Rene has quite a dad. 1,000 postcards are truly a monument of a father's love for his daughter. This piece is sound rich and it showcases a healthy, loving relationship between parent and child. While this piece would be perfect for Father's Day, it would also be good for that time in August and September when children are leaving home for college. Beautiful piece.

I'm listening to Norm's satirical fundraising vignettes while working on a new display board for the NPR programs we air here at KCCU. Consequently, I'm surrounded by all the faces that Norm is talking about in his hiliarious pieces and I'm laughing hysterically. Staff members are asking me what I'm listening to. The piece about Nina Totenberg's wardrobe malfunction is especially funny.

I like this series. I'm a lover of words, as I believe the majority of public radio listeners are. Drawing from a wide variety of sources, the producer Chrysti Smith has developed a piece that catches the ear very well - it's smooth, entertaining, and informative. I especially liked the epitaph, "I told you I was sick." This piece would work well around Keillor's "Writer's Almanac" or anyplace in the programming schedule where two minutes of intelligence are needed. Good job.

"People that are doing what they enjoy are fun to be around all day," says Ken Welch, ranch manager of Silverbrook. I love this piece. The description of the working ranch; the interviews with the cowboys and cowgirls, a photographer, a college professor, and a museum curator; and the description of the tintype method of photography all weave together to create a many layered picture in the listener's mind. The listener even learns that lavender oil was used to preserve tintype photographs 150 years ago and that Kendrick uses his own home grown lavender on his tintype photographs. Kendrick's photographs will be in a traveling exhibit entitled "Revealing Character." Julie Moody has produced a rich authentic indepth piece.

Tennis ball fuzz. Spaghetti strings of yarn. Puffs of wool flying out of the old machinery that look like angels, snow, and poodles. Mrs. Marchelletta is a poet of the old woolen mills of Maine and Rupa Marya catches that poetry so well. As a country, we heard about NAFTA coming and about NAFTA being here, but we rarely hear about after NAFTA. This heartwrenching, heartwarming piece is about after NAFTA on a personal basis from the viewpoint of the Marchelletta family. My only question in this otherwise perfect, soundrich piece is where does the wool come from that the Marchelletta mill uses? I ask this because we have a flock of Suffolk sheep on our acreage here in southwest Oklahoma and I just wondered where the wool came from that was used for the tennis balls.

Intimate introspective guitar music sets the stage for the excellent series, StoryCorps. When your listeners hear this music, they will know something special is coming next.

Looking for great radio for young people? Here it is. I'm hooked. Having worked in elementary and high school libraries and parented my own two children, I know it is difficult to get young people to read. Somewhere around 6th grade, interest in reading dies down as other more demanding urges take over. A compelling chapter of Night Flying is presented by an excellent reader. I chose to listen to this excerpt because I've always dreamed of flying . . . without an airplane. In this internet age of interactivity, it is good that there is a companion website for young readers to learn more about the featured book and author. Listen to this piece and find out why pigeons in the barn are like bad relatives and what age has been chosen as the age of reason. Good intro and outro. As Bill Harley says, "reading is another way to fly" and "watch out for low flying women." This is good stuff!!

This courageous piece is cleverly shaped around ascending sizes of bras which then descend in size after surgery. Great intro and outro music. Whether well endowed, flat chested or somewhere in between, women already know what a burden breasts can be and will be able to relate to this one particular woman's experience. This piece brings out all the anxiety a woman feels about her body. It also has a comprehensive list of slang terms which are used to refer to women's breasts. While listening to it, I was reminded of the scene in Woody Allen's "Sleeper" where the gigantic breast was bouncing across the countryside. Take a listen. This is an important piece that everyone needs to hear. Well done.

Once again Ian Shoales a/k/a Merle Kessler has managed to put a lot of thought-provoking and relevant information into a short period of time. Listening to his pieces is kind of like playing a pinball machine. He quickly hits on something important - BING - and then moves on to something else important - BING. How does he do it? Since identity theft seems to be on the news constantly now, this piece would work well on any of the news magazines such as All Things Considered, Morning Edition or Day to Day.

Wow! I had expected a short documentary about the changes in farming and instead I heard a unique musical and literary piece. Goddard hears people's voices as musical notes on a scale. He heard musical notes in his 89 year old grandfather's spoken words and turned them into a melody about the change in farming. The underlying beauty of this piece is the relationship between Goddard and his grandfather. This is a creative way to document personal histories. Wonderfully done.

I was totally thrown by the title of this very regional piece, "The Humble Farmer." I had seen it listed a couple of days ago on PRX and I thought, "This sounds like a really interesting piece," and I couldn't wait until I could find the time to listen to it. The tones listed at the site said that the piece is humorous and informational. Under "topics," the words entertainment, humor and music are listed. I expected much more in the form of humor and information. I did hear wonderful music punctuated by one liners and letters from listeners. Since radio is a theater for the mind, I imagined an older guy wearing a sweater with one sleeve rolled up and one rolled down - because he couldn't make up his mind. He's just finished a bowl of oyster soup and he's settled down for the evening in an overstuffed chair. Next to him is his record player and a stack of records. I really liked the music - it's perfect for an evening of relaxation. I just wish the piece had more talking from the Humble Farmer. When marketing this, the music should really be emphasized because that's basically what this piece is all about - the music.

Tis the season for family vacations and this short humorous piece would work well around a longer piece about vacations. Everyone has stopped at a visitor center at least once in their lives and this piece reveals how a new spin is being put on an old idea. The movie "West World" with Yul Brynner came to mind while listening to this piece. Robots!

Timely introspective piece. There are many thoughtful reflections from people of different cultures and religions and from same sex and different sex couples -- they talk about the importance of their vows and the listener gets to hear some of those vows. Ten minutes well spent. Girardeau's use of maps as a metaphor for marriage is beautiful. She writes well - best words, best order. Because June is the traditional month for weddings, this piece would work well now and next month. A saxophone underlies it all. Need I say more?

Having been raised by a mother who has been and is constantly beset by the pains of manic depression and the wish to no longer be a part of the living, this piece speaks volumes to me. I am sure there are so many children, parents, and spouses in the public radio listening audience that will benefit from hearing this piece. Many times loved ones cannot speak about their darkest feelings with each other. This piece will provide an opening for dialogue. These voices, from the ones feeling the pain to the ones who are helping those in pain, to excerpts from literature, reveal things to all of us that need to be said. This piece brought to mind Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem, "Spring," which ends with these final lines: "It is not enough that yearly down this hill, April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers." Riveting, wonderful piece. Sound rich. Well done. Listen. All of us have had at least one day in our lives where there's been no moon . . . and no sun.

It is amazing what human beings do to one another. This short piece is chock full of information that shows that while music might have charms to soothe the savage breast, it can also be used to scare, humiliate and destroy human beings. A sound-rich piece, the listener will learn that, two centuries ago, the British banned the bagpipe and declared it a weapon of war. Now the bagpipe is used as a heartwrenching instrument during funeral marches. (Is any instrument more plaintive? Maybe the harmonica.)A variety of other musical artists,instruments, and sounds are featured as weapons of torture. It would be the sound of a dental drill that would finally break me. This piece would fit in whenever there was any news from Iraq. The piece could also stand alone. Five minutes well worth a listen, it would grab me wherever I was and whatever I was doing. I would turn to my friend and say, "Shhh . . . listen to this."