I decided to be fair with the leftists and listen to Al Franken's new talk show (I've found him funny on Leno, etc.).
Looks like he loses his humor capability when immersed into a talk show environment.
Looks like "Liberal Talk Radio" will die a quick death.
...Jim Thompson
-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |
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| 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
X-No-Archive: yes "Richard Henry" wrote : "Jim Thompson" wrote : > I decided to be fair with the leftists and listen to Al Franken's new : > talk show (I've found him funny on Leno, etc.). : > Looks like he loses his humor capability when immersed into a talk : > show environment. : : Whenever I want a quick laugh I listen to Rush.
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Actually, the last few days, I've switched to Al Franken. Unfortunately he's plain bo-o-o-o-oring on radio. Shame, I found him funny when I've seen him on TV.
My normal switch, when Rush comes on, is to Bob Mohan, who has returned to Phoenix talk radio, now that he's past his one-year non-compete.
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Its too bad, but when Rush first appeared on a station that I could receive, he seemed to be pretty good and served a useful purpose. Starting several years ago (probably coincedentally with his 'drug' problem) I found him to be less entertaining.
I believe that he is TOO political (akin to Franken) without enough substance (akin to Franken.) I blame him (for example) for re-enforcing the notion that American leftists are 'liberal.' It is exactly UNTRUE that the prominent American left is 'liberal', but it is more doctorinare than the predominant American right wing. When realizing the incorrectness of his allusions about the American left, it started the downward spiral (for me) away from serious respect of him. I still have great respect for Rush WRT the freedom of speech wave that he had ridden (and really did help to spearhead in some ways), but that is about all.
My most favorate Rush-contribution are the Shanklin parodies, and I still listen to a few minutes of Rush per month -- but he just doesn't draw my interest. Rush doesn't 'anger' me, and his opinions and schtick don't 'bother' me, but he no-longer interests me -- perhaps partially because he isn't 'unique' anymore, and there appear to be other 'acts' that do the job better in the way that I prefer.
People like Franken would definitely be worse than Rush (my prediction), because he starts of with total lack of integrity, rather than losing his direction along the way (like Rush.)
One person (I suspect that it was Jim) has suggested a lack of integrity WRT Rush, and I have been coming to that conclusion for myself over the years. Franken is clearly not very 'high class' either, but nor is Michael Moore. When it comes to 'dishonesty' and 'hatred', Franken and Michael Moore are still INFINITELY worse than Rush.
Lately, I have been listening to people with a little more internal consistency (integrity), but none of them is perfect. It is quite sad (for example) that the network with the most leftist political bias (very strong, in fact), with some political bias that does appear to be of weak integrity, is also the network with the best 'technical' shows (NPR.) Today, for example, the Lewis and Clark show (science friday) was quite good -- and those kinds of shows have been wonderful and informative entertainment.
And not bad looking either. Ever notice that all the Right leaning female pundits tend to be very happy and atractive while the leftys can often look mannish and prepetually pissed all the time ala Susan Estrich.
So, with your political slant, most of what he says is "goofy" anyway. Right? That doesn't pass for humor though, huh? 8-)
I still say the way to make political shows interesting is to have a leftie leave his studio and get locked into a booth with a rightie, then the 2 of them go at it. Simulcast on both stations. Next day the leftie gets the home-studio advantage.
Heat is OK; light is better. Having to defend your opinions keep you honest.
Usenet memory is very short. I presumed that you would be about as conservative as they come, being as it is the Arizona way ;-)
But then you started with your signature about cowards and heros, and how you weren't going to vote for any cowards.
Well, the Kerry supporters have been calling Bush a coward because he served in the NG, and the Bush supporters have been calling Kerry a coward because he became an anti-war activist after his tour in Vietnam.
So, I figured that you must think both were cowards, and were touting for Nader... But he is just a poorly paid lawyer... And I cannot imagine you having any use for a poorly paid lawyer...
As I said, usenet has a short memory. It needs to be refreshed each time a subject is brought up.
Not to put words in John D's mouth but for myself, I regard liberal-conservative as one axis and (in the present context) the US left-right as an orthogonal axis.
The conservative-right and liberal-left quadrants are the more populous but the so-called Rockefeller Republicans on the one hand and the Dixiecrats on the other would be examples of the liberal-right and conservative-left, respectively.
The American Left seems to be motivated by jealousy and hatred, and characterized by intolerance; who woulda thunk it? Their figureheads tend to be mean-spirited and especially not funny. We don't need "fighters", we need thinkers.
But most public figures are just playing to the crowd they think they will get the most out of. The Kerrys and Clintons of this world would have been enthusiastic racists 100 years ago, if that's what it took to get ahead.
The Libertarian attitude, "just leave me alone", is impractical but at least hints at integrity.
Cowardice actually IS a political persuasion, sort of like TORY.
However, as I've recently been found out, I'm more Libertarian than Republican, though I do have an intense aversion to cowards ;-)
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
--------------- You're an arch Rightist and as such you're unfit to discern or define "Liberal" for the rest of us.
------------------------ In other words, Rush doesn't know what to say, while Franken knows what to say that you disagree with.
--------------------------- I guess that means your kind won't be inviting them to your elitist cabal then?
------------------- Hatred of your dishonesty is very important.
----------------------- There is no such thing as a Leftist "bias", because Leftism is the Truth, not any bias!!
-Steve
--
-Steve Walz rstevew@armory.com ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!! With Schematics Galore!!
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Thank you!!! Your understanding is similar to mine...
In a way, in a meaningful sense, the term 'conservative' is similar to the notion of being 'doctorinare' -- perhaps with an emphasis towards an 'unchanging' or 'traditional' aspect.
This labeling of people or belief systems as being 'conservative' or 'liberal' is misleading and mostly ends up being a name-calling game.
The notion of 'left-wing' or 'right-wing' is certainly more meaningful than popular use of the terms 'conservative' or 'liberal', but also each person has varying beliefs that cannot be meaningfully grossly categorized as such.
More specifically, Rush Limbaugh gave our doctorinaire leftist friends a 'boost' by calling them 'liberal.' In the US, generally our most common group of 'leftists' are also MUCH MUCH more intolerant (doctorinaire and tied up in the traditional US leftist propaganda) than the mainstream group of right-centrists. Most often, you'll find that 'traditional right centrists' will be shouted down in leftist communities like ivy league colleges than the 'traditional lefties' in equivalent communities. Even if the 'righties' would deny the exercise of freedom of speech in their institutions, the 'righties' don't often make self-righteous claims about their open-mindedness.
So, the use of 'liberal' when speaking of the mainstream US political spectrum, it would probably be most accurate (but still defective) to call the mainstream right as being 'liberal', while the mainstream left is more 'conservative or doctorinare.' Refer to the rants of the crazy old leaders of the US mainstream left e.g. Kennedy. Refer also to the blocking of the constitutional process in congress by the relatively leftist party leaders (the Dems), where that behavior is more likely associated with doctorinare and narrow minded crusaders.
I credit Rush with the over-emphasis and dishonest give-away to the American left, where they are allowed to call themselves 'liberal', when they are quite far away from being 'liberal.' It is almost as bad to call the centrist-righties 'liberal', because even though they TEND to be more liberal, they aren't really 'liberal.'
Each side tends to be overly doctorinaire rather than 'thinking' and 'open.' This is why I aspire to being a radical centrist, where neither the GOPers nor the Dems can take me for granted. As it is nowadays, the Dems have done a wonderful job of forcing a vote that advocates their challengers. One day in the future, I hope to see more Evan Bayh or Lieberman styles of personality (not specifically their political advocacy), rather than the Kerry, Kennedy, Braun, or Daschle type of personalities. Luckily, I have been able to vote for Bayh, but not many districts/states have had good Dems to vote for. The GOPers also have their 'wierdos', but seem to have better people in general (WRT stability and integrity.)
Too often, the Dems tend to INVENT new criteria for integrity, apparently to create new axis to criticise their opponents. Equivalently, the Dems opponents don't always have to 'INVENT' new criteria for integrity, but the Dems are good at politically spinning the matter so that the criteria is deemed unimportant. A good example of the 'history-spin' would be apparently dismissing Kerry's behavior and votes -- even to the extent of effectively claiming that a very CRUMMY vote that really counted was somehow mitigated by the very appropriate vote that didnt' count (his silly claim about voting for a bill before voting against it.)
The Dems opponents only have to repeat the Dems behavior which clearly impeaches the Dem. The GOPer usually gets attacked by behavior that has invented criteria (or even a behavior that would be deemed acceptable for a Dem.) This pattern isn't 100% true, but is much more true than not.
Another good example of different criteria for Dems is that when the Bush administration increased funding for terror by 5X over Clinton (before the
9/11) it is apparently not deemed sufficient. When the attack is fully staged and funded by the end of 2000, with a large part of the attackers already past the US frontier, the Dems seem to imply that it is Bush's fault that the attacks happened on his watch (after BY FAR most of the failings occuring during Clinton.) Also, if you look at the 'recession', it technically started in the Month immediately after Bush took office (when Clinton's policies were still 100% in force, and ABSOLUTELY no way for Bush policies to have taken hold), and the stock market was already screwed up EVEN BEFORE BUSH WAS NOMINATED, yet the Dems blame Bush for screwups during Clinton's presidency (even as the transition from Clinton to Bush was impeded by McAuliffe/Gore/etc.)
I guess that even the Dems have higher standards for GOPers than for the Dems themselves. This is an implicit admission about the inferiority of the Dems candidates, and the fact that GOPers really do have to be better than the Dems.
Sadly, I do try to vote for any Dem with integrity, and there are few who have been able to get my vote. However, those who are really good people (e.g. Bayh) do get my attention.
The Dem party MUST be encouraged to develop more good candidate. WHen thinking of the Dems vs. GOPers (for involvement of Blacks), it is easy to compare Condi (perhaps the closest person to the president other than his wife) and Colin -- and then look at the Dems high-level people (e.g. Jesse Jackson, Carol M Braun, Sheila J Lee, Sharpton, etc.)
There's some serious stuff behind the macho manly-man thing: you survive and prosper by partnering with people you can trust, and you can never trust a coward.
--------------- Or a brave person who disagrees with you strongly. Figure out which is which.
-Steve
--
-Steve Walz rstevew@armory.com ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!! With Schematics Galore!!
http://www.armory.com/~rstevew or http://www.armory.com/~rstevew/Public
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