Under the current president of Maine Public Radio, Jim Dowe, and a station manager, Charles Beck, censorship has become an issue, so much so that many former members have let their memberships lapse and have refused to pony up until the two admit they were wrong, and offer the unjustly booted on-air host his old job back, with no restrictions.

For nearly 30 years, Robert Skoglund did a Friday evening jazz show as The humble Farmer, and between songs he might read mail or news items from Maine and "away"-- sometimes far away. Listeners seemed to enjoy his show well enough, and anyone who listened was familiar with the format. But Dowe and Beck, taking umbrage at a letter humble read canned him by way of creating a sort of loyalty oath and requiring everyone to sign it.humble wouldn't sign, and so his time on MPBN drew to a forced close.

Interestingly enough, MPBN airs a number of syndicated shows whose content would not pass the censorship pledge muster, and most of those shows, including A Prairie Home Companion and Whad'Ya Know? air with no "warning" that they might contain dangerous commetn or opinion. The dangerous show, This American Life airs with a warning at the beginning of the show, and at station breaks.

One thing the debacle has shown those who take exception to Beck and Dow and their heavy handed ways, is that "our listeners, the members of MBPN who we value very much" don't have much in the way of clout when it comes to a difference of opinion with station management. The Board of Directors, the station managers and the president of MPBN all hold their jobs and positions without any meaningful input from the public, which is odd when you consider the name, "public radio". But the people, and they are many, who want Skoglund back, and who wouldn't mind at this point seeing the back of Beck and Dowe, don't have any way of forcing the issue-- there is no general election for the membership of the Board of Directors, and they appoint the president and approve the choice of hire for the manager positions. The board currently includes the presidents of Maine's three most important private liberal arts college-- Bowdoin, Bates, and Colby, but while freedom of academic expression might be important where they hold their day jobs, none have made a point of pressing the issue when they meet to rubber stamp Maine Public Broadcasting's plans and positions.

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And Mainers, keep your checkbooks closed when the Fall Begathon begins soon...

This is the letter that The humble Farmer read on air, in October 2006, from a viewer in Maryland that led Charles L. Beck, Vice President for Radio Services at Maine Public Broadcasting to censor 'humble' and demand that 'humble' sign censorship guidelines.

Dear humble, We live near DC and "tax cut" never means better control of pork barrel spending or programs that benefit corporations at the expense of everyman. It always means that the cuts will be in social services, humanitarian efforts, environmental issues, and all those "useless" programs that generally benefit the poor and middle class and not the wealthy. A tax "ceiling" was implemented on spending in nearby Prince George's County. The result - PG County is now one of the worst counties in the nation in terms of student achievement, even though it has had had a huge influx of higher paid residents. The folks who can afford it, even the minority residents, are sending their kids to private schools. Teachers have to buy their own supplies, books arrive three weeks after school starts because the school system's expenditures are slow. Fiscal responsibility is one thing. Tax cuts designed to "red tape" needy programs to death while expediting tax cuts to the wealthy (described as "beneficial to the economy") are another."