WCKY—Move over Rush

Air America Takes Cincinnati by Storm

I confess. I'm a talk radio junkie. It started years ago on Christian radio when my toddler only knew how to climb the refrigerator and tear up the house. I kept radio on in the background to stay sane!

First xtn radio: Rich Buehler and John Stewart in California (KBRT and the FM xtn station). Then: Rush Limbaugh "back in the day" (before Snapple went public and Dan had his national Bake Sale).

Consistently I've listened to John and Ken (KFI), Dr. Laura (pre-syndication and beyond—before her conversion to Judaism—Did you know she used to treat homosexual callers like decent human beings who were held to similar standards as heterosexuals in their relationships?), Bill Handel, and some of those KFI wacky Sunday night guys.

I moved to Cincinnati just as the John and Ken show failed here (no surprise—local talk radio discusses whether the flower shop in Clifton ought to be incinerated for painting its store purple, I kid you not!). John must have caused car accidents.

I was stuck with few choices so I continued to listen to Rush. Glenn Beck came on the air just as 9/11 occurred. Then Sean Hannity kicked Pat Berry off the air and you had one long white male conservative diatribe from 9-5. If you tuned in all day, you heard the same articles dissected by three guys using the same talking points—sometimes you couldn't even distinguish the difference in voices. It was nuts!

Needless to say, I am tired of it.

I want a woman on the air (for one thing) and/or someone who isn't just toeing the Republican line with his every breath and loyal nads. We need some critical thinking, for heaven's sake.

Glenn Beck thinks he is smart. He is not. Rush is smart and a good showman, and more human than he used to be. But he is blind to his myopias. Sean Hannity drives me crazy. He shouts over his guests and says the same things every day, especially how great his fans are and then they say back how great he is and then they go round and round about humility and how great they all are. Nauseating.

So when my Jon called last week to tell me to tune in to Jerry Springer, I thought he'd lost his mind. I had already heard Al Franken (a complete loser as a talk show —he's not funny) on the Internent version of Air America. I couldn't imagine I'd find anyone interesting on WCKY. But I liked Jerry Springer, amazingly.

Then last night I tuned in to Ed Shultz and Randi Rhodes (A WOMAN!) and was shocked. They were actually good radio show hosts. Yes, they are completely unabashed progressive liberals, but that is actually interesting to me since I just don't hear that position represented around me, like anywhere.

This morning, the Mark and Mark show had a segment about National No Name-Calling Week (sponsored by the LGBT), and introduced the segment calling the right "Neo-Con Fascists of the Death Cult" which I found hilariously ironic.

The big shock, though, isn't the hosts. It's the quality of the callers. I am still reeling. These are articulate people who call in. I can't believe that they actually sound like they have real points to make, that they can string together six sentences without needing the intervention of the host, and that they might have read a book once.

So I figure to give them equal time, I must invest about fifteen years of listening. Then I'll let you know what I think.