STAGE NAMES: NPR... where did you find them?

Soooo... over the last several years I have become a National Public radio addict. This does not make me a bad person, a hater of Jesus or of our country no matter what you might hear. I like it. I feel like they give me two sides and more depth on everything but I also know that I have been indoctrinated and both those sides might be to the left of the mainstream. But NPR can be extremely annoying and pretentious. often they have shows that suck but generally I like them all day long and most of the weekend. They get a little weak for me at night and there are a few weekend shows that just do not have anything for me but today...lets talk about one particularly annoying thing.
WHERE DO THEY FIND PEOPLE WITH THESE NAMES?
It is like they have a casting call from the characters of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” Your name has to be odd, sound something like a plant or a medical condition, should contain an odd monosyllabic middle name when possible or at the very least sound like one of those joke names the characters have in the “A Series of Unfortunate Events” movie.
I am only going to discuss the women correspondents since they seem to be the most self consciously pretentious. I do not mean to imply that these women have stage names like strippers but seriously...it is too much. Do you question me on this?

Mandalit del Barco: Pronounced with an emphasis on the “del” and the first name sounds like it is Mandelita as it rolls off her tongue pretentiously saying...”hey America...I am not from there.”

Then we have Lourdes Garcia-Navarro. Shouldn’t she be of the same nationality or ethnicity as Mandelit? Shouldn’t they have covered the same ground.

Terry Gross: Funny name. Unattractive but very listenable women.

Vertamae Grosvenor: I can only assume by the name that she is a German Lutheran mother of 7 who cans a lot of fruit. Wrong. Now I am not trying to look up or research the ethnicity of any of these people but seriously, which nation is this NAtional Public Radio for? But wait, There is more!

Once again we have another German hausfrau. Annabelle Gurwitch. Seriously? Gurwitch? Gurwitch? Austrian Prime Minister...1972-1975? WRONG! Turns out she used to be on the campy Dinner and a Movie before moving on to...serious reporting. Kind of a hottie for NPR.

For the polo playing... waspy...anglophiles they offer us Charlayne Hunter-Gault. Once again wrong, wrong wrong! According to the NPR web site “Charlayne made civil rights history as the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Georgia in 1962, and has gone on to establish herself as one of television's premier journalists. She joined The MacNeil/Lehrer Report in 1978 as a correspondent, and became The News-Hour's national correspondent in 1983.” One must be impressed but one must also ask...why to many names? Is Charlayne really a name? These are big questions.

Ina Jaffe: Do not know if it a man or a woman. I comparison with the other names it is just “off beat” which is a little cute.

Then they come at us with their super hero name. Right out of a Marvel Comics sword and and sorcery epic I present... Xeni Jardin. The only thing I can say about her is at least she looks the part.

They have one correspondent who at least looks like she is right out of the movie “Broadcast News.” Silk blouse and a set of pearls. it does not get more Debra Sawyer like then this. Mara Liasson.

Renee Montagne: Have no idea about anything...other then I know... this is a stripper name. She is from NPR’s western studios in Culver City CA. Not that far from the place where Vivid makes porn...hmmm.

Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson... the Afghanistan correspondent. Once again most recently from California.
Michele Norris: An apparently normal name but she pronounces it mee-shell. Very annoying

Sylvia Poggioli has a great name which conjures up Italian food and a decent Barolo wine. Fittingly she is senior european correspondent.

But the winning name of all correspondents has to be Ofeibea Quist-Arcton. Once again, seriously... none of those are names. Not only are none of them names but she insists on the dreaded hyphenated name. Was her maiden name Quist or Arcton? What in the world is an Ofeibea? No one knows.

Nora Raum: Because of the way she pronounces it and her ubiquitous morning presence on NPR news I refer to her every time as Nora CD Rom.

Cokie Roberts: What can I say. What a great name. Cokie anybody works for me but the only time I had really heard the terms was when Cab Calloway sang “Minnie The Moocher” in the “Blues Brother” movie.

Kathleen Schalch: Buy a vowel.

Lakshmi Singh is a mid day news hottie who would more likely be a Bollywood star then a news correspondent. Pronounced Lak-shmee. Need I say more.

Dina Temple-Raston... lets hyphenate some more. Fittingly on the NPR website there is no picture of her. She is after all the FBI correspondent.

Nina Totenberg is just not that funny a name. Nice ethnicity but you really cannot compete in this crowd with a name like this.

Neda Ulaby...huh? Neda? What kind of parent would name their daughter Neda? Can you imagine grade school boys and the taunting. She looks like an aging KD Lang but she gives Ofeibea a run for her money. If you had a last name like Ulaby which brings to mind wallaby which is not an attractive reference wouldn’t you go for a pretty name?

Doualy Xaykaothao... if you want an asian correspondent, even if once again she works and lives in L.A. I guess Jane Smith is a none starter. The only thing you can say about Doualy.... at least she comes by it naturally.

As I said at the outset I love NPR. Along with getting older it has helped turn me into a bleeding heart liberal but sometimes the self involvement and the pretense of NPR and it’s listeners is a little hard to swallow. There is a little holier then thou attitude with all the listeners and we do really feel like we are better informed but we probably have just been indoctrinated. One thing that always amazes me though is the depth and level of entertainment they provide and even though NPR would cringe and perhaps even puke at the idea of news being “entertainment” it would appear that through through their correspondent names, whether real or stage names, has acknowledged that entertainment is exactly what it is.