Lithuania got a lot of laughs on "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!" on Saturday.
Quite a few things get made fun of on the NPR comedy quiz show, but usually they have done something to warrant the abuse (Congress, for example). Lithuania's only sin, as far as I could tell, was its failure to become prominent enough on the world stage that American journalists would know something about it.
Making fun of what you don't understand has a long history, though you expect more from a National Public Radio show. Host Peter Sagal gave as examples of famous Lithuanians Charles Bronson and Monica Lewinsky. Lewinsky was an entirely American concoction that the proud Baltic nation had absolutely nothing to do with. But it was evidence that Americans look at the world almost exclusively through the prism of America. A much more inspiring example of a famous Lithuanian living in the States would have been the poet and Yale professor Tomas Venclova.
After a while, just the word "Lithuania" evoked laughter - not only from the audience, but from members of the cast. For someone who had visited the country - and found Vilnius to be one of the loveliest cities in Europe, its citizens gracious and intelligent - it was hard to listen to.
After the first set of the first women's semi-final at Wimbledon, Cliff Drysdale sent us back to the studio for a video ode to the Williams sisters narrated by Dick Enberg.
This might have made sense - might - if Venus and Serena had been playing in the match that we were watching. But they weren't (they were both knocked out in the fourth round). The match was between Petra Kvitova and Victoria Azarenka.
The Williams tribute, showing their triumphs on grass in both singles and doubles, went on for some time. I switched channels to see if perhaps NBC had picked up the match. It hadn't. Yet I knew that play had resumed; this was a break between sets, not halftime at a Super Bowl.
We eventually rejoined the match, in the second game of the second set. No explanation was given for the interruption. My guess is that the video was made before the Williams sisters bowed out of the tournament and, rather than waste it, the folks at ESPN decided to show it anyway. But why they didn't wait until after the match is beyond me.
In response to Oprah ending her show, I'm opening this space to anyone who has something to share with America.
Earlier this week the Sunday Styles section of The New York Times carried a lead story on the revolution in the American living room. It began with a description of a family: the wife on her iPad, the husband on his laptop, the daughter on her iPod Touch, while the son was "absorded" by a Wii game on the widescreen TV.
"One family," wrote the author Alex Williams. "One room. Four screens. Four realities, basically. While it may look like some domestic version of "The Matrix - families sharing a common space, but plugged into entirely different planes of existence through technology - a scene like this has become an increasingly familiar evening ritual."
Yes, I thought, and how is it different from the evening scene, in the days before radio, when each family member would curl up with his or her favorite picture book, album, journal or novel?