Popular Culture (Media) 20110617: I Quit, and an open Letter to Keith Olbermann

This may be a bit of an enigmatic title, so I shall explain posthaste.  I have quit listening to and watching the extreme right wing talkers.  I have monitored them for years, so you do not have to do so, but I finally just had enough, and could not take it any more.  There are a couple of reasons, but the largest one was that I was stupider after listening than before.

Ma always told me that after I read a book, listened to a radio program, or watched a TeeVee show to ask myself one question:  what have I learnt?  In the case of the radical, hate filled, ultra right wing talkers, NOTHING lately.  I learnt some time ago who they were and what they were preaching, and it is nothing but hatred and fear.  I guess that I was just listening more recently for how they would do it.

That is enough.  I am gone.  I quit listening to the drug addled and deafened Limbaugh some months ago because all he does is bellow.  More to follow.

I quit Beck’s TeeVee show a couple of weeks ago.  I am glad that it will no longer be on after the end of the month.  I really do not know why I ever looked at it in the first place, except for the same morbid fascination that many people have when seeing a horrible automobile wreck in real time.  I sort of feel ashamed that I ever looked at it, but on the other hand, this was pretty good:

This is about as intellectual as Beck gets, except for his historical “experts”.  I shall miss the barking, but now that Mr. Olbermann is coming back this coming Monday, I am sure that Keith will keep me entertained with Beck’s shenanigans for another week or so.  By the way, I am a big Olbermann supporter, and am delighted to see that someone with a proper education is back, and one with only ignorance is out of here.

I have also quit Sean Hannity.  At one time I thought that he was the less bellicose alternative to the drug addled Limbaugh, but I was wrong.  If anything, he is more shrill, and he has guests that are even worse on both his radio show and this TeeVee show.  It does not look like Hannity will go by the wayside, like the drug addled and deafened Limbaugh, so many will have to put up with him for some time.  Not me.  I quit.  Now, I will allow that there has been some humor on his TeeVee show, like when the extremely evil Ann Coulter was absolutely in tears when confronted by the facts by another Fox “News” regular Peter Johnson:

Seeing Coulter beg for mercy is priceless, and even though I do not like Johnson very much, seeing him getting a belly laugh from humiliating her is wonderful!  I shall not see things like that any more, but Keith shall find the best of them, and I will faithfully watch him on Current every weekday evening at 8:00 PM Eastern.  I love seeing her fall out of ideas and cry!  Perhaps that is cruel on my part, but she is a very cruel person, so laughing at her is not that bad.

I never watched O’Reilly in the first place, so I could not quit him, and the same for the Neil Cavuto and the awful Bret Baier.  Those three are beyond abrasive so I just could not stomach them.  I also quit the awful Lou Dobbs back while he was still at CNN because I could not stand his xenophobia.

One extreme right talker to whom I used to listen, more for what the next outrageous thing that he would say is Dr. Michael Weiner, know to most as Mike Savage.  He actually had a show at MSNBC some time ago (when they were trying to out “fair and balanced”ing the Fox “News” Network.  They hired him in March of 2003 and his last show for them aired in July of 2003 because of this:

Weiner is probably the most conflicted of all of the talkers, because he used to be part of the counterculture, actually having close personal relationships with several notable figures.  The most bizarre one was his friendship with Alan Ginsberg, the beat, radical homosexual poet who wrote Howl.  Weiner’s Ph.D. is in Nutritional Ethnomedicine, a pretty far out discipline perfect for the 1960s.  On his show, one never knows what to expect.  One evening he actually ripped Ginsberg (who was by that time dead, and whom I actually saw do a live reading) as being a horrible persons, even though they had been close at one time.

I no longer listen to talk radio at all.  I quit.  My time is better spent looking for gainful employment and writing (which I think might be gainful employment in the near future) than to waste time on them.  Instead of Beck, I now watch Tweetie (who has his own limitations, in particular talking over his invited guests, but at least he has a better heart than the ones mentioned above).  I have quit watching the vile Hannity show in the past two weeks, and have found (which I already knew) that Ms. Maddow is much more informative and much more interesting.

I will miss the nonsense that the stupid conservative talkers feature, but once again trust that Mr. Olbermann will inform us of their most egregious examples.  I am delighted that he will be back this coming Monday, and Lawrence O’Donnell should hope that his spot on MSNBC gets repeated later, because I KNOW who I shall be watching at 8:00 PM.  Nothing against him, well, yes, a bit against him, because he was OH TOO HAPPY to take over that time slot on MSNBC, but that is just business.  Mr. Olbermann gave him his start, and to his credit, O’Donnell gave Olbermann some credit that first night.

So now you see why I quit listening to those folks who blather nonsense.  It just took me longer than it should have to quit.  Please forgive me, and please join me to welcome Mr. Olbermann back.  I am waiting with bated breath to see if MSNBC will allow him to use the introduction, the music, and the format that he did so well on his old show.

I also have a bit of advice for Mr. Olbermann:  Keep the Worst Persons in the World spot.  It was excellent, and your very perverse sense of humor made it work.  Oddball was OK, as was several of your other regular spots.  The Thurber readings were outstanding, and the evening that Anne Akiko Meyers played blew me away.  That was one of the most unexpected appearances for a political commentary program ever, and what a breath of fresh air!

Can you imagine any of the others mentioned here present anything like this?  I thought not.  Here are two other recommendations.

If your budget allows, hire ME to be your scientific analyst.  If you give me a day before the topic, I will be fluent in it, unless it has to do with the Big Bang, since that is sort of fuzzy yet.  I do not have a very good face for TeeVee, but I can get to the studios in Lexington as soon as you want.  I would be honored, and would also be honest.  The second is just to keep telling the truth.  That will never be a bad thing to do.

Since I have stopped listening to and watching the haters, I have found that I am in a better mood for the most part.  I have also found that I do not feel as stupid these days.  It is really true that exposure to negative influences on a regular basis takes its toll, even if one does not believe a word of it.  I am glad that I quit.

Warmest regards,

Doc