Camille Paglia's Hate Radio Epiphany
This student of populist AM radio opines.
Talk radio has been seething with such intensity since Barack Obama's first week in office that I am finding it very hard to listen to it. How many times do we have to be told the sky is falling? The major talk show hosts, in my opinion, made a strategic error in failing to reset at lower volume after Obama's election. When the default mode is feverish crisis pitch, there's nowhere to go, and monotony sets in. Lately, I've been doing a lot of tuning in and impatiently tuning out. As a longtime fan of talk radio, I don't think this bodes well for the long-term broad appeal of the medium. I want stimulation and expansion of my thinking -- not shrill, numbing hectoring and partisan undermining of the authority and dignity of the presidency. Rabidly Bush-bashing Democrats shouldn't have done it to the last president either, but that's no excuse for conservatives, who claim to revere our institutions, to play schoolyard tit for tat.
Not that Obama's policies and conduct shouldn't receive sharp scrutiny. Despite my disgust at the grotesquely bloated stimulus package which did severe early damage to this administration, I am generally happy with Obama's eagerness to tackle long-entrenched social problems, although there is sometimes a curious disconnect between what he says and what he does. The degree to which Obama is or is not a stealth socialist remains to be seen.
My giddy aunt, Obama is a stealth socialist?
A reader responded to Paglia's new found disappointment to hate radio's best hits, thusly:
What a refreshing and superb piece by Paglia!
NOT!!!
Yesterday, Xrandadu Hutman, on the comments after Joan's latest, predicted Paglia's latest would go like this:
"I was bemused and controvanklemuddled by Wanda Sykes' classless disembowabblement of Rush Limbaugh at the narcissistic White House Correspondents Dinner. Whereas Limbaugh, that rapaciously churlish master of spoken-word artistry, has a highly successful radio program, what has Sykes done that's left more than a fleeting fingerprint whorl on the collective political consciousness? Limbaugh proves why Republicans lord over the airwaves like Marlene Dietrich vamping for a gape-jawed audience of dilglumptious potanicals; Sykes shows why liberals can't even attend dinner without choking on the arrogant wanklinobbishness of their insouciant bilfonkery. Did I mention that I wrote a book called 'Sexual Personae'?"
What's the difference between this and what she actually wrote? This one is at least funny.
Need I even bother asking Salon again to please, for the love of God, Kick. Her. Out.
Talk radio has been seething with such intensity since Barack Obama's first week in office that I am finding it very hard to listen to it. How many times do we have to be told the sky is falling? The major talk show hosts, in my opinion, made a strategic error in failing to reset at lower volume after Obama's election. When the default mode is feverish crisis pitch, there's nowhere to go, and monotony sets in. Lately, I've been doing a lot of tuning in and impatiently tuning out. As a longtime fan of talk radio, I don't think this bodes well for the long-term broad appeal of the medium. I want stimulation and expansion of my thinking -- not shrill, numbing hectoring and partisan undermining of the authority and dignity of the presidency. Rabidly Bush-bashing Democrats shouldn't have done it to the last president either, but that's no excuse for conservatives, who claim to revere our institutions, to play schoolyard tit for tat.
Not that Obama's policies and conduct shouldn't receive sharp scrutiny. Despite my disgust at the grotesquely bloated stimulus package which did severe early damage to this administration, I am generally happy with Obama's eagerness to tackle long-entrenched social problems, although there is sometimes a curious disconnect between what he says and what he does. The degree to which Obama is or is not a stealth socialist remains to be seen.
My giddy aunt, Obama is a stealth socialist?
A reader responded to Paglia's new found disappointment to hate radio's best hits, thusly:
What a refreshing and superb piece by Paglia!
NOT!!!
Yesterday, Xrandadu Hutman, on the comments after Joan's latest, predicted Paglia's latest would go like this:
"I was bemused and controvanklemuddled by Wanda Sykes' classless disembowabblement of Rush Limbaugh at the narcissistic White House Correspondents Dinner. Whereas Limbaugh, that rapaciously churlish master of spoken-word artistry, has a highly successful radio program, what has Sykes done that's left more than a fleeting fingerprint whorl on the collective political consciousness? Limbaugh proves why Republicans lord over the airwaves like Marlene Dietrich vamping for a gape-jawed audience of dilglumptious potanicals; Sykes shows why liberals can't even attend dinner without choking on the arrogant wanklinobbishness of their insouciant bilfonkery. Did I mention that I wrote a book called 'Sexual Personae'?"
What's the difference between this and what she actually wrote? This one is at least funny.
Need I even bother asking Salon again to please, for the love of God, Kick. Her. Out.
Labels: Paglia
posted by My Mall and News at
8:13 PM
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