Why are they not pronouncing the X?

I listen to too much NPR. I listen to Morning Edition and All Things Considered and Weekend Edition Saturday and Weekends on All Things Considered and Weekend Edition Sunday and Fresh Air if I’m in the car when it is on. If I’m not in the car when it is on, I listen to the Fresh Air podcast and the the This American Life podcast and I used to listen to the Bob Edwards podcast until I decided he was a bore. So you might wonder how I have the time to listen to all of these podcasts and broadcasts but that question totally misses the point. The point is that there is not enough stuff to fill all of those hours of air time even if all of them are “long form” interviews. So what you wind up with are a bunch of people talking about the same thing as if they are the only one talking about that thing when really they all talking about it. The worst case that I can remember is the story of “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” about Julian Schnabel who gets totally paralyzed except for an eyelid and seduces a nurse using just that eyelid to communicate. Nothing sounds more like a brutal exercise in proving ones intellectual fortitude than sitting through an entire movie about a paralyzed lech. I wanted nothing to do with that shit. And I often have the same reaction to the segments featuring the two young people from NPR’s podcast on alternative Latin music. It just seems like a reach for NPR and I appreciate their desire to be culturally diverse, but damn. So when they come on, I only sort of half listen. Fortunately I was half listening enough when the segment about the Mexican Institute of Sound came on. This dude is awesome, and I get the added bonus of feeling culturally superior for listening to him. Score!