Yesterday's news (1/17/05)

I did not have a lot of time to listen to NPR yesterday -- the girls were out of school and I had a busy day, but the little I did hear, both a bit in the morning and a bit between 5-6 PM had to do with the Tsunami, the inaugural and Zhao Ziyang, the Chinese Communist leader who died recently.

The Tsunami reporting had to do with aid workers and had some interviews with devistated locals in Shri Lanka and Aceh, and was the usual awful stuff.

The inaugural reporting had to do with civil war reenactors marching in the parade. These reenactors were southerners who actually played Federal troops instead of Confederates. The story was well balanced, but the ending summed up its usefulness overall: The war ended over 140 years ago. Get over it.

The story on Zhao Ziyang was very interesting in that it pointed out that he has been all but forgotten by the Chinese people, even though he played a very important role in the Communist government. He was removed from power after the Tiananmen Square massacre and placed under house arrest, where he lived out his days. He'd been under house arrest for 15 years. NPR interviewed several Chinese people, and no one really remembered him, even though he did a lot for the economy of China.