Liberal voice for Eugene signs off air.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

If leaving his "Critical Mass" radio program is anything like leaving his National Public Radio reporting a decade ago, Alan Siporin knows what to expect.

"It's like breaking up with someone," says Siporin, wedged in an editing room at KLCC (89.7 FM). "You're OK with it - until you see her with someone else."

Today at noon, Siporin, 54, will host the last of his "Critical Mass" public affairs shows that helped solidify him as Eugene's best-known liberal media voice. Siporin is quitting because multifaceted facial pain makes it too difficult to do the weekly show.

"The pain dragged me into this decision," he says.

Being an outspoken liberal in Eugene is a little like being a black-and-white penguin in Antarctica, but Siporin's radio interviews and commentary have elevated him to near-icon status among those who lean left. If not the pied-piper of counterculture that the late Ken Kesey was, he's as recognizable a hero for lefty politics as you'll find around here.

"He created a space for the discussion of a whole range of serious issues and created a space for people who care about those discussions to be heard," says Marion Malcolm, a former Clergy and Laity Concerned staffer.

Though unabashedly "progressive" in his politics - he's been honored by the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in his 22-year broadcast career - Siporin listens to opposing views with more civility than most of his right-wing talk-show counterparts.

In fact, he occasionally takes heat from the left for letting conservative callers go on too long - and has been credited for his fairness by groups whose views he vociferously opposed, such as timber organizations and the Oregon Citizens Alliance.

"At a time of the homogenization of American radio, Siporin cut through the clutter," says Al Stavitsky, associate dean of the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication. "His program was always about guests and listeners, not himself."

Siporin isn't without ego; he "assumes" his NPR stories on Oregon's forest policies in the early '90s helped shape the views of President Clinton and Congress - and he may well be right. In his commentaries, he states his views with the unambiguous pursuit of a tank. (`Our founders would roll over in their graves to see us waving flags instead of redressing wrongs.')

But he's secure enough in himself to entertain opposing views - `listening is what civility is all about," he says - and courageous enough to occasionally stray from the party line. Once, listeners flipped out when he dared to back a pay-to-hike plan.

"But I'd argued that loggers should have to pay for their new roads," says Siporin, a stickler for consistency in his stances.

When Siporin was growing up, he would beat his brother in chess because even though his opponent read strategy books, "I could hold a lot of moves in my head." Now, the facial pain, for which he must take morphine derivatives, is robbing him of that.

"I can't hold all those thoughts as well as I used to," he says.

Nothing has been settled on whether the show or Siporin, a part-timer, will be replaced, KLCC General Manager Steve Barton says. It may be a while, then, before Siporin "sees her with someone else."

Meanwhile, he has no firm new-life plans. He'd like to pursue a second novel, a coming-of-age story, autobiographical, set in Omaha, Neb. His 2002 book, "Fire's Edge," was called a "powerful, sensitive first novel" by Publisher's Weekly.

"It rekindled my spirits," he says.

For Siporin, it's time for more such rekindling - and it begins not by pursuing something new but by giving up something old.

"It's been a gift," he says of the show.

Likewise, for his listeners.

A public party for Alan Siporin will be held from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Tsunami Books, 2585 Willamette St.