Monday, July 01, 2002

An interesting article on conservatives in talk radio.

In part it says:
Talk radio shows how profoundly the FCC's repeal of the Fairness Doctrine has affected political discourse. In recent years almost all nationally syndicated political talk radio hosts on commercial stations have openly identified themselves as conservative, Republican, or both: Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Michael Reagen, Bob Grant, Ken Hamblin, Pat Buchanan, Oliver North, Robert Dornan, Gordon Liddy, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, et al. The spectrum of opinion on national political commercial talk radio shows ranges from extreme right wing to very extreme right wing - there is virtually nothing else.

On local stations, an occasional nonsyndicated moderate or liberal may sneak through the cracks, but there are relatively few such exceptions. This domination of the airwaves by a single political perspective clearly would not have been permissible under the Fairness Doctrine.

Tap Dancing on the Barometer
This weekend the barmometer danced and my head did not follow the lead. In other words, I got a migraine from going from beastly hot to cold and rainy to moderate to hot to rainy all in one weekend. Usually I just go to bed, but a childhood friend from Montana was vacationing in Oregon and I met her so I resorted to the tried and true method of massive doses of caffeine and ibuprophen. The coffee was a natural since we were sitting and talking so long that lunch drifted into dinner.

One of the things we talked about was how once your kids are off on their own, you no longer worry where they are all the time but when they come home from college during the summer then you once again wonder where they are, when they are getting home, if they are safe, what they are doing. When my son is away, I just assume that he spends all his free time studying in the library or doing corporal works of mercy.