Rogers had taken over the flagship morning show, on Radio One. Long story short, I simply can't stand to listen to her. My only solace has been to write increasingly venomous letters whenever she and the production staff fall prey to a pique of especially sugary and empathetic nonsense. Not a happy situation any way you look at it.

But over Thanksgiving, driving down to the Island, we were stuck in traffic on Storrow Drive and I was fiddling with the radio dial and I heard Dick Gordon interviewing Alastair McCloud.

And once again, every day I am grateful for the advent of Internet radio.

You guys rock. You have no idea how happy it makes me to find an intelligent radio program, broadcast daily, with a serious host and interesting guests.

And for someone who moved back to Montreal partly because it is, seemingly, the only place to find a decent baguette on the whole continent [an entire] hour devoted to bread is like manna from heaven.

Meanwhile, did you ever think you'd live to see a member of the CRAP party say : "[The House is] exactly the sort of programming the publicly funded broadcaster should be doing." ?