Weekends are about the only time I listen to NPR anymore - their new weekday morning program hosts are just annoying, and thanks to XM Satellite Radio I can satisfy my need for news with XMPR, the BBC World Service, CSPAN Radio, and other news/talk stations.

But when listening this morning to Weekend Edition Sunday, I heard that Liane Hansen is away and her replacement is Sheilah Kast. I’ll wait a sec while you say, “Who?”

Usually they call in their experienced anchors, like Linda Wertheimer or (ugh) Susan Stamberg to pinch-hit for folks who are away. The last time they shoved new, inexperienced anchors at us was August, 2003, when they put together the “Barbie and Ken” team now marginalizing their weekday morning program. That they are bringing in a “new hire” (from November, 2003) to anchor WESun implies they are considering mucking around with the weekend schedule, now that they’ve dumbed-down All Things Considered and destroyed the unique character of the morning program, making it less than an ATC clone. And even more troubling, the “Voices from the Week’s News” segment was oddly single-focused on the Presidential Debate - there certainly were other interesting sounds from this week’s news, so why change the point of the weekly piece? This implies to me, in my well-deserved paranoia, that the pinstripes who have managed to remold NPR in their own image to the detriment of their listeners are now turning their micro-management focus onto the weekend morning programs.

I have to admit, I don’t really care whether or not they replace Liane Hansen; she’s pleasent enough, but not terribly unique. But if I were Scott Simon, I’d call Bob Edwards (or Ed McNulty, who Scott said goodbye to at the close of yesterday’s show wishing him well working with Bob) and see if XM has a slot available for him. Clearly, Weekend Edition Saturday is way too good a show to be left alone by those executives determined to remake NPR as bland and lifeless as possible.