Much as I admire Vivaldi, Mozart, Haydn, et al., I think Ms. Carver’s report dramatizes a nagging problem of our times. Apologies, but I couldn’t get the MelodyMaker link to work, so I just excerpted her news story.

                     Avant “Terrorists” Invade KVMH

                                   by Grenelda Carver

(Special to MelodyMaker Magazine. December 23. Hillsborough, California.) Masked and heavily armed intruders carrying satchels of CDs of music by Stravinsky, Bartok, Prokofief, Copland, Harris, Milhaud, Schoenberg and other twentieth century composers took over the Transmission Room of the venerable Classics FM station KVMH this morning and, as horrified station staff looked on helplessly, interrupted the annual “Vivaldi Marathon” with The Rite Of Spring followed by works of other twentieth century composers. Kasper L’Cranrammer, KVMH Operations Manager, wept openly as he spoke of  “our dear commuters now facing a wet, dismal morning drive without the Water Music.” Cranrammer became inconsolable as the hours crawled by and the masked intruders, still barricaded in the KVMH Transmission Room, rudely ignored the decades-old normal daily schedule of the station: “Mozart in the Morning,” More Mozart Later in the Morning,” “Mozart at Noon,” “Vivaldi and Three Martinis,” “The Water Music for Your After-Lunch Visit to the W.C.,” “Back to Work with Mozart,” “Three P.M. at the Water Cooler with Handel,” “Mozart on Your Way Home,” “Dinner with Wolfgang” and such evening panel discussions as, “Bach, a Radical?,” “Vivaldi, the Last Innovator,” and the always controversial “Hints of Dissonance in the Water Music.” When police finally arrived, one middle-aged KVMH staff member, Charlene Smiley, described by KVMH CEO “Sir” Anthony Smith-Brown (aka Larry Cloner, former Sales Manager of HappyAcre Chrysler in Burlingame) who was wearing his Santa Claus suit for the KVMH Annual Employee Christmas Party scheduled for that evening at the Boiled Duck Restaurant, as “the one person everyone would like to have join them when chestnuts are roasting by the open fire”–well, Mrs. Smiley pleaded with the police to be allowed herself to don SWAT protective gear and, bearing “The Complete Baroque Oeuvre” CD, join them in their storming of the Transmission Room “so as to lose not a second in returning to our beloved fare.” Police Lt. Eldred “Rip”  Dorlan, showing no emotion but calling her “one brave lady,” refused Smiley’s persistent request, but later said in a shaking voice that he had done so only for “this tough gal’s own good.” But a stern Mayor Duard Farquard, linked in via a conference call, pledged directly to Smiley to set aside city funds “to restore KVMH to its past glory.” (As I assume you already know, the ensuing arrest of the intruders was featured on cable TV.)