Peruvian Nights and Jamaican Days

STUFF..

See below, by the way..

Uh. OK. Some things.

So. Air America Radio is now under way. I'm not sure how I feel about that. First of all, they have commercials. So it's not like they're fundamentally different than any other radio stations or anything. (BTW, I just learned, that if you simply eat Clif bars, the world will be just fine)

I mean, the premise of the station is that they're going to provide a 'progressive' viewpoint on things to counterpoint all the foaming right-wingers on the other talk stations. I'm not sure this is going to work. First of all, whose minds are going to get changed? You can bet that fans of Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage or any of those other hatemongers are not going to flip over and give it a fair listen. And I think people that think in a progressive fashion can probably go ahead and make up their own minds about things. They don't require soundbytes implanted by someone who knows nothing about anything except how to talk on radio and how to make people angry.

I think it could serve one of two useful functions:

1) it could just try to be a hilarious political parody show, particularly focusing on the right (it's much easier)

2) they could do some investigative reporting and break some real stories (for instance, whatever happened to the investigations regarding Enron and the White House, why is the Sierra Club the only group that is pursuing something so egregious, is it legal, constitutional, or moral for a supreme court justice to go duck hunting with the vice-president, who is about to have his case in the Enron matter heard before the court, and what is the full story on the company that was hired by Bush's brother in Florida that, in an effort to remove felons from the voting list, 'accidentally' removed thousands of blacks with no criminal record?)

I doubt they will serve either of these functions. More likely, it will be ho-hum poke fun at the President, and non-original reporting.

Perhaps I'm just cynical. I guess at least there is a counter-view out there now. Al Franken is kinda funny. I don't see them talking about things that are going to hold the attention of Joe Sixpack - that is easier achieved by people like Michael Savage who use vitriol to blame illegal immigrants for all the woes of our country, or any of the other neo-cons that use irrational hatred and anger to rally people to the Republicans based on a few key, utterly inconsequential issues.

-m