I found something out yesterday that i want people to know. Garrick told me about it. It’s pretty upsetting actually. MPR just finished another fund drive. They do that often to get money to run the station. I contribute to them. I’ve always felt it was a valuable resource. I was not in agreement with the recent big spend to build a big building. I’m somebody that works from home. I believe that things can be distributed and cost less. I got a fundraising call for the new building and I explained that I already gave a significant amount monthly and I didn’t think they should be building the new space. OR at least felt that enough viable options, meaning distributed options were not considered. I mean, why not set Mary Lucia up with a microphone from the comfort of her own home…..

i digress because that’s not what I found out yesterday……..

Garrick pointed me to Tod Maffin’s blog post.

Apparently some of that money that they needed to fund raise is going to the laywers. This is not how I want this money being spent. Al Gore started a TV station last year and it’s called Current. MPR is suing because that radio station that plays cool music is called The Current.

As if ‘current’ is something that PUBLIC radio owns or even could own. It’s public radio. It’s supposed to be for me. I mean, I’m paying for it. This is so disheartening. Only laywers win when people sue. This is not good public behavior. Doesn’t public mean things like participate, share, not sue for stupid things……

All I can say is i’m not happy and my contribution to this is definitely in jeopardy. My husband and I are going to try and be fair. We’ll write a letter, try to get both sides of the story, but if we are not satisfied with the response, we will show our disapproval via a donation withdrawal. At least I feel like I can do something. People need to be called when they behave unacceptably. I don’t think it’s MPR’s place to ‘protect its intellectual property’ of a word. I get all the stuff about brand. I worked at a global ad agency. I still don’t think this is ok.