A Response to the Response to the Response...

Lou Dobbs, Will He Rise Again?

I don't think very highly of Lou Dobbs. He's an angry, opinionated bigot with a cable television show. Since the 70's he has moved from a poverty advocate and young journalist to a xenophobic, creationist, birther

As of today he no longer has a job at CNN. I'm sure this is in large part due to his hateful attitude, big angry mouth, racist talk, and wingnut beliefs like supporting the "birther movement."

The problem is that this won't shut him up. He still has a radio show. It is vaguely reported that he may be moving to Fox Noise. I guess it will make it even easier for him to be ignored but in a way it will amplify his angry, hateful message to the True Believers out there. Are people like him still listened to just because they're listened to? Does being a celebrity make increasingly offensive and ignorant opinion still worth attention? More importantly, what value do people like him actually bring to our society that warrants the astonishing amount of money they are paid?

Odd that this video ties nicely into the preceding post about Glenn Beck as well as our boy Lou Dobbs:

The Born Identity

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The Lou Dobbs Problem

The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists actually believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic. The truth is, that it is not the Jewish banking conspiracy or the grey aliens or the 12 foot reptiloids from another dimension that are in control. The truth is more frightening, nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.

- “The Mindscape of Alan Moore” (2003) via uncertain times

Car Talk Hosts to Head GM

The full April 1st CNN column here.

Worst. President. Ever.

Like so many people, the first thing I think of when I think about George W Bush are these words, said with a stop after each for emphasis: "Worst. President. Ever." But don't just take my three words for it, according to CNN he has polled with more than a 70% disapproval rating three times in a row:

"No other president's disapproval rating has gone higher than 70 percent. Bush has managed to do that three times so far this year," Holland said. "That means that Bush is now more unpopular than Richard Nixon was when he resigned from office during Watergate with a 66 percent disapproval rating."

And I'm not the only one that feels the Republicans have screwed this country worse than an elephant on a chihuahua:

Only 16 percent of those questioned in a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday say things are going well in the country today. That's an all-time low. Eighty-three percent say things are going badly, which is an all-time high.

"The challenge Obama faces has never been greater. No president has ever come to office during a time when the public's mood has been this low. In the 34 years that this question has been asked, the number who say things are going well has never fallen below 20 percent," said Keating Holland, CNN's polling director.

The 83 percent saying things are going badly is "more than in 1992, when the first President Bush was ousted because of 'the economy, stupid.' That's more than in 1980, when President Carter got fired after the malaise crisis. That's more than in 1975, after Watergate and the Nixon pardon," said Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst.

I've even seen one of those obnoxious "Support President Bush and Our Troops" stickers with the word "Bush" cut out of it. Even the drooling rednecks around here are ashamed of this cowboy.

Let's see if we can get Bush and Cheney out of office without them pardoning each other.

Radio

I just heard on NPR's All Things Considered a letter from a listener. One line was, "It's not every day we hear our favorite band on the radio." I think that just about says all that needs to be said about American radio.


But I'm not the type to stop at "all that needs to be said," am I?

If American radio were any good, most people would be able to say they hear their favorite band(s) regularly on the radio. I am sure (going out on a limb here as I have no poll results to draw on) that amongst people who consider themselves music fans you will find very few who listen to music on the radio at all.

If you exclude the truly rich radio environments like New York, Atlanta, L.A., etc., and look at all the rest of the country you will find the music that is locally available is homogeneous and extremely limited. This means most Americans who are really into music will never hear their favorite band on the radio. All Americans everywhere can hear the vapid crap the music industry is marketing at us but few Americans can hear anything else... on their radio.

I'm a fan of radio. I think radio can be amazing. But I know that variety in radio is a thing of the past for those of us outside the major metropolitan areas. We have to move to our iPods and satellite radio but this removes that amazing touch of having this other person playing music for us.

I can remember listening to the FM radio late at night in the middle of nowhere in far eastern Kentucky and hearing some guy playing me some records he liked, and then tuning around on AM and hearing the voices of djs in Chicago, Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans. The strange blasts of Mexican radio. Now we have the same Clear Channel stations everywhere we go. If you're in the middle of Kansas you're going to hear the same thing you'll hear in the middle of Kentucky or anywhere else more than 50 miles from a big city. There was a time when those music stations would've been locally owned and operated by people who were playing music for the people around them. Now the music is a carefully manipulated blend of nauseating crap that the dinosaur music industry in this country understands how to "market."

There was a time when a song would be released, and hundreds if not thousands of djs would decide whether or not they were going to play it and then tens if not hundreds of thousands of listeners would call in and asked to hear it again and that's how a hit became a hit. Now the record companies ship a million copies of a song, negotiate with Clear Channel and its competitor(s) for "rotation" and "number of plays" and voila, you've got a number one single. The thing the record industry doesn't get: A hit is now meaningless.

I am developing a long screed about the fact that marketing as a business is the parasite that is killing its host. Look for it.