Robert Skoglund

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Robert Skoglund is the host of The Humble Farmer , a former Maine Public Radio program of down east humor and old time jazz music. A 2007 Christian Science Monitor article [1] refers to him as the 'Garrison Keillor of Maine'. After 28 years on MPBN, he has stopped his wry commentary because the political content of several shows -- in which he compared George Bush to Hitler and, in a separate program, Mussolini -- was deemed inappropriate by the management of the radio station. [2]

[edit] Humble Quits

In June 2007, Humble essentially removed himself from MPBN through his refusal to sign station guidelines, signed by every single on-air station employee and radio volunteer, which among other things prohibits the use of the public's airwaves to further any individual employee's or volunteer's personal political agendas, whether they emanate from the right, left or center of the political spectrum. His cause has become a free-speech issue, with many supporters demanding that MPBN re-hire humble and cease its attempts to censor his humor, while others have cheered the station's decision to stand by its right to insist on the political neutrality of its on-air staff by not carving out an exemption for him alone. He continues to produce his program, which can be heard on the net, on one public radio station in Florida, and on local cable television stations in Maine. He has also produced several CD's of his "rants."