As the last entertaining (and practically the only local) talk show host in Miami goes into retirement, South Florida now officially has nothing on AM radio except right wing nuts and redundant syndicated sports shows. From the Herald:
Rogers, 66, and WQAM-AM 560 jointly announced that he is leaving the station and that his 10 a.m.-to-2 p.m. slot will be filled with a sports-talk show. His last show aired Friday.
''WQAM decided they wanted to go with an all-sports format all the time,'' said Norm Kent, Rogers' attorney. ``They made an attractive offer on the balance of his contract, and Neil took it.''
Though Rogers technically remains employed as a WQAM consultant, his website, www.neilrogers.com, declared the buyout an ''early retirement,'' and Kent said his client has no intention of returning to the air.
''It's well known how much money he's made on radio over the years, and he's talked on the air for years about retiring,'' Kent said. 'When WQAM made its offer, he decided, `Why not?' If he wants to come back, there's no non-compete clause in the contract. I could get him a deal at [radio chain] Clear Channel tomorrow. But he's not interested.''
Well, maybe not Clear Channel in Miami... This comes weeks after WQAM fired Neil's sidekick, Jorge, and after Rogers himself was suspended for accidentally reading the F-word on-air. But neither of those things are the real reason Rogers took a powder...
The more likely trigger is a change in the technology that the radio-ratings company Arbitron uses to track audiences.
Arbitron has always compiled its ratings from written diaries kept by listeners, who often write down the names of familiar shows rather than keeping careful track of whom they actually listen to.
But now Arbitron is equipping its South Florida sample listeners with devices it calls ''portable people meters'' that clip onto a belt or pocket and -- using computer codes embedded in the broadcast -- record exactly what station or show is being listened to. The meters have jolted the radio world wherever they have been introduced.
''There are personalities all across the country, major names in major markets, who've lost jobs because the meters showed something the stations didn't want to see,'' said Perry Michael Simon, the news-talk-sports editor of allaccess.com, a website that reports on the radio industry. ``And South Florida stations are starting to see results from the meters.''
Kent acknowledged that WQAM executives mentioned the meters during the talks over Rogers' future that began about three weeks ago.
''They said they needed to juice up the station's ratings as the meters started,'' he said. ``They said they wanted a five-day-a-week host this summer.''
Apparently, the show was on the way out and Rogers took the jump, and the money. Good for him.
Mancow takes his waterboarding like a man, and concludes it IS torture
Are you listening, Miss Hannity?
Of course, if he were really being waterboarded, Mancow wouldn't have been given so many calm instructions or opportunities to stop the torture. It would have been considerably more unpleasant, and accompanied by serial sleep deprivation, beatings, constant terror of being taken from your cell over and over again, and more torture. Still, Mancow gets major props for stepping up to the plate, unlike Lady Sean, he went through with it. And Keith will give the $10,000 to charity on his behalf. He'll now have to endure the hatred of his fellow wingers (scroll down), and will probably be kicked out of the Republican Party by El Rushbo (who like the other soon-to-be winger Mancow haters, wouldn't have even lasted 6 seconds,) but at least there's one honest winger in talk radio today.
After quizzling like a girl and nearly wetting his pants on "The View" yesterday when he was called a lying sack of dog mess for making up an Amtrak fable about Whoopi and Barbara ... and once he had repaired to the safety of his radio studio and was no longer actually in the room with them, our once-again feisty friend Harold Hill Glenn got all feisty and tore into those women like only a real man would ... when the women aren't there (ahem.)
Here in South Florida (officially the Worst Talk Radio Market in the World...) Clear Channel has blown away three stations, converting the former Love 94 (a terrific smooth jazz station) to a computer-programmed party music station with no deejays, and the "progressive talk" station to an all-syndicated sports station (the market's fifth.) The third blow came last week, when dozens more employees were let go, as the company's FM hip-hop/R&B station was handed over to the New York computers, too. Clear Channel has layed off who knows how many people, maybe more than 100, including sales and programming staff, in South Florida. Across the country, the job loss has been in the thousands.
So you'll forgive me if I consider Clear Channel employee Rush Hudson Limbaugh III a total cretin -- if an unsurprising one -- when he, a resident of real estate-devastated Florida, and Madoff-hit Palm Beach no less, belittles the recession as the little people's problem, as ThinkP reports:
Last night, Rush Limbaugh came to Washington, D.C. to address the President’s Club Dinner, a meeting of wealthy donors and supporters of the Heritage Foundation. The audience included Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), as well as various millionaire trustees of the Heritage Foundation, like Thomas Saunders.
After more or less reprising his radio show routine, Limbaugh went on to brag about his $400 million contract with Clear Channel Communications. As he continued to gloat about his show’s success, Limbaugh mocked the idea that Americans are suffering, noting, “I’ve never had financially a down year” despite the “supposed” recession:
LIMBAUGH: But during all this growth I haven’t lost any audience. I’ve never had financially a down year. There’s supposedly a recession, but we’ve got - what is this May? Back in February we already had 102% of 2008 overbooked for 2009. [applause] So I always believed that if we’re going to have a recession, just don’t participate. [laughter]
(ThinkP also has the audio.) Which leads me to a question. Just what do the Dittoheads need to hear before they figure out that they're storming the Bastille on behalf of Marie Antoinette, and that the Queen is laughing her ass off at how stupid they are?
Great Britain bans the Weiner. And the Weiner threatens to make like a liberal and sue, but only after calling the U.K. minister who "named and shamed" him and 15 other undesriables, a "witch." Specifically, Savage said:
"Well, I don't know who this pork eater is, but I have a question for her. I hear she is the Home Secretary of the former England. When has this witch heard my show, since it's not syndicated in England? When has this witch listened to my program in England? And which show or shows is she referring to?"
Savage told The Chronicle in an exclusive interview this morning that he was shocked to learn the news that he was included in the British government's first-ever list of nearly two dozen people from across the globe who are banned from entering the nation for allegedly fostering extremism or hatred.
... The list of high-profile banned visitors was released by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who published 16 of the 22 names of people banned from the country since October. They include Muslim extremists, jailed Russian gang members and an Israeli settler.
Smith cited "public interest" reasons for not disclosing the other six names, but said that the country wanted to establish what kind of standards it would set in allowing in foreign visitors.
"I think it's important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have here, the fact that it's a privilege to come and the sort of things that mean you won't be welcome in this country," Smith told Britain's GMTV.
... His companions on the British list include Stephen "Don" Black, who founded a white supremacist Web site in Florida, and preacher Fred Phelps, who leads an anti-gay church in Topeka, Kan., and who has been to San Francisco numerous times to mount anti-gay protests.
Others on the list: Yunis Al-Astal, a Hamas lawmaker in Gaza, Egyptian cleric Safwat Hijazi, Israeli settler Mike Guzovsky, who has been accused by British authorities of being linked to military training camps.
Two leaders of a Russian gang, Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, were also barred; they served more than a decade in Russian prisons for racially based murders of 19 people, according to the Associated Press.
Savage told The Chronicle that being included in such a crowd is no laughing matter -- and he is now preparing legal action against Smith, he said.
"This lunatic ... is linking me up with Nazi skinheads who are killing people in Russia, she's putting me in a league with Hamas murderers who kill Jews on busses," he said. "I have never advocated violence ... I've been on the air 15 years. My views may be inflammatory, but they're not violent in any way."
as the right declares free speech to be dead. Do they know that our Constitution doesn't apply in the mother country? Meanwhile, on his radio show today, Lou Dobbs declared that he actually likes the "coming to this country is a privilege" bit. I see a new take on illegal immigration coming!
From the Nut Files: I thought Glenn Beck was crazy, until I heard Alex Jones
So this weekend, I'm driving along, and this being South Florida, there was absolutely NOTHING worth listening to on the radio. I happened to pop over to the business station (Salem owns it, so really I should be boycotting it just based on WorldNutDaily alone, but that's just how slim the pickings are around here...) and what did I hear? The Alex Jones radio show. You know, Alex Jones: the guy from InfoWars and PrisonPlanet, and at one time, a leading purveyor of alternate 9/11 theories (and apparently, a David Koresh devotee, too.) Well ... um ... I had become increasingly convinced that Glenn Beck has gone insane, his Obama Derangement Syndrome having finally driven off the cliff of sanity (him, and all his winger friends...) but now that I've heard Alex Jones, who is a screaming, shrieking, conspiracy theorizing HOT MESS (hell, even the FReepers think he's nuts...) I'm ready to re-admit Beck to polite society. Okay, almost ready...
In a nutshell, Jones believes:
1. The government IS preparing to put us all in prison camps (even Beck has backed off that one) and that Glenn Beck's "investigation" of the supposed FEMA camps was a classic case of misdirection, since Beck is clearly a decoy employed by THEM...
2. The government IS spreading these so-called "chem trails," which I had only previously heard from religious cultists (including a very dear friend of mine who is caught up in one of those Yahweh cults.) And the latest iteration of this horror is the Obama administration's cover story -- fighting global warming by cooling the atmosphere.
3. The governmetn IS preparing to confiscate everyone's firearms.
4. The government is run by Satan worshippers who are operating as part of a one-world secret society based alternately at Jordan Grove and the Bilderberg group.
5. The U.S. has already handed over American sovereignty by a one-world currency, and is preparing to be complicit in the creation of a worldwide DNA database that is being accomplished through arrests at which DNA is taken, the "forced" immunization of our children, including teenaged girls who are being induced to be vaccinated with Gardasil, and on and on, all of which I believe have been previous plots on "The X Files."
It goes on from there, complete with black helicopters, and all the nuttery that has become, unfortunately, more and more common AM talk radio -- only Alex Jones combines the SS-like shrieking of Michael Savage with the mind-numbing conspiracy craziness of, well, Alex Jones. Throw in pathetic true-believer callers, like the young man who called in this weekend, saying he was a college student who was recently laughed down by his class for trying to present the chem trails evidence to his teacher and fellow students, then throw in Jones' literal screaming, at the top of his lungs: "YOU'RE ALL SHEEP!!! THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU!!!!!" and you've got the craziest damned thing I've ever heard on the radio, including Glenn "Harold Hill" Beck.
And that's saying something.
I must admit I paid only vague attention to Jones (and never heard his radio show) during the Bush years, when he was accusing the Bushes of everything from participating in the JFK assassination, to plotting the New World Order and being complicit in 9/11. Crazy people probably sound less crazy to you when you share a common foe (and the idea that the Bush administration had either foreknowledge or some part in 9/11 is not an implausible theory.) But now that I've heard him, Jones' demeanor alone makes everything he writes or says incredible (meaning not credible, not "incredible.") He really ought to take some medication. Hey, maybe he could borrow some from Rush Limbaugh...
ThinkP has great audio of a caller owning Rush Limbaugh. The caller is a World War II veteran and a Republican, and he doesn't think much of the chickenhawk host's fondness for torture. Check it out.
If you haven't noticed, because you're one of the smart/lucky people who's gotten XM (as I did for one brief and shining week recently when I drove a rental car,) the AM dial has become pretty much the sole province of angry white male survivalist gun nuts and die-hard sports talk addicts too broke to get XM. ... And since I too am too broke to get XM, it will henceforth be my job to tell you what the AWMSGNs are talking about.
On Friday, I heard my first round of chit-chat, fresh off the talk radio morning prep: the Chia Obama. Todd Schnitt was opining about it on our Clear Channel winger talk outlet with his callers, who were expressing consternation that they could no longer find the product at their local Walgreens, the chain apparently having banished it from their shelves as a potentially racist product not in keeping with the chain's corporate image (or maybe as just plain tasteless.) As Walgreens is the lone retail distributor of Chia-fare (a product that dates back to the 1970s,) now, one can only purchase the Chia Obama online. And who is buying said Chia? Apparently, wingers. Lots of them! There are the wingers who are angry that Obama won ... the wingers who want to teach their kids to make fun of the president (in revenge for all those Dubya "chimp" references...) and the wingers who are burning that 90 percent of the world loves the guy, and hates (slash "fears and is disturbed by") them. Huh. Go figure.
So this morning on a really creaky AM station I used to do a show on (1470 AM) a winger host whose name I can't remember actually interviewed the founder of the Chia enterprise; a septugenarian whose company, Joseph Enterprises, also sells The Clapper! Mr. Chia was very disheartened that Walgreens misinterpreted his product, which he meant as a tribute, not an opportunity for 40-something white guys living in their mother's basements and stockpiling semi-automatic rifles in her garage while fine-tuning their AM radios on the shortwave and surfing Little Green Footballs on pirated Internet connections using a 1993-era IBM PC, to grow a green afro on the Negro. A sample/paraphrased clip from the show:
RIGHT WING HOST I CAN'T REMEMBER THE NAME OF: Don't you think it's a little disrespectful to turn the president into a Chia-pet?
CHIA GUY: He's not a Chia pet!
The Chia guy also pointed out that he is a Republican, but voted for Obama.
That's your AWMSGN update for this morning! Have a great day, and tune in tomorrow!
The NYTimes profiles Beck, and includes this pretty good summation:
The conservative writer David Frum said Mr. Beck’s success “is a product of the collapse of conservatism as an organized political force, and the rise of conservatism as an alienated cultural sensibility.”
“It’s a show for people who feel they belong to an embattled minority that is disenfranchised and cut off,” he said.
First off, stations flipping formats is not at all new. Happens all the time. However, it is pretty unusual for a radio station to admit to listeners in advance that their favorite station is about to undergo "the change." Typically, a listener just tunes in one day to find their usual shows replaced by, say, HYPED UP DANCE MUSIC FROM THE 80s, 90s and TODAY!!!... or in the case of my former station, the Good News of Jesus. At 1080, we weren't allowed to tell listeners that we were flipping, though we knew for weeks (instead, we did everything in our power to rebel telepathically, including playing "End of the Road" by Boyz II Men and other giveaway songs in every break.) Five minutes before the flip, on a Thursday, the general manager of the new station came on the air with us to announce the new format. Surprise! On the other hand, when Radio One canned Michael Eric Dyson for talking about Tupac (I guess they missed the part about him being the hip-hop professor) he was allowed to do a farewell show. Big mistake. Half the callers phoned in to slam Radio One... (btw, Dyson is getting a new show, courtesy of the African-American Public Radio Consortium. Take that, Lee Michaels!)
Fast forward to the present day, and AM station 940 WINZ, the lone "progressive talk" station in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale market (I use the quotes because their most recent morning show was Don Imus...) WINZ, a Clear Channel outfit, is flipping to Fox Sports on April 6th. Most people in the business know it's happening -- it's been rumored on the "Internets" for quite some time. But the listeners are now getting official confirmation of the flip ... from AM 940. They're running clever promos announcing "mission accomplished" due to the election of the country's first Black president, and another spot saying "we might as well prove the rumors true."
A new strategy for a new time. So in one week, this market will have five ... count 'em, FIVE AM sports talk stations, two right wing nut-job dial positions, and no progressive talk. Not that Clear Channel has exactly put their all into the latter (though they were the only ones who even tried,) and not that Air America and Nova M haven't made it easy for conservative PD's to walk away from the format, with weak lineups and wack programming... (Montel Williams...? Seriously???)
So there you go. South Florida talk listeners can choose from Glenn Beck crying into the microphone, fat boy Limbaugh defending the rich from the rabble, Schnitt insisting he's not a GOP shill (he is) and that psych-job Joyce on 850 who nobody actually listens to, according to Arbitron (which will soon be replaced by People Meter, at which it will become official that nobody listens to her.)
I have to admit that I've been scratching my heads about Air America hiring Montel Williams as their first (finally) solo black talk radio host (after how many years?) I mean, with the Black Eagle, Bev Smith and other decades-long black talk radio veterans out there, it does seem a bit "corporate hackish" to hire a TV guy, just because of his name. Then again, this is the same Air America that hired mostly stand up comedians as its first round of talk hosts, and put the very talented Sam Sedar in the second chair to radio clueless, though quite humorous, Janeane Garafolo (along with firing Randi Rhodes for not being sufficiently loyal to the Clintons.)
Honestly, having watched the "Montel Williams Show" here and there, I had no idea he was even a liberal, let alone a talk radio guy! And not to hate, but my initial reaction, and the ones after that, has been "huh???"
So when I came across this winger post about the whole Montel thing, I was intrigued. Said the "Radio Equalizer":
Apparently hoping to succeed where Jerry Springer failed, fellow TV trashmeister / celebrity huckster Montel Williams is giving liberal talk radio a try. And despite his lack of experience in the medium, Air America Radio has jumped at the chance to give him a show.
No, not that part. That's the winger talking points. I mean this:
How did Montel gain street cred with the lefty set? It appears to have originated with a widely-disseminated conspiracy theory that his sleazy TV trashfest was cancelled as a result of a political rant delivered during a Fox and Friends appearance just over a year ago. From the DailyKos smear site, January 2008:
For just over three minutes on Saturday morning, TV talk show host Montel Williams owned the hosts of Fox and Friends. A former Marine and Naval officer, Montel lectured the stunned hosts on the stupidity of spending air time on the death of Heath Ledger, rather than covering the war in Iraq. It was a spectacle rarely seen on live cable television, as Montel exposed and condemned both tabloid "news" shows and much of American culture for what they have each become: shallow and greedy.
Three minutes into this awkward segment on Fox, one host cut off Montel in order to go to a commercial. Montel did not return after the break. Four days later, after 17 years as a television host, Montel lost his job.
"Smear site?" Dude, you sound like Bill O'Reilly ... moving on... the video of said "owning," which I admit I knew nothing about, follows:
Was that enough to get Montel a show? Or do I just need to sign on with his agent?
I actually caught the Rush Limbaugh dressing down of Michael Steele on the radio today. And given the GOP's sorry track record on trying (ever so briefly) to stand up to the right's $400 million radio bully, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that within about a New York minute of Rush's smackdown, the Notorious RNC would punk out. To refresh: here's Michael Steele Saturday night, trying to man up:
And here's Rush Limbaugh slapping him down like a skinny puppy:
Mr. Steele called Mr. Limbaugh after the radio host belittled Mr. Steele on his show, questioning his authority and saying the new Republican leader was off “to a shaky start.”
... Mr. Steele told Politico on Monday that he had called Mr. Limbaugh to apologize.
“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Mr. Steele told The Politico. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”
Democrats reacted with glee to the exchange. “Michael Steele has denounced himself for renouncing Rush,” said Paul Begala, an ally of Mr. Emanuel and one of the Democrats presenting Mr. Limbaugh as the face of the G.O.P. “Can anyone seriously argue now that Rush is not the unchallenged leader of the Republican Party?”
Um ... no. But that's not the best part. For that, let's go to Politico:
“I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said. "It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently. What I was trying to say was a lot of people … want to make Rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he’s not."
“I’m not going to engage these guys and sit back and provide them the popcorn for a fight between me and Rush Limbaugh,” Steele added. “No such thing is going to happen. … I wasn’t trying to slam him or anything.”
Michael ... do you understand the words that are coming out of your mouth?
Want to feel even more uncomfortable for Michael Steele? Check out the ReidBlog Michael Steele page!
UPDATE: Best response to the Great Steele Capitulation, from Andrew Sullivan:
Comrade Steele dutifully apologizes to the Great Leader and offer his regrets to his fellow comrades in the movement. Re-education camp will follow shortly.This climb-down marks the end of establishment Republican resistance to the Poujadist pontificator. It's Rush's party now. So why shouldn't he run for president in 2012? Make Palin his veep - and be done with it.
American Conservative: how talk radio wrecks the right
Rush Limbaugh: defender of the wealth
Rush Limbaugh may be the focus of many right wingers' nocturnal fantasies and emissions, but some paleocons are going their own way. GOP whip Eric Cantor took a giant step away from El Rushbo on "This Week" this week (well, maybe not a giant one, and I give him 48 hours tops, before he's on the air with Rush groveling and taking it all back. Actually, make that 24...) Democrats gleefully trumpet Rush as the new leader of the conservative movement (sorry, Newt.) But the American Conservative magazine, for one, is not amused by the "carny barkers" who dominate the medium that Limbaugh built:
With reasons for gratitude duly noted, are there some downsides to conservative talk radio? Taking the conservative project as a whole—limited government, fiscal prudence, equality under law, personal liberty, patriotism, realism abroad—has talk radio helped or hurt? All those good things are plainly off the table for the next four years at least, a prospect that conservatives can only view with anguish. Did the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Savages, and Ingrahams lead us to this sorry state of affairs?
They surely did. At the very least, by yoking themselves to the clueless George W. Bush and his free-spending administration, they helped create the great debt bubble that has now burst so spectacularly. The big names, too, were all uncritical of the decade-long (at least) efforts to “build democracy” in no-account nations with politically primitive populations. Sean Hannity called the Iraq War a “massive success,” and in January 2008 deemed the U.S. economy “phenomenal.”
Much as their blind loyalty discredited the Right, perhaps the worst effect of Limbaugh et al. has been their draining away of political energy from what might have been a much more worthwhile project: the fostering of a middlebrow conservatism. There is nothing wrong with lowbrow conservatism. It’s energizing and fun. What’s wrong is the impression fixed in the minds of too many Americans that conservatism is always lowbrow, an impression our enemies gleefully reinforce when the opportunity arises. Thus a liberal like E.J. Dionne can write, “The cause of Edmund Burke, Leo Strauss, Robert Nisbet and William F. Buckley Jr. is now in the hands of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity. … Reason has been overwhelmed by propaganda, ideas by slogans.” Talk radio has contributed mightily to this development.
It does so by routinely descending into the ad hominem—Feminazis instead of feminism—and catering to reflex rather than thought. Where once conservatism had been about individualism, talk radio now rallies the mob. “Revolt against the masses?” asked Jeffrey Hart. “Limbaugh is the masses.”
And I doubt they'll be taking that back. And John Derbyshire, the Brit conservative who wrote the piece, points out an important fact:
There is a lowbrow liberalism, too, but the Left hasn’t learned how to market it. Consider again the failure of liberals at the talk-radio format, with the bankruptcy of Air America always put forward as an example. Yet in fact liberals are very successful at talk radio. They are just no good at the lowbrow sort. The “Rush Limbaugh Show” may be first in those current Talkers magazine rankings, but second and third are National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” with 13 million weekly listeners each. It is easy to mock the studied gentility, affectless voices, and reflexive liberalism of NPR, but these are very successful radio programs.
Rush has around 14 million listeners. Not a huge difference there. And he leaves off the notably highbrow Thom Hartmann, who made Talkers top ten in their latest power rankings.
Meanwhile, has the GOP become the party of dangerous conspiracy nuts? Signs point to yes.
Related: if you listened to Mike McConnell at all this weekend (and why would you?) you heard his full throated defense of the big banks, and their use of taxpayer dollars. Said McConnell: "I presume that they know more about their business than I do, and that they know how to run their businesses better than the government," so no one should complain when Northern Trust takes TARP money and then throws a party. Huh??? If they know what they're doing, then ... um ... why do they need to be bailed out?
Michael Steele: taking a bad thing and making it worse
It was bad enough that Bobby Jindal absolutely sucked giving the Republican response to President Barack Obama's address to Congress. Now, Michael "the hip-hop chairman" Steele has taken the critique to a new low, with the help of a true idiot, Curtis Sliwa. From Ben Smith at Politico:
In an interview with Curtis Sliwa on ABC Radio last night, the host and RNC Chairman Michael Steele jokingly linked Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to the film "Slumdog Millionaire." Steele offered Jindal "slum love.
Here's the transcript:
SLIWA: Now, using a little bit of that street terminology, are you giving him any Slum love, Michael?
STEELE: (laughter)
SLIWA: Because he is — when guys look at him and young women look at him — they say oh, that's the slumdog millionaire, governor. So, give me some slum love.
STEELE: I love it. (inaudible) ... some slum love out to my buddy. Gov. Bobby Jindal is doing a friggin' awesome job in his state. ...
Randi Rhodes Is On Her Own and Nova M Files for Bankruptcy. It comes to light now that the sticking point between Randi Rhodes and Nova M was her belief that her contract included helping her with legal costs which it did not. She is now rumored to be seeking a local radio gig and many believe she’s trying to get back to her old station – WJNO, West Palm Beach. As for Nova M, it was losing a lot of moolah — $100,000 per month. The founders and corporate officers — Sheldon and Anita Drobny — are filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation for the company. Some of Nova M’s other talent — Mike Malloy, Nancy Skinner — continue in syndication as another person involved with Nova M from the beginning, Dr. Mike Newcomb, is reorganizing the network as On Second Thought Radio Network.
The radio business is in a tailspin right now, and Randi has had a lot of legal bills stemming from the lawsuit filed against her by Iraq contractor CACI. It's a big loss for the South Florida talk radio market, which frankly, wasn't that good to begin with. That say, let's all say a prayer for Thom Hartmann (number 10 on the Talkers "Heavy 100" and the number one non-winger show.) If he goes, I'm going to go back to listening to jazz CDs in the car.
UPDATE: Per astute reader Kurt, the rumor mill has it that 940 will flip to sports in March:
Though the station isn't confirming it, WINZ-940 will become a Fox Sports radio affiliate in March -- a move that will allow owner Clear Channel to reduce costs. WINZ now airs news, talk shows and live sports, including Heat games. The new lineup will include Fox shows such as Steve Czaban (6-9 a.m.) and Chris Myers (3-7 p.m.), Dan Patrick's syndicated program from 9 a.m. to noon and Jim Rome from noon to 3 p.m.
The good news: Dan Patrick and Jim Rome. The bad news? No more progressive talk in South Florida. And I also hear that more layoffs are likely coming at Clear Channel.
Starting Monday, "Morning Joe" goes to radio, and no more Bill-O. Reports TV Newser:
First on TVNewser: Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski begin hosting a radio show on WABC in New York Monday morning. The show will air from 10am-Noon, following Imus in the Morning. Scarborough and Brzezinski will continue with MSNBC's Morning Joe from 6am-9amET, before heading to the WABC studios for the late morning radio show.
The Scarborough/Brzezinski news gets more intriguing. It was announced yesterday that Glenn Beck's radio show is moving to WOR-AM on January 5 and will air from 9am-11am. Beck begins on Fox News Channel two weeks later.
As one insider notes, "The new york radio wars have begun anew!"
After the jump, the WOR press release, which includes this news: "Bill O'Reilly, Dennis Miller and the station's longtime daily Food Talk program will cease to broadcast on the station." O'Reilly announced in October he'd stop doing his radio show. It became official yesterday.
Thom Hartmann, who's probably the smartest guy in radio, had a great segment on his show today about the natural state of capitalistic socieites, which is to have a very small, but exceedingly powerful, wealthy class, a tiny middle class (shopkeepers, farmers, the "butcher, baker and candlestick maker" who have just a handful, or even one, employee) and a massive class of working poor. He pointed out that during the 19th Century, as during the Middle Ages in Europe and even in ancient societies, some 95 percent of people fell into that last class. Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" was a tale of the tension between a member of the working poor and Ebeneezer Scrooge -- a middle-class, merchant with just one employee: Cratchet.
The point Hartmann was making is that capital will always seek to get labor for the cheapest possible price, and that when the supply of labor is abundant, the cost of labor is just that: cheap. There are only three ways to raise the cost of labor (meaning, wages) and to force a large middle class into being:
1) Dramatically reduce the supply of labor (see the "Black Plague" that killed off 1/3 of the European workforce, and the subsequent Rennaissance);
2) Dramatically increase the supply of wealth (often by expansionism, like when Europe swept across the Americas grabbing land, or when Americans swept across the plains and West in the 18th and 19th centuries); or
3) Tax capital and "spread the wealth around" (the good old progressive tax code.)
The New Deal's most important outcome was to implant and grow a substantial American middle class: something that is not a natural state, since capital's goal is to fatten itself off of the cheapest labor possible. As America's middle class grew, especially during the 1950s, the high wages and great benefits paid by companies like General Motors, and the "jobs for life" offered by American manufacturers like IBM, were a thing of pride for most Americans, and the envy of the world.
But the expansion of the American middle class, including building the kind of buying power that fueled the "kitchen rush" of the '50s, when families bought Frigidaires and televisions and gadgets galore, back when we still made the stuff here at home, is an also why the GOP, the party of capital, hates labor unions so much. Unions do two things that capital hates: they create scarcity of labor, by restricting the time availability of workers, and they raise the cost of labor by negotiating the highest possible wages and best possible benefits for workers. So-called "conservatives" hate that, and usujally to kill it, they call such outrages upon the dignity of rich folks, "socialism."
Hartmann pointed out correctly that from "Reaganomics" onward, the GOP has been engaged in a war against the middle class, on behalf of the "capital class." There was, in fact, nothing new about Reaganomics. It's simply the reassertion of the age-old imperitive of capital,, which seeks to accumulate wealth for a few people, and expand, vastly, the pool of the working poor. And since Americans have recoiled against the idea of importing cheap labor from South and Central America (why do you think Reagan signed on to Amnesty back in the 80s, and don't think for a second that Dubya wanted to revive the idea because he cares about the Latino vote...) the clearest way to expand the cheap labor pool is to bleed the middle class, and suck as many people out of it as possible.
That's the plan. The question is, can Democrats beat it back.
Well, the bird has met its demise (even without Sarah Palin looking on,) the tryptophan has kicked in (I overslept and had to do my radio show by phone this morning, but Roland Martin was great! And those two glasses of wine didn't help!) ... and I'm going to make it through Black Friday without having to tramp through a mall (I refuse. Sorry, kids.) So now, since I've been skipping out on my blogging duties of late, here are ten things I think we can all be thankful for:
#1. Sarah Palin. She brought so much joy and laughter during the campaign, with her kooky vocab and inability to articulate her thoughts in anything resembling adult English. And she put the nail in John McCain's campaign coffin (sorry if that sounds like an age joke,) ensuring, even if he really couldn't have done so anyway,) that he wouldn't win. Thus, Sarah helped spare the country from four more years of Bush-like policies, along with the spectacle of herself playing a Bizarro World, Hilbilly Princess Di to McCain's doddering Charles. You betcha!
#2. John McCain. When he wandered in front of that camera during the town hall style debate, he made my year. Serioiusly. And by so debasing himself during the campaign, McCain has all but ensured that his rehabilitation will involve helping Barack Obama get much of his domestic agenda through the Senate. Thanks, Grandpa! (And thank Joe the Plumber for us when you see him next. Oh, that's right, you're not gonna see him again, because he's irrelevant.)
#3. Steve Schmidt. What a maroon. See #s 1 and 2 above.
#4. Right wing talk radio. Those of us who already thought you were irrelevant blowhards just weren't getting through until you called the Senator from Illinois a terrorist, Marxist Socialist and America elected him anyway. Thanks guys! By the way, Glenn, are you serious about seceding? If so, let me know what the rest of us can do to help you along.
#5. American voters. Well, 52 percent of them, anyway.
$6. Barack Obama. Yes we did.
#7. Tina Fey. See #1 above.
#8. David Letterman. See #2 above.
#9. Fox News. See #4 above. And what will you do at those press conferences now?
and last, but not least...
#10. George W. Bush. No, seriously. Had he not been such a rotten president, we might not be here, on the brink of positive change. And he's been damned funny to listen to over the last eight years, even as he was screwing up the world.
Oh, wait! One more thing! I'm also thankful for this video. Enjoy!
How many times can you say "nigger" on talk radio without attracting the attention of the FCC? That was the question Don Imus tackled this morning on his resuscitated program, broadcast from WABC in New York to affiliates far and wide, including 940 WINZ, the "progressive talk" (cough)/Fox News radio station here in South Florida. Imus had as his guest (and still does, I think, as of this posting,) fellow domestic dinosaur Dick Cavett, who has a new post up at the New York Times website called "The Wild Wordsmith of Wasila," which, as it should, disses poor, chatty Sarah Palin.
During what seemed like an hour long conversation (though I was only in my car listening for a few minutes as I pulled into my driveway...) Cavett managed to somehow steer poor Don from a perfectly benighn chat about the Times column, into a rather uncomfortable sidebar about the n-word; why there are "words we're not allowed to say," reminiscences on the aides who tried to teach Lyndon Johnson to say "Negro" instead of "niggra," George Wallace telling Cavett at some point in history that he "gave niggras jobs," Cavett's posession of a Nixon tape in which an aide, presumably Patrick Buchanan, asks Nixon aide Dan Ehrlichman, "this Cavett... how can we screw him?" ... and in Cavet's words, "why if your grandfather is Chinese, you're a white man, and if your grandfather is black, you're a Negro," to which he added, "I don't get it. When Barack Obama says he's a black man I say, yeah but you're a white man too, fifty percent. On some deeper level, I suppose I get it."
And our boy Dick didn't stop there. He then launched into a dissertation on the book that Hemingway called the book from which all other modern American literature sprang: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," and the book's "heart and soul," Nigger Jim. After Cavett had said "Nigger Jim" about three times, and opined on some modern day "Negro" who wanted the book banned, and who just didn't understand that Nigger Jim was "the goodest character in the book," Imus, who has developed a psychiatric condition that falls somewhere between a needy fixation on race and a massive martyr complex over his firing by CBS Radio and MSNBC, promptly changed the subject. Promptly.
You could almost see poor old Don melting like warm jello in his WABC-issue chair.
... in that he shocked the hell out of me today. Beck, one of the better broadcasters on the right but one whose views I usually find completely objectionable, took his own callers to task this morning, telling one guy who tried to bring up Barack Obama's birth certificate for the umpteenth time to "get off my phone!!!" and lecturing another, who said he refused to accept Obama as president, on being a good American. The convo went something like this:
CALLER: I don't accept him as my president.
BECK: Then you're not a good American.
CALLER: I AM an American.
BECK: How do elections work in this country? When one guy wins, is he the Democratic president, the Republican president, or the American president?
CALLER: He's the guy who won for president.
BECK: But is he the Democratic president, the Republican president, or the American president?
CALLER: He's the president, but I don't accept ...
BECK: He's the American president. I want to hear you say the words.
CALLER: Well I don't accept ...
BECK: Then you're not a good American.
It went on like that for a couple of minutes, in which Beck stated that though he did not support Obama, he considered him to now be HIS president, and all Americans should pray for him, and help him to succeed, without compromising their own values. He also took to task Democrats, who after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of George W. Bush in 2000, refused to accept Bush as president, and he very fairly characterized the need for all Americans to accept the results of our elections, and give the new man a chance to govern. He excoriated people who want to protest, and burn down the house because their guy didn't win. He blasted the bloggers and Facebook fiends on the right's lunatic fringe who are already calling for Obama to be impeached (the Spectator has a bit of fun with them here.) And I applaud him. Beck isn't right about everything, but he gets kudos for standing up to the wingers on this one. (Read Beck's "No pity party" post, with a squinty eye on the Marxist crap, here.)
Charlie Gibson, who must be bracing himself for four years of pure crazy at FNC for the next four years, was similarly reasonable on Imus this morning. Yes, I listen so that you don't have to.
Maybe "what's your favorite burger?" wasn't the best daily topic selection ...
The transformation of South Florida talk radio into an all-syndicated affair is nearly complete. The arguably bad, bland, inexplicable and let's face it, unlistenable, and yet refreshingly local, Footy Show has been shown the door by Clear Channel/WIOD. The 'splanation will sound familiar:
WIOD program director Ken Charles, who put Footy on, said he rooted for the show. "Footy is a true pro and he gave it his best but the ratings just weren't there."
Footy, whose real name is John Kross, had come out of retirement after 32 years as the wing-man to a guy named Kenny on FM radio, to do the show (and I hear he got one hell of a payday.) He now joins Jim Defede and his former producer, Nicole Sandler (who was no Randi Rhodes, but who at least was local, too...) in the dustbin of South Florida local talk history. The last man standing is the shrill, GOP hack Tod Shnitt, who technically is a syndicated show too, now that he's with Jones Radio Network.
Don't ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for local talk radio...
If you still don't believe that radio is on the ropes, with syndication sucking the wind out of local content, and bad management killing what should be solid niche radio companies, peep these two headlines (written by me, by the way, don't blame the media outlets...)
Headline number one:
Jim Defede dealt same fate as his former producer(only he getsrequests a parachute)
Just days after we learned that former "Jim Defede Show" producer Nicole Sandler was out as the morning show bench warmer at Miami's 940 WINZ (Sandler, who is not, to my knowledge, a talk radio host, inherited the mic after P.D. Ken Charles bumped Defede last year,) and Don Imus was IN (listened to him this morning. He's still in rare form...) her former boss is given heave-ho number two, this time by struggling -- and I mean STRUGGLING, radio outfit 850 AM, owned by the fiscally challenged James Crystal Radio Group. AllAccess reporteth:
JAMES CRYSTAL RADIO Talk WFTL-A/FORT LAUDERDALE-WEST PALM BEACH afternoon host JIM DEFEDE has disappeared from the station's website and appears to have exited the station.
DEFEDE, a former columnist for the MIAMI HERALD who continues as a commentator for CBS O&O WFOR-TV (CBS 4)/MIAMI, joined WFTL for 4-7p weekdays in 2007 after being let go at CLEAR CHANNEL Talk WINZ-A/MIAMI; his bio has been erased from the WFTL website and the station's programming lineup dhows 4-7p as "To Be Announced."
In an e-mail to blog RANDOM PIXELS, DEFEDE said that "Unfortunately I never meshed with the rest of the station so rather than continue working there, I asked them to buy me out of the remaining 14 months of my contract. We were able to reach a deal this week and my time at WFTL is now over. Leaving WFTL will free me up to do even more with CBS4 News. I wish the folks at WFTL all the best."
Fourteen months pay??? I've really got to get an agent...
***UPDATE: A source close to the Defede situation stresses that when it comes to parachutes, asking and receiving are two very different things, and only confirmable once you pull the rip cord, seen? ... Developing...
Headline number two!
Radio One's balance sheet sucks ... but it isn't the only one
The real AllAccess headline is about Spanish Broadcasting System become the third radio group to receive a warning from NASDAQ that they could soon be de-listed, because their stock has fallen below a buck. Well ... hellooooo, Mr. Schadenfreude:
RADIO ONE received the same notice. The LANHAM, MD-based media company has also not maintained a minimum market value of publicly held shares as required for continued inclusion by NASDAQ. RADIO ONE has not traded above $1 per share recently, and closed on THURSDAY (8/14) 7 cents below a dollar, at 93 cents a share.
You do realize that Radio One had, and fired, Steve Harvey from their L.A. station just before he blew up nationwide (then they sold the LA station at a major loss...) they turned down the HIT Michael Baisden Show ... and they scrapped their national black talk radio network just two months before Barack Obama, the first African-American major party nominee, won the Iowa caucuses ... right? (ahem...) Oh, and the board recently voted to give owner Kathy Hughes a raise...
I just got it on good authority that starting Monday morning at 5 a.m., Don Imus will be the morning show on 940 WINZ... Nicole Sandler, who has been "holding down the fort" since P.D. Ken Charles ousted Jim Defede (Sandler was Defede's producer), was the promotions director at one point, maybe she goes back to that...
Personally, I didn't enjoy Nicole's show and found myself choosing sports talk instead (or silence ... or a CD...) But I hate to see anyone lose a gig.
Meanwhile, word on the street is that at least three names you definitely would know are no longer going to be on the air at NBC 6, which was sold to the Washington Post Company...
Tough times are afoot in the media biz, folks! Consolidation and syndication are the name of the game, and that's death for local radio and TV.
In case you missed that, what El Rushbo said was ... John Edwards stepped out on Elizabeth Edwards "because he found someone ... who would do something with her MOUTH ... besides talk."
Yep. That's what he said. Here's the full quote, courtesy of Media Matters (note that Limbaugh appears to be aware of the mine field he's about to step into, but he jumps in anyway...)
LIMBAUGH: Well, it's -- I mean, at some point, at some point, you gotta exhibit maturity and restraint. You know, and I do that constantly. But -- well, I don't -- look, let me see if I can run you through this and get you to think what I'm thinking without my actually saying it. That might be a pretty big talent if I could do that -- make you think what I'm going to say without my having to say it, therefore if anybody gets in trouble for saying it, you say it.
We know -- we've been told that Elizabeth Edwards is smarter than John Edwards. That's part of the puff pieces on them that we've seen. Ergo, if Elizabeth Edwards is smarter than John Edwards, is it likely that she thinks she knows better than he does what his speeches ought to contain and what kind of things he ought to be doing strategy-wise in the campaign? If she is smarter than he is, could it have been her decision to keep going with the campaign? In other words, could it be that she doesn't shut up? Now, that's as far as I'm going to go.
Well, you're -- Snerdley says he's missing something. If you're missing it, you're going to have to provide it. What are you missing? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
I can't close the loop on it. I can't close the loop on it. I'm on -- you know, I'm in a little quicksand already today talking about how the chicks are giving us boring pictures of the female athletes from the Olympics. Because I know -- you -- the diversity crowd's going to be upset. They're going to -- "Ooh, do you mean the Olympics are just so you guys can ogle wom--" Yes, because we do not care to watch 'em compete. But back to Elizabeth and the Breck Girl.
I'm sorry, my friends, I just -- I can't. It just seems to me that Edwards might be attracted to a woman whose mouth did something other than talk.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: OK, we're back. Ladies and gentleman, my theory that I just explained to you about why -- you know, what could have John Edwards' motivations been to have the affair with Rielle Hunter, given his wife is smarter than he is and probably nagging him a lot about doing this, and he found somebody that did something with her mouth other than talk.
Well I guess he oughta know...
So, will there be consequences? Well let's see... What's the head count of advertisers and stations who have dropped Savage's show since he went after autistic kids? While were at it, how are Don Imus' ratings over on satellite radio? In other words: no. People like Limbaugh and Savage don't get fired, because the people they work for LIKE what they're doing. Most talk radio PDs are "conservatives," whose views of what is too outrageous for broadcast is colored, to say the least, by their political views. Limbaugh just signed a $400 million contract. He won't even be chastised harshly.
In fact, because his listener demo only includes a handful of women who call in on occasion to worship him ... with their mouths ... I'm not even sure he'll lose many advertisers.
pscyhotic radio host Michael Savage sounded defensive and almost whiney last week when I tuned in for a few minutes to hear if he would comment on the backlash from his "autistic kids are brats who need to be told to stop acting like morons" rant. He's got reason to whine:
A group of seven Mississippi talk radio stations owned by Telesouth Communications has dropped Michael Savage’s nationally syndicated radio program over comments the host made last week suggesting that nearly every child with autism was “a brat” of inattentive parents. “Michael Savage’s comments about autistic children were beyond inexcusable and are unacceptable,” the station group said in a statement posted Tuesday on its Web site, supertalkms.com. The cancellation follows the decision on Monday by Aflac, the insurance company, to pull its advertising from the show. On his Web site, Michaelsavage.com, the host posted a letter on Monday in which he iterated the central point he said he had been trying to make on his July 16 program: that autism is too often misdiagnosed in the cases of children, or falsely diagnosed, at least partly as a means of wringing resources. “Let the truly autistic be treated,” he wrote. “Let the falsely diagnosed be free.” On July 16, Mr. Savage, above, referred to autism as “a fraud, a racket,” and asserted that what “99 percent” of children with autism most needed was a parent willing to tell them things like, “Don’t act like a moron.”
The radio wack job has also lost affiliates in Virginia and Cleveland, and the duckie isn't the only advertiser that's heading for the hills:
Six more major companies have yanked ads from Michael Savage's talk-radio show after he branded autistic children "brats."
Home Depot, Sears and Budweiser all withdrew their support from the fiery hatemonger's program, along with Direct Buy, Cisco and Radio Shack, according to Autism United.
Even Annheuser Busch, which has given so much to Weiner's friend John McCain via the missus, is saying "Savage who?"
UPATE: According to Allaccess.com, here's how it went down in Cleveland:
SALEM Talk WHK-A/CLEVELAND is dropping TALK RADIO NETWORK's MICHAEL SAVAGE in the wake of the controversy over SAVAGE's comments about autism, according to the CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER. The paper's JULIE E. WASHINGTON reports that the station has a contract to carry SAVAGE through 2010 but that station manager MARK JAYCOX told her "This guy's a knucklehead, and I want to get rid of him."
And Autism United isn't sitting back waiting for other sponsors to walk:
"We are going after each and every advertiser that hasn't dropped him yet," said Evelyn Ain, president of Autism United, who joined angry parents in a protest on Wall Street Friday.
"We are doing this in all states and really hoping that more people will immediately drop out supporting him. We are going after every angle."
Get him, guys. If anyone deserves to lose his radio gig and wind up sleeping in his car, it's Savage. It's one thing to go after politicians, but autistic kids? Come on. I know conservatives hate the defenseless, but wingers also believe in free market consequences, so let's let Savage get to know the market first hand. And for anyone on the right who might be tempted to defend Savage, this is what he said:
“I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Act like a man.”
Most people with good sense know that Michael Wiener (Savage) is a dumbass. His latest tirade probably won't cost him, any more than his previous ones. Still, Media Matters is giving it a go. They report, you decide if anything can actually be done about it.
On July 16, the No. 3 syndicated radio talk show host in the country, Michael Savage, made the following statement on autism:
"Now, you want me to tell you my opinion on autism? ... A fraud, a racket."
Savage went on to say:
Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is.
What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, "Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot."
Autism -- everybody has an illness. If I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, "Don't behave like a fool." The worst thing he said -- "Don't behave like a fool. Don't be anybody's dummy. Don't sound like an idiot. Don't act like a girl. Don't cry." That's what I was raised with. That's what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You're turning your son into a girl, and you're turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That's why we have the politicians we have.
During the same broadcast, Savage also attacked those in "the minority community" who suffer from asthma. He stated: "[W]hy was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I'll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school. It was a money racket. Everyone went in and was told [fake cough], 'When the nurse looks at you, you go [fake cough], "I don't know, the dust got me." ' See, everyone had asthma from the minority community."
I find it amazing that anyone can listen to this guy. He literally screams into the microphone, and I suppose he appeals to the angriest of the Angry White Men. It's more than likely that his hyperbolic rants are part of an act, the way Rush Limbaugh's seems to be. But while I can listen to Limbaugh and laugh at him, including his glaring factual errors and stupid voice timber, Savage is literally unlistenable. Literally. Anyhoo, if you want to give complaining to your local station a go, here's the link.
Oh, and did I mention that his son's middle name is Goldencloud?
By the way, I wonder what John McCain thinks about the Wiener's commentary? (Hat tip to Political Byline, which discovered this little gem in April.)
I mean in today's political climate, you ARE judged by the company you keep...
This week on the radio: Rep. Hastings will appear on "Elevating the Dialogue" with Elgin, Barbara and me tomorrow (Friday) morning, to talk about the Florida delegate situation, his switch from Clinton to Obama, and why he's not attending the Denver convention. Tune in at 10 a.m. on 1470 a.m., or online on WNN's website (or sfltimes.com) |
Yeah, this is a plug ...! If you're into sports and you're in South Florida, or even if you're not, do check out my BOYS ... the Sports Brothers, Ed (the World Famous) and the big man, Jeff Fox, on 790 The Ticket, Sunday nights from 10 to 11 p.m. Here's the link.
And for those of you in Denver, CO and across the globe, you've GOT TO check out my baby bruh, Oren Lomena, on Denver's The Fan. He's one of The Night Guys, soon to be the morning guys ... but shhh... don't tell nobody... !
Happy Father's Day to all these talented brothers! |
Media Bistro's Fish Bowl LA blog says Randi Rhodes has quit Air America over that "ho" business. Apparently, Air America has released the following statement:
Air America Media was informed last night by Ms. Rhodes that she has chosen to terminate her employment with the company. We wish her well and thank her for past services to Air America.
And Randi's headed to a station in ... San Francisco??? No, not just San Francisco: she's going to Nova M, according to an anonymous FBLA tipster:
She's going to be signing a deal with Nova M Radio in the next few hours for about the same money Air America was paying her. She will broadcast Monday afternoon on all Clear Channel affiliates and several other stations. The folks at Air America don't miss her one bit, in fact she's widely hated among everyone who has actually met her. She has moved from New York City to West Palm Beach, FL and she will broadcast from the WJNO studios.
So it's back home for Randi. And she should feel right at home at WJNO, where her show is currently the only non-right wing wack job program on the air (well, there's George Noory and his space cadets...) Anyhoo, she used to work there in the mid-1990s so it's all good. And a huge opportunity for the very able Sam Seder, who deserves to get the spot (he's been filling in for most of the time Randi has been suspended.) Unless, of course, he's too Obamaphilic for pro-Hillary Mark Green's tastes... in that case, he could lose the gig to Rachael Maddow, who's on TV more (Keith O loves her) and who tends to come off as more pro-Hillary.
Last week Air America suspended Randi Rhodes for abusive, obscene language at a recent public appearance in San Francisco which was sponsored by an Air America affiliate station.
Air America Media was informed last night by Ms. Rhodes that she has chosen to terminate her employment with the company.
We wish her well and thank her for past services to Air America. We will soon announce exciting new talent and programming that will accelerate Air America’s growth in the future.
And by the by, Randi's new boss, Sheldon Drobny, might not mind a bit if she calls Mrs. Clinton a ho.
I have reviewed past articles written by Ariana about Hillary. I have also listened to Maher over the past year. Both have been very critical of the Clintons. I watched Bill Maher tonight and could not believe that Bill actually defended the Clintons' tactics. I also watched Mark Green on Hardball pretending he was neutral about the Clintons and at the same time defending them. Now let's connect the dots.
Hillary will not appear on any liberal radio shows other than Air America Radio (AAR the network that I started). Both Bill and Hillary get lots of money from the Billionaire Green family. In return the Clintons have helped AAR post bankruptcy.
Almost a year ago I asked Ariana if she would do a show on our Nova Radio Network. She refused and decided to do a show with Mark Green, the CEO of AAR. Ariana and Bill Maher are very close friends. It appears that the rich and famous liberal elites have put fame and fortune ahead of principle.
I recently wrote a piece praising Hillary on the Huffpo (check my archives). After the South Carolina debacle I have changed my opinion. Any objective core Democrat with a conscience has been turned off by the Clintons in SC including former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich who was in the Clinton Administration. Ariana and Maher have some explaining to do.
So we're driving back from a shoot (Jason and I are doing this documentary project ... long story...) and we turn on the local liberal radio channel (yes, as in most places, there's only one.) Thom Hartmann, a very smart guy I must say (I had never heard his show until the local Clear Channel PD dumped Ed Schultz and put him on at noon) decided to do a "flash poll." He cleared the lines, and asked callers for next three minutes to give their zip code, and say which candidated they would vote for if the election was held today. The results were pretty staggering:
Obama - 42 Hillary - 8 McCain - are you kidding? This is an Air America show!
Not scientific, by any means, and not a large enough sample to be even close. But it sure was interesting to listen for the Hillary folk buried in a sea of Obamaphiles. Frankly, because Hartmann is so intellectual (not kissing up here, he really is,) I suspect that his audience is a little more upscale, more college educated, etc., and that spells Obama voter. But I also have noticed a decided Obama bent on other left of center programs, and on the "meathead" program, (Schultz) too.
George Allen learned it ... Don Imus learned it ... David Shuster got a taste of it ... that weird guy who played Kramer learned it ... Isaiah Washington learned it, too, big time, and Rev. Jeremiah Wright has lost a 30-year career of good works learning it ... and now, Air America talker Randi Rhodes has, too. The New Law of Public Discourse is that soundbites can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion, and you only get to screw up once. Sez the Huffpo:
Air America host Randi Rhodes called both Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton "whores" in a recent appearance, seen below. Rhodes, who hosts a weekday radio show on Air America, said to the cheering crowd, "What a whore Geraldine Ferraro is! She's such a fucking whore!" She then proceeded to say, "Hillary is a big fucking whore, too" to a mixed audience reaction. "You know why she's a big fucking whore? Because her deal is always, 'Read the fine print, asshole!'"
... Rhodes has been now been suspended from the network.
... Indefinitely ... And yes, there is Youtube. This is big news, frankly, for Sam Seder, a very capable on-air guy who is thankfully no longer saddled with that crackpot comedienne he used to be stuck with on "The Majority Report." Now he'll get his big chance to shine, unless AA does their usual goofball thing by putting Elaine Boozler on the mic. (shudder...)
Back to The law. It was first instituted On January 6, 1988, when then-CBS sports analyst Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder dropped the race bomb during a commentary about black athletes:
He told a Washington D.C. television reporter that a black athlete, “…is bred to be the better athlete because, this goes all the way to the Civil War when ... the slave owner would breed his big woman so that he would have a big black kid."
"The black is a better athlete to begin with because he's been bred to be that way -- because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs. This goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trading, the owner -- the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid."
JTG's utterance would have been unremarkable even a couple decades earlier, when racism was as American as apple pie. But from Greek's firing on, there was a serious limit to the kinds of things you could say in public, and not lose your gig.
Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott got slapped down by the law in 1992, and it has rolled on merrily from there.
Call it political correctness, limitations on free speech, call it corporate cowardice. It really doesn't matter. As Bush spokesliar Ari Fleischer once said, you really do have to watch what you say...
Rush Limbaugh has a thought! He'll become a Hillary Pioneer to ensure she's the nominee ... otherwise ... DOOM!!! DOOOM, I saaaaayyyy..... Here 'tis:
After the withdrawal of Mitt Romney from the GOP race, Limbaugh said to his listeners, "might it be required (she's having to loan herself money), do you think I should conduct a fundraiser for Mrs. Clinton? Mitt did his part today. He got out so as not to fracture the party any further and not to harm the effort to win the war in Iraq. Should I do my part, not by joining my liberal friends in the Republican Party, but actually raising money for Mrs. Clinton, and asking you to join me, so that she would have a chance here to once again have a good shot at getting a Democrat nomination so that we win the White House?"
Limbaugh underlines that "the reason for raising money for Hillary is because that apparently my party is relying on fear and loathing of Hillary to get the nomination, to unite Republicans, who are, some of them, off the reservation. The Republicans do not seem to be relying on leadership in their party to unite the party. They seem to be relying on all these external things, nobody is going to vote for Hillary, negative turnout factor. What if she's not the nominee? We've got make sure she's the nominee if the Republican Party is to be unified. What more loyal thing could I do than to run a fundraiser for Mrs. Clinton? You watch, though, you watch how that will be questioned."
On Wednesday, Limbaugh said of Clinton, "she just polarizes people. I think she's going to gin up enough anti-Hillary turnout out there to perhaps be a boon to whoever the Republican nominee is. ...Now, if Obama is the nominee, we are doomed, and you should get ready and prepared for it now."
Meanwhile, over at RedState, one of the grown-ups tries to take the reigns...
When did victim culture become part of the conservative identity? If you disagree with Rush Limbaugh, then you are attacking talk radio? If you don't have a conservative candidate as the nominee, then you are marginalizing conservatives? ...
... If we try hard enough to convince people we're marginalized, then it will be so. The worst is that it is just not true.
Rush and the chorus of conservative voices are far from being marginalized; they are being courted. They are being given platforms, their input is being sought. Rush and Hannity, they have real impact on elections, as do their vast listener base. From Karl Rove talking about them to Brit Hume, to the girls on the View gossiping about them, the conservative media figures are anything but marginalized.
Vilified by the press, sure; But vilified by the Republican party? Absurd.
When Al Gore was not elected President, the wailing masses suggesting their voice didn't matter anymore in America were a spectacle of angst. I mocked them for sore losers and, when given the opportunity, lectured them about democracy. I am wondering who needs a lecture at this moment.
Rush, the people are the party. That we haven't established one of our own in the leadership is our own fault. I suspect we the people have lazily grown accustomed to you speaking for us, and so have failed to speak for ourselves. That is not a betrayal by the party, that is a betrayal of the party.
The Republican Party wouldn't try to marginalize conservatives any more than they would try to marginalize Floridians. The party produces candidates for office from among available candidates, and when the time comes to stop Hillary, they grow up and do so. ...
Uh-oh, I sure hope the wingnuts don't start listening to that guy...
Or do so-called "conservatives" of the Rush Limbaugh variety consistently despise people who have served in the military...? Just wondering while reading this WaPo article on Rush Limbaugh and company's jihad against John McCain... perhaps a nice tour of the Lincoln bedroom would soften El Rushbo up...?
That Rush Limbaugh and his talk radio friends discover that they're not as influential as they think. Apparently, voters aren't listening to Rush, or Hannity, or Fox News, or Laura Ingram, or James Carville's wispy wife. They're going their own way. How ironic that the candidates all hate Mitt Romney, while Mitt Romney's supporters in the right wing chattering classes hate the two men holding Romney at bay: John McCain and Mike Huckabee. I suppose you could say that the problem for the "conservative movement" is that it's not very responsive to actual politics, which in a primary -- even a Republican one -- takes place not just in Rush's universe, but also in blue states, where they grow the Republicans a lot more moderate than El Rushbo would like.
And while we're at it, how odd that so-called "real conservatives" would cling to a man as patently phony a conservative as Romney -- a man who literally became a conservative overnight, after governing one of the most liberal states in the union (and whose father was a liberal, pro civil rights Republican in yet another blue state, Michigan.) For these clods to demand that their followers join this pompadoured phony in some mad quest to save the conservative movement is actually pretty funny, as is the spectacle of the Gang of 15 set literally pulling off a mutiny inside the GOP.
Radio One has gotten out of the talk business, and so our station, WTPS, has come to the end of the road. We're in the middle of our final program on "Wake Up South Florida" right now. Sad ending to an experiment that really didn't get enough time to germinate. I still think the talk format can work in the urban context, given enough time, attention and consistency. It had its flaws, but it was needed, especially in this market here in South Florida.
We'll let you know where Andre and I, as well as Eddie Frederick, EWF, A.C., Ricky Norris Sports Guru and the rest of the gang are going next. Andre can be found at talktoandre.com. You can also keep up with us at jebapresents.com.
DU is jumping with the news, so far unreported on the MSM, that Air America's Randi Rhodes was mugged and assaulted outside her Park Avenue apartment:
Randi Rhodes was mugged on Sunday night on 39th Street and Park Ave, nearby her Manhattan apartment, while she was walking her dog Simon.
According to Air America Radio late night host Jon Elliott, Rhodes was beaten up pretty badly, losing several teeth and will probably be off the air for at least the rest of the week. At of late Monday night we have not able to locate any press accounts of the attack and nothing has been posted on the AAR website.
snip
Elliott was extremely agitated when he reported on the incident. He opened his show by saying "it is with sadness that tonight I inform you that my Air America colleague Randi Rhodes was assaulted last night while walking her dog near her New York City home." Pointing out that Rhodes was wearing a jogging suit and displayed no purse or jewelry, Elliott speculated that "this does not appear to me to be a standard grab the money and run mugging."
"Is this an attempt by the right wing hate machine to silence one of our own," he asked. "Are we threatening them. Are they afraid that we're winning. Are they trying to silence intimidate us." Some of blog posters also expressed concerns that the attack on Rhodes was hate crime. Other posters warned that we need more facts before any judgements are made.
More on the attack -- which seems especially suspicious -- from Talking Radio:
Attacks on liberal talk radio stations and their hosts are not a new thing. About a month ago a gunman fired a shot through a window at the studios of KPFT, Houston’s, Pacifica station narrowly missing a DJ who was hosting music show at the time. There is currently a $10,000 reward offered to anyone who identifies the shooter.
This is not the first politically motivated attack on KPFT. More than 35 years ago, the Ku Klux Klan blew up the station's transmitters twice within the Houston station's first year on the air.
Also, according to a blogger on Democratic Underground, Thom Hartmann said on his Friday show that his auto repairman, after replacing his windshield, pointed out to him that he had three bullet holes in his car.
I listened to as much as I could stand of Rush Limbaugh (talent on loan from the Devil) this afternoon, and I have to admit, it was pretty funny. Limbaugh launched into about a 15 minute tirade against Harry Reid, Tom Harkin (who speculated hilariously about El Rushbo's possible return to drug use yesterday) and other Congressional Democrats who have condemned his September 26 slur against American troops who oppose the president's Iraq policy. Rush said last week that any troops who speak out against the Iraq war as being fought under the direction of Mr. Bush are "phony soldiers." Since then, Democrats have been excoriating him, taking full advantage of the rank hypocrisy on display by a man who has never served his country, took draft deferrments during Vietnam, and who lambasted Moveon.org for coining the Blackfive blog phrase "Betray-us" in an ad criticizing the P.R. flacking of Gen. David Petraeus, Bush's man in Iraq.
So today, Rush desperately tried to turn the tables on the Dems, accusing them of trying to reverse their irrelevancy by attacking him, and even comparing Harry Reid to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and a soldier who stars in a new Internet ad denouncing Rush's comments on behalf of VoteVets.org to a suicide bomber ... says Rush:
"This is such a blatant use of a valiant combat veteran, lying to him about what I said and then strapping those lies to his belt, sending him out via the media and a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into. This man will always be a hero to this country with everyone. Whoever pumped him full of these lies about what I said and embarrassed him with this ad has betrayed him, they aren't hurting me they are betraying this soldier," Limbaugh said.
lord have mercy...
Rush is desperate, I'd wager because at long last, he has waded into a controversy from which he cannot wriggle out, cannot stop the curtain from falling back, cannot retreat before being fully exposed for the rank hypocrite he is. Finally, it has been made plain for all to see that Rush -- who once had sole ownership of the airwaves our troops are fed, Armed Forces Radio -- really doesn't give a rat's ass about the troops. In fact, he has use for them, only in so far as they serve as willing props for his masters in the White House and the GOP. In short, Rush is a White House stooge and Party hack, and the soldiers he claims to be the champion of are nothing more than political cannon fodder. It's when they start thinking things through that they become the enemy, just like the Democrats, just like the "drive by media" and just like anyone who dares to criticize George W. Bush.
Rush, who is every bit a coward and chickenhawk, ought to just apologize, rather than doctoring the podcasts (seriously...) to try and cover up his statement, and rather than attacking others who are raising legitimate criticisms of him.
But he won't. He can't. He has too much to lose.
Rush skated on the whole drugs and foreign sex trips vibe, but if his die-hards ever start to doubt him on matters of patriotism of military might, well, they just might start asking some uncomfortable questions about their lovable, lisping windbag of an airwaves leader... ahem...
Meanwhile, the Dems send a letter of condemnation to Mark Mays, who runs Clear Channel, which incidentally, owns Jeff Christie's ... er ... Rush's show -- (hm ... no wonder he's on so many stations ... his bosses OWN the stations ... kind of changes the context of his primacy in radio... on his own merits, I wonder how prolific El Rushbo would be...)
Two interesting takes on the state of Black talk radio: one ... two ... BTW, Don Cheadle should get an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Petey Greene in "Talk To Me." I was going to say more, but I'll leave it at that.
Who's going to work at CBS radio if they fire everybody?
JV and Elvis get axed by CBS for making fun of Chinese people, Opie and Anthony are on deck (they're with XM, I think) for an expletive filled spoof on sexually attacking Condi Rice, Laura Bush and the Queen of England. I'm tempted to ask, is there anything even remotely worth listening to on the radio (besides my show and network, of course :)...) Or, are we becoming the SuperNanny state, where those who like crap radio have no rights at all...
CBS fires Don Imus' perennially offensive longtime producer and sidekick, Bernard McGuirk, more than a week after Imus got the boot. McGuirk, who started the whole "ho" diatribe, will have to do his Ray Nagin and Cardinal O'Connor impressions elsewhere. Meanwhile, Jason Whitlock is publicly cool to the idea of replacing Imus at the FAN. ... the operative word being publicly. I know how hard it is to get a radio job, let alone a nationally syndicated show. If Whitlock has half a brain, he's seriously considering. ...
CBS Radio is reportedly interviewing Jason Whitlock, an African-American sports columnist for AOL Sports and the Kansas City Star, to take Don Imus' old spot on WFAN as a syndicated national radio host. Conventional African-American Wisdom: That's great!
Jason Whitlock, the columnist for the Kansas City Star and AOL Sports, has been one of the most vocal opponents of the effort to get Don Imus taken off the air for calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos." Whitlock isn't defending what Imus said, but he is saying that in many respects, Imus's critics are worse than Imus.
And in an appearance on Tucker Carlson's show on MSNBC, Whitlock lashed out at Imus's two harshest critics, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Whitlock said, "I would say to CBS, don't negotiate with terrorists...
The Wall Street Journal gives all the gory details of the step by step disintegration of the Imus franchise.
Meanwhile, Pat Buchanan assails what he calls the hypocrites and charlatans who orchestrated the take-down.
Tom Delay (who has about zero credibility and really shouldn't be talking in public anymore) says they got Imus, now, let's get Rosie. Now, I can't stand Rosie, let's stipulate to that. If the righties are successful on this one. That said, the Imus take-down might be this year's impeachment, starting a never ending war of political tit for tat. Here we go!
The girls, by the way, have accepted the Imus apology, which came in person in a meeting just after he learned of his firing by CBS. What the statement that they're "working on forgiving him" means, is puzzling, and a little saccharine. I blame the university and their spokespeople for that one, not the girls.
Oh, and wanna buy a "nappy headed ho" T-shirt, teddy bear or infant bodysuit for your baby? No, seriously...
And next stop, hip-hop? The debate begins, Snoop plays the ass, and after demanding the head of Don Imus, Reverend Al will settle for dialogue with hip-hop MCs...
How many times can I be wrong on one story? CBS has fired Don Imus. Wow. You can look at this one of two ways: either its a victory for decency, or an example of extreme corporate quizzling. It could also be proof that the broadcast networks, both on television and radio, as well as their free cable incarnations, are far too timid to play the game the way a coarsening society has configured it. That could mean big bucks for paid media, which could mean XM will be to radio what HBO and Showtime are to television.
(Or it could mean far less: one old misanthropic bully (and goes down, heads back to ranch, curses the world...) I assume he'll be taking his even more racist executive producer with him...
At the end of the day, it's clear that a right to free speech is not an entitlement to a seven figure job on the radio. Imus can still exercise his rights, wherever he's able to find employment (I'm still betting on XM, but then again, I'm not a good predictor on this story...) but I do think that the result of his firing won't be a giant Kum-ba-ya over the American airwaves, with decency reigning over rancor. It will be a "they got Imus, now we'll get them" game of gotcha that could reignite the red-blue culture wars. From now on, I'm going to operate on the assumption that Radio One is being watched closely, with some angry I-man fans just waiting for somebody to slip up... That, and a couple of Black folk will get temporary pundit gigs on MSNBC. ... hey, that reminds me, I need to get my bio package updated...
One question does still hang out there: will there still be a meeting between Imus and the Rutgers girls? And will he take the road of conciliation, or revenge? We shall see...
Update: Question answered. Imus is reportedly meeting with the Rutgers girls at the governor's mansion in New Jersey. That according to NBC News. Classy move, Imus. And I don't think anyone disagrees that these young women have come out of this tragedy as role models of the first order. Great group of young women. We should all be proud of them.
Meanwhile, as we begin choosing winners and losers here, count Rutgers women's basketball, and the university itself, among the winners. They'll be getting a Hillary audience on Monday. Can a Barack visitation be far behind.
So his MSNBC simulcast is gone, his CBS show is hanging by a thread, but hey, Imus still has his charities. The annual telethon went on as planned today, sans TV. And from what Drudge is reporting (though his reporting is a bit dubious these days,) he's getting on with some attitude on the air, saying "the bastards" got him, but they "didn't catch him asleep," whatever that means... Imus is said to be very upset about the goings on, particularly the fact that NBC didn't give him a chance to have his meeting with the Rutgers girls. That's the market, Don. They lose money, you lose gig... Here's the transcript, according to Drudge:
Patrick Gavin with FISHBOWLDC reports on Imus's radio show this am...
Barely 12 hours after being fired from MSNBC...
6:12 AM: On Imus' radio program (no longer simulcast on MSNBC) this morning, Chris Carlin, who covers sports for the program, discussed yesterday's dismissal of charges against the Duke lacrosse players.
(rough transcript)
DON IMUS: When will Al Sharpton be apologizing to them?
(LAUGHTER)
CARLIN: I'm unaware of such a press conference.
IMUS: I'll be darned...
UPDATE 6:28 AM: After a station break, Imus came back to discuss MSNBC's decision. He said he was recently chatted with "another big time broadcasting executive" who was "complaining that [MSNBC] had cancelled the simulcast twelve hours before we were getting ready to conduct this radio-thon for these three charities."
Imus: "My position on all of this is not whining about the hideously hypocritical coverage from the newspapers -- from everybody -- or the lack of support, say, from people like Harold Ford, Jr. who I had my life threatened over supporting and all these kind of things. It all began, and it doesn't make any difference -- like [James] Carville said -- stop talking about the context, it doesn't make any difference. If I hadn't have said it I wouldn't be here. So let's stop whining about it...You gotta stop complaining. I said a stupid, idiotic thing that desperately hurt these kids. I'm going to apologize but we gotta move on."
UPDATE 7:37 am. IMUS: "The hypocrisy is absurd...Everybody knows what the deal is. And this is not over. This story does not end here."
Meanwhile, the Rutgers girls are Oprah bound today, and 37 percent of nearly 180,000 respondents to an MSNBC online poll say the I-man shouldn't have been fired -- he's a shock jock, after all.
In the public debate, I think that today, the question now officially turns from racial insensitivity to the policing of thought vs. free speech. Time asks the question this way: "who can say what?"
Drudge claims Sharpton puts it this way:
'It is our feeling that this is only the beginning. We must have a broad discussion on what is permitted and not permitted in terms of the airwaves'...
our culture has experienced an almost psychotic outburst of -isms in the past year. Michael Richards and "nigger." Isaiah Washington and "faggot." Senator George Allen and "macaca." Mel Gibson and "f__ing Jews."
But we also live in a culture in which racially and sexually edgy material is often—legitimately—considered brilliant comment, even art. Last year's most critically praised comedy, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, won Sacha Baron Cohen a Golden Globe for playing a Kazakh journalist who calls Alan Keyes a "genuine chocolate face" and asks a gun-shop owner to suggest a good piece for killing a Jew. Quentin Tarantino has made a career borrowing tropes from blaxploitation movies. In the critics-favorite sitcom The Sarah Silverman Program, the star sleeps with God, who is African American and who she assumes is "God's black friend." And the current season of South Park opened with an episode about a Michael Richards-esque controversy erupting when a character blurts the word niggers on Wheel of Fortune. (He answers a puzzle—N-GGERS—for which the clue is "People who annoy you"; the correct answer is "naggers.") ...
...Imus crossed a line, boorishly, creepily, paleolithically. But where is that line nowadays? In a way, the question is an outgrowth of something healthy in our society: the assumption that there is a diverse audience that is willing to talk about previously taboo social distinctions more openly, frankly and daringly than before. It used to be assumed that people were free to joke about their own kind (with some license for black comedians to talk about how white people dance). Crossing those lines was the province of the occasional "socially conscious artist," like Dick Gregory or Lenny Bruce, who was explicit about his goals: in Bruce's words, to repeat "'niggerniggernigger' until the word [didn't] mean anything anymore."
Now, however, we live in a mash-up world, where people—especially young people—feel free to borrow one another's cultural signifiers. In a now classic episode of Chappelle's Show, comic Dave Chappelle plays a blind, black white supremacist who inadvertently calls a carload of rap-listening white boys "niggers." The kids' reaction: "Did he just call us niggers? Awesome!" The country is, at least, more pop-culturally integrated—one nation under Jessica Alba, J. Lo and Harold & Kumar—and with that comes greater comfort in talking about differences.
But that's a harder attitude for older people—who grew up with more cultural and actual segregation—to accept or to mimic. Part of the problem with Imus' joke was that it was so tone-deaf. "That's some rough girls from Rutgers," he said. "Man, they got tattoos ... That's some nappy-headed hos there." The joke played badly in every community, raising memories of beauty bias (against darker skin and kinkier hair) that dates back to slavery. Tracy Riley, 37, of Des Moines, Iowa, who is of mixed race, said the incident was among her four kids' first exposures to overt racism. "Our kids don't see color the way we do," she said. "They don't see it as much. 'You're my friend or not, but it's not about race.'"
And then there's this idiot from Pennsylvania. How stupid do you have to be to get yourself fired from your radio show for mimicking Imus AFTER he got canned?
And should Imus lose his job at CBS, something I still doubt will happen -- I guess I'm just an iconoclast -- and he doesn't choose to take $100 million to go to satellite radio, I'm thinking his next gig might be prime minister of England...
The Don Imus horror show continues to escalate in drama, with MSNBC making the decision to drop the shock jock's simulcast today. Imus reportedly saw it coming. Having worked for an NBC affiliate, I can't say I'm surprised that the company whose execs throw around the phrase "six sigma" brought the hammer down hard. NBC doesn't play with its corporate image (remember the time they hired that psycho Michael Savage to host a show? No, you probably don't. It didn't last long ...)
It seems that the final straw for NBC management was when employees, Black and white (including Keith Olbermann) voiced loud objections to sharing the network, and their credibility, with the "I-man." But I would think the advertisers jumping ship had something to do with it, too.
NBC News President Steve Capus said he made the decision after reading thousands of e-mails and having countless discussions with NBC workers and the public, but he denied the potential loss of advertising dollars had anything to do with it.
Capus has been all over T.V. talking about the decision, and he looks more pained each time... After all that has gone on, I have to say that at this point I think MSNBC did the right thing. They couldn't force their news staff to share the stage with that program any longer. I haven't been on the "fire Imus" band wagon, but from NBC's perspective, his show probably wasn't worth the trouble. They're supposed to be a news outfit, after all.
Meanwhile, Imus has been shedding advertisers, and friends (I actually called in to the Sid Rosenberg show today, after listening to as much of it as I could stomach. He was distancing himself from the Imus comments, and I felt compelled to remind him that he was very much a part of the parade. He brushed off my reminder of his Venus and Serena "National Geographic" slurs, which he said forced his firing and "public humiliation" six years ago, before adding, "so what?") with even white commentators who you can tell really think this is overblown take pains to separate themselves from the remarks. Even Craig Crawford has capitulated, though Joe Scarborough is refusing to back down, along with resident iconoclast Bill Maher.
Meanwhile, righties are having a field day reprinting the lyrics of popular songs that use the n-word, and that liberally use the terms "bitches" and "hos" -- not to mention promoting violence.
It seems that Imus will continue to be roasted on a spit. But if you think this will somehow heal the country or the world, don't count on it. This will polarize us even more, as many whites foam at the very sight or mention of Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, who will be accused of hounding an old geezer out of his gainful employment, if it goes that far for Imus with CBS radio, and Blacks continue to seethe with rage over the comments, that apparently were simply the last straw from a show that had numerous violations in the past. One wonders whether anyone will take up my question (shared by Keith Olbermann) of when it will be Neil Boortz, Bill Bennett, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, John Gibson or Glenn Beck's turn on the spit. If they are given a free pass, what, then, has been the piont? Likewise with the hip hop nation, which can continue to fulminate about bitches and ho's with impunity, right?
If we're looking at the culture, shouldn't we actually look at the culture? Or are we just sating ourselves with Don Imus this week, only to move on to somethng else the next? I think we all agree that Don Imus is a bully and an ass.
I've heard a lot of B.S. from Michael Savage, perhaps the craziest loon on right wing radio. But this ... THIS takes the cake:
SAVAGE: If we don't wake up in this country, to summarize, the Muslim extremists who are marching in the streets of Europe will be marching in the streets of America. And they will massacre you as sure as I'm standing here, unless you understand what's at stake. They will massacre you unless you understand how they see the world, and what's at stake.
They will never assimilate in America. Never, in a million years, will they assimilate and permit their son Ahmed to marry another man. Never in a million years will they permit their daughters to become prostitutes like the vermin on Sunset Boulevard who puke on themselves and are held up as role models by the media.
Never in a million years will they subjugate themselves to permit a shrike like Barbara Boxer to use a fishwife mouth on them. Never in a million years. Don't you understand how they see the world? I do, which is why most of them listen to the show and love me.
Wha??? Hang on ... Michael Savage, the right wing stalwart who considers himself more American than you, or me, or damned near everyone else, also considers himself to be THE go-to guy for Muslim extremists who like talk radio??? So, can we consider him the Islamofascits' anchor man?
Yeah, you don't know that. The enemy himself probably listens to this show and says, "My God, if more of America was like this guy, I probably wouldn't even want to overthrow the country. I'd have nothing to overthrow. I'd be proud to be part of it. But the country that he rails against, the things going on in this country that this man rails against, are the very things that disgust me."
And for those of you in Denver, CO and across the globe, you've GOT TO check out my baby bruh, 
