Airing it out

Somewhere between becoming a father and turning 30, something strange happened in my life. I experienced a change. I’m still not quite sure what to think about this change as I really didn’t think that I would experience it until I was closer to 45 or so. But it has happened, so here I am:

A helpless listener to talk radio.

Try as I may to switch over to music or comedy channels on my Sirius radio receiver, I find myself drawn back to the talk radio stations, like a mosquito on a suicide mission with the closest bug light. But I am actually starting to get used to it. Why?

Because it amazes me the people who call in to argue with these radio hosts. I find it more comical than Larry the Cable guy being run over by a steamroller. (Seriously, why is that guy even considered a comedian?) Most of these radio show hosts are so bloated and full of themselves that if anyone, and I mean anyone, disagrees with them, Jesus Christ himself included, they will tell the caller they are an idiot and hang up on them.

And, get this, after pressing the button to switch the caller off, probably so hard that they nearly snap their finger in two in the process, they continue to say why the caller is stupid, is a moron, why he or she is the dumbest person to exist since Jessica Simpson, etc... What kind of debate process is this? To continue to attack and berate someone when they cannot respond and defend themselves is more than immature, it is childish. And these people are the so-called authority on political debates and issues? They couldn’t debate their way out of a wet paper sack! And that would even be true if it had a hole at both ends!

But what is really humorous, besides these hosts getting so rabid that you expect them to have a heart attack and die on the air, is the hopeful callers who call in thinking that they will have a chance to state their case. What were they thinking when they dialed the number, that they would succeed where the last caller failed? That they have the power to magically stay on the air after the know-it-all host breaks another finger cutting them off?

Maybe they really are idiots.

But anyway, the thought came to me the other day of what would an argument, similar to these on the talk radio sound waves, look like in print? What if a newspaper editor decided to act like, oh I don’t know, a hot-headed Mark Levin (who calls himself “The Great One” by the way – how ridiculous is that?) when responding to reader responses in the paper’s letters to the editor section? Let’s take a look and see, shall we?

Reader: In looking at the article on the city council’s budget workshop where they proposed taking money from the street department and placing it in the police budget, I think that this is a wrong move for the council. The police are already the highest paid department in the ci…

Editor: Stop right there! You are so stupid I won’t even finish printing the rest of your letter, you nitwit! Who cares what you think, you liberal moron! The police deserve that money. They bust their butts protecting the citizens and covering the wreck scenes caused by cars losing control when they hit the massive pot holes that are in our streets! Can’t you see that? You’re a moron. A moron! Next letter…

Reader: In your recent editorial, you said that the school district superintendent was justified in getting that 12 percent raise in pay, while the rest of the district employees haven’t seen a raise in ten years. I’m a teacher in the district and I…

Editor: I’ve read enough! I’m cutting your letter off right there. I don’t need to read or print anything else you have to say. You’re a teacher huh? That says it all right there! You and all your cronies pushing your liberal agenda and bias on our kids who don’t know any better! You ought to be ashamed, you stupid moron! You sicken me! People like you are the scum of the Earth, basically what I put on my plants and flush down my toilet! Go get a real job, you ninny!

And so forth and so on. At first, I thought that this would be a great way to show how most talk radio hosts are full of bull, but the sad thing is some people in the newspaper business would probably read this and think it would be a good idea and might even increase the paper's readership. “People like being cut down and called names,” they would say. “We have to get more readers! Sacrifice journalism and go to a set agenda immediately! What can it hurt? Our careers are already on the rocks!”

I’m not saying that all talk radio hosts are bad. There are a few that I can stand more than others (Howard Stern and Mike Church for example), but in most cases I view the majority of them as whining kids in the sandbox that, even if they are right, defeat their own purpose by their lack of proper presentation. But, in the long run, it doesn’t really matter, as I’ll probably tune in the next time I get in my vehicle. Ah, who am I kidding? I will tune in. And who knows?

Maybe one day I’ll call in and even try to get a word in edgewise.