No, thanks, Joan, you don't fit, er, I mean the contract requirements won't work 

Democracy Now has an interview with Joan Baez. Her singing services were refused by Walter Reed Army Hospital after John Mellencamp had invited her to perform.

Quick idea for automatic debate timekeeping 

Newt Gingrich told about the presidential debates in France on Face the Nation, and mentioned there should be a series of weekly 90-minute debates here for the general election. A timekeeper, but no moderator, he proposed. He doesn't like the way the TV personalities run the shows.

What if you took a page from the academy awards method of cutting people off? Have music kick in automatically at the time limit, and quickly get louder and louder until the pol has to finish up or look silly. An annoying song would be best. I'd suggest Sugar Sugar by the Archies. They absolutely would not continue to shout over that.

New NPR radio strip: 11 Central Ave. 

It's a quick serialized family story played on the air and online. Full of pop culture references. Characters include a woman, her househusband (laid-off ad guy), her 14-year-old daughter, her Cuban-American friend, and her Libertarian brother who lives with them. (That sounds like the Jetsons intro: Meet George Jetson, his boy Elroy...)

Produced in Chicago, naturally. (Home of This American Life and Stories on Stage.) I think I like it. The voice actors are good. The writing is funny, a little over-clever in a pat sitcom way. Good for them for trying out a new form. I enjoyed hearing it during the local part of Morning Edition on the way in to work the other morning.

I started to give you the podcast feed but they only provide a link to the iTunes feed. Another website suggestion: put the eps in a Flash player with a playlist that lets you play one after the other without clicking to a new page.

Here's episode 7, Christine gets blogged:

The cicadas are coming, the cicadas are coming 

My town's abuzz with it. Why is the infestation interesting?

- You can't get away from them, so you can't stop thinking about them, so you might as well talk about them. It gives you something to say in the elevator at work as a change of pace from the weather. "How 'bout them cicadas?" (Somebody always will bring up people who eat them.)

- It's rare, and the 17-year cycle is an odd natural phenomenon, making it kind of mystical.