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HOW ANGRY IS TOO ANGRY?

jackandcoke said:
Two cents. Maybe three.

1. Quadraphonic and Silkie. More than 4,000 posts each. Even stretched over a 10-year period that's more than one a day, every day, each. Q refers to S as "she," though most posters on here don't identify themselves by gender, and their posts seem to follow each other quite often. Are y'all the one(s) complaining on DCRTV.net that radio-info.com is busting your chops because you and your "wife" are both using the same IP address? But if it's really 8,700+ posts for one guy? That's called obsession.
Well dang bro, if, out of all I said, the main thing you came away with was some imagined shared-IP connection between me and Silkie based on something else you saw on the internet, something not even previously discussed in any way, shape, or form, then what is the point of "rational discussion" anyway? With that level of skepticism, what's ever going to get across?

It really doesn't take much time or effort to make any number of posts a day, even well-reasoned ones. Throw in some silly ones here and there, and the numbers climb even faster. Most topics are not "life or death."

No, Silkie and I are not married. We are also not one person. I haven't checked out dcrtv.net in a long time. People who have had internet conversations with other people are apt to find out what gender the other person is, if they pay attention, or if they see someone [else] guess wrong, usually because they made the wrong assumption. Assumptions and overgeneralizations, especially ones that are easily proven wrong, are the problem in all forms of conversation, radio or otherwise.

2. If Cooke's aim was to demonstrate that there is no room for rational discussion on the subject of conservative talk radio, he hit it on the head. Very little about radio in this thread.
Most of the talk has been quite rational. People just shouldn't make gross overgeneralizations and assumptions, and expect it to never raise a question, especially when they're espousing "critical thinking" but not participating in it.

“Radio, it’s all right once in a while. Otherwise it tends to induce bad values, false dreams, lazy habits. Listening to the radio leads to stories of foolishness and violence. This is no way for a boy to grow up.”
Sorry this post is not full-on about "radio," but it's about people conversing, which is what talk radio should be, so maybe it's about radio on a secondary level? If it's not, feh.
 
What talk host (of any political flavor) do you feel does the best job of not turning a radio program into an event that can only be loved by people who keep the Civil War Reenactments alive?/color]

NPR's Talk of the Nation, Science Friday, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and WHYY-FM's Radio Times with Marty Moss-Kohane.

On the commerical side, Westwood One's Jim Bohannan Show. WDEL's Al Messitti Show. Al a former reporter and commentary writer for the Wilmington News Journal Papers is a liberal, but he's not the "foaming at the mouth" type. You can call in and have a great intelligent discussion with him. When he sees things he likes that a Republican does, he mentions it too. So he's not the one sided the other side is evil incarnate type host.
 
Silkie said:
Holland Cooke said:
Silkie said:
Maybe you'll want to refresh yourself on "You Don't Mess With Jim"

GREAT bit last week by CBS-FM's always-witty, always-concise, always-prepped midday jock Bob Shannon:
He'd prepped the clip and had it ready-to-go as "You Don't Mess Around With Jim" was fading.
He quipped, "Did you hear him mention 'Wheel of Fortune?'" and hit the clip, Croce, from the song, "SAY JACK..."

Gotcha. I was not referring to CBS-FM. How good are your memory and your reading retention?Mine are exemplary. Bet the CBS hosts don't order out phone and e-mail spam service either.

In fact I am sure they don't; and they don't order out for counterfeit screen names either. We'll let you go over your list of stations who seek your consultative skills.
 
jackandcoke said:
Two cents. Maybe three.

1. Quadraphonic and Silkie. More than 4,000 posts each. Even stretched over a 10-year period that's more than one a day, every day, each. Q refers to S as "she," though most posters on here don't identify themselves by gender, and their posts seem to follow each other quite often. Are y'all the one(s) complaining on DCRTV.net that radio-info.com is busting your chops because you and your "wife" are both using the same IP address? But if it's really 8,700+ posts for one guy? That's called obsession.

2. If Cooke's aim was to demonstrate that there is no room for rational discussion on the subject of conservative talk radio, he hit it on the head. Very little about radio in this thread.

For heaven's sakes! And maybe you are the foolish little girl on the air up the road; we lifted her lock picks too. Radio-Info.com has busted my chops on a misunderstanding once, but it had nothing to do with whether my husband and I use the same IP address. BTW, quad is not my husband. Not my real husband, not some supposed Internet husband, not some co-worker used as a radio husband to call attention away from hitting on him. But feel free to beat your head against the wall to try to figure out some code that isn't there. Probably best to drop back, punt and go to the default rock noise back to back.
 
Silkie, it never occurred to me that you were a female (I don't really look at the names we all use here that closely). You, however do bring up an interesting question. Does RI have a policy where both a husband and wife can not post here if they only have one computer? My wife isn't at all interested in radio, so it's not an issue for me, but if she was then one of us ( I guess her since I've been posting here for years) would be out of luck. Somehow that doesn't sound reasonable, but then again, the RI folks may have a good reason for such a rule, even though I have no idea what that would be (I've never claimed to be the sharpest knife in the drawer).

I'd take the Churchill quote, you post on the bottom of your messages, a step further. At 50 you realize that you need a balance of both heart and brains so then you become a moderate so that you can do the best of both without the extremes of either. This is a concept that people like Rush, Beck, Hannity and their extreme GOP pals don't get, but then again neither do Keith Obermann, Rachel Maddox (sp), Bill Maher, and their extreme Democrat pals don't get it either.

In a sense, that is what this thread is talking about. Anger can be a constructive tool, or it can be a useless loud noise that produces nothing, but noise. Anger that is channeled into a constructive use, like a steam locomotive (old style engines for trains that ran on steam power rather than diesel or electric). When the steam locomotive is setting in the station the engineer has turned a valve to exhaust the stream so the train doesn't move, we in the train station hear and see a lot of noise and steam - all that energy just going up in the air making noise, but doing nothing, but when the engineer turns that valve so that the steam drives the pistons so that the wheels can turn, then the train moves.

Same with anger. Folks can take the anger they have over some issue, feeding the poor, fixing our economy, etc, and be driven to get something done, while some folks simply flap their jaws making much noise, irritating people and getting nothing accomplished (all they do is complain and never actually do anything, etc). The problem with either of these is when a person gets angry they tend to become very one way focused, so that feeding the poor is the only thing that matters (Democrats), or fixing the economy is the only thing that matters (Republicans), etc. That 50 year old, I used in my update to Churchill, sees the need to do both so he/she uses the anger they have at these injustices to not go off half cocked and only focus in one direction (which both Dems and GOP tend to do this for their key points of view they care about) rather than working more in the middle to meet both needs and provide balance in our world rather than the extremes we've been seeing so much of. These moderates, unlike what Rush thinks - he believes moderates don't think about the issues at all- have given the issues much thought and are trying to find ways to make both views of the world work together rather than being at opposite ends and neither getting done.

As I said, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so I'm sure there are a few here who will be able to pick apart what I believe to be a sound point of view, but that's what these forums are for is hearing the various points of view of each of us have. You just read mine, now it's your turn.
 
I think a lot of people confuse "left", "right" and "moderate" with the politicians in Washington and state capitals (and their party affiliations). Having political ideas and leanings is completely different from being a politician that has to work and compromise with the other side to get stuff done. Regular people who identify as "moderates" tend to be less politically involved for various reasons. Politicians who identify as "moderate" tend to be the type that compromise a lot. And radio hosts that identify as "moderate" tend to be bandwagon jumpers for the sake of ratings or for carving out a unique niche in their market. Nothing is wrong with any of these things. If everyone agreed on everything, we'd be in serious trouble as a nation.

There's nothing wrong with having a firm belief in something, and there's also nothing wrong from being apolitical. There's also nothing wrong with hosting an "angry" radio show, nor nothing wrong with hosting a "quiet" show. There's room for everyone on the airwaves, especially with the problems that music based FM is having.
 
The Way I see it is,
If your yelling constantly On the Radio. Thats too angry.
Ive heard some pretty Crazy Liberal Hosts. And Some Pretty Crazy Conservative Hosts
(Krok Talk).

But here is a good question.
Why is that Liberal Talk Shows are not as popular or widespread as Conservative Talk Shows.
NPR seems to be the only Libby Talker out there that does decent.
 
Two reasons...

LibertyNT said:
Why is that Liberal Talk Shows are not as popular or widespread as Conservative Talk Shows.

Two reasons, if you don't count the monkey-see-monkey-do that results from management not-wanting-to-pay-attention-to stations dismissively-referred-to-as "the AM," while devoting disproportionate resources to propping-up music FM sisters:

1. The-side-on-the-outs tends to do better, and Rush Limbaugh and his legion of wanna-be imitators hit critical mass during the Clinton years. And the righties still had fertile ground to plow when Bush, Jr. took over, with 9/11 soon-upon-us, and that whole Iraq thing reviving Lee Greenwood's career, etc.

2. Some of the biggest stations are owned by the company that owns...guess what? The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Glenn Beck Show, and other righties. What the suits call "vertical integration." Stashing Air America's stuff on a bunch of 1470s isn't a very level playing field.
 
One reason may be that NPR does an excellent job. Their programs are quality radio, with great production, interesting guests, and well informed hosts who are well educated. NPR's hosts are well read (not just liberal books and periodicals [since they do tend to lean left], but they also read conservative material, along with science, history, economics, etc). They will explore an issue from both liberal and conservative view points, not bashing either. The NPR programs don't have to yell, scream, insult, etc to have an interesting program, rather they use their intellect.

That's not intended as a "shot or slam" at the conservative hosts. The liberal audience, generally, is a better educated group than the conservative audience. This might also explain why the "Rush/Beck/Hannity" style talk show does better with the GOP audience and the "NPR" style talk show does better with the Democrat audience. If Rush/Beck/Hannity next week changed their style of show and did a conservative version of the NPR format ( of course Beck/Rush/Hannity would have to be mellowed out on Prozac or something), would they lose audience? My guess is for the same reason local TV newscasts do the "if it bleeds it leads" newscast rather than the more sedate PBS Jim Leher News Hour format that many PBS affiliates will use for their local newscasts. Simply a different demographic audience.
 
Liberal programming is everywhere else, liberals don't need to go to radio for their fill of like minded news. That's the major reason liberal talk radio programming always fails. Clear Channel may own Beck and Rush, but they also own Randi Rhodes and Jesse Jackson's show. If there was an audience for these shows they'd be on 50,000 watt AM stations. There's no grand conspiracy here.

And back again to the "liberals are more educated" thing, it's just not true. NPR's audience may be more educated, but that's not true about liberal and conservative audiences as a whole. That whole Stanford study I posted disproved that myth. I'm guessing that Air America's listeners matched up pretty evenly with the average conservative talk demos.
 
Silkie, it never occurred to me that you were a female (I don't really look at the names we all use here that closely). You, however do bring up an interesting question. Does RI have a policy where both a husband and wife can not post here if they only have one computer? My wife isn't at all interested in radio, so it's not an issue for me, but if she was then one of us ( I guess her since I've been posting here for years) would be out of luck. Somehow that doesn't sound reasonable, but then again, the RI folks may have a good reason for such a rule, even though I have no idea what that would be (I've never claimed to be the sharpest knife in the drawer).

Mike, the issue at hand seemed to be more along the lines of not being sure whether the person online is the husband or the wife, depending upon who the poster wanted to address, or did address and did not get the desired result. That was not the way it was posted, but a roundabout way of getting to the information.

It did not have anything to do with radio, or the thread in general.
 
Don C said:
Regular people who identify as "moderates" tend to be less politically involved for various reasons. Politicians who identify as "moderate" tend to be the type that compromise a lot. And radio hosts that identify as "moderate" tend to be bandwagon jumpers for the sake of ratings or for carving out a unique niche in their market.

This statement asks us to buy into a lot of philosophy that I have no idea where I would find documentation to prove or disprove. It seems to support what I assume is YOUR personal bias. If I owned a radio station... say in Rome, GA or maybe Holland, MI... should I be willing to accept your bias in making decision on how I would program my station? What is the penalty for me if you are wrong?


Don C said:
There's nothing wrong with having a firm belief in something, and there's also nothing wrong from being apolitical. There's also nothing wrong with hosting an "angry" radio show, nor nothing wrong with hosting a "quiet" show. There's room for everyone on the airwaves, especially with the problems that music based FM is having.

I've had a very introspective week.... looking back to my home town when I was 16 and 17 years old. (We received a publication giving narratives and history of the town in that era.)

Then tonight I watched 60 Minutes as they tried to piece together some news and observations about the young man accused of trying to destroy Times Square with a home-made time-bomb. The report then went beyond this young man and explored what is generally happening with young men in America with Arab and/or Islamic who are being recruited to become part of Jihad. And the average American possibly views that report with a lot of skepticism. Nobody could be that gullible!

And then I think back, once again, to when I was that age. I look back now and shake my head about maybe 10 years of poor, strange and to some extent, crippling decisions about career and occupation, community involvement and faith issues. I was significantly influenced by various forms of communication that were channeled my direction by the religious group which I respected.

I guess my lack of enthusiasm for today's rowdy talk radio comes from me thinking about how I would react to such information if I were that age today.

Scares the living hell out of me.

Not everybody listening to Talk Radio is a rational, middle-American, mature individual.
 
LOL - Daily Kos. Ol' George Soros is still all about the divide and conquer strategy, eh?
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Not everybody listening to Talk Radio is a rational, middle-American, mature individual.

And not everyone listening to NPR or watching Chris Matthews is a highly educated thoughtful kind person. This myth of "right wing violence" has gone too far. Violence is violence. It's not caused by radio, nor is it spurred on by Rush Limbaugh, Rachel Maddow or even Howard Stern. The whole thing reeks of sour grapes against the guys who are successful. The people who commit acts of violence would do so no matter who they listen to. Not to mention, no one can come up with a single instance of any of these violent people even listening to these hosts.
 
Sorry for the multiple posts, but it wouldn't let me edit again...

Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
This statement asks us to buy into a lot of philosophy that I have no idea where I would find documentation to prove or disprove. It seems to support what I assume is YOUR personal bias. If I owned a radio station... say in Rome, GA or maybe Holland, MI... should I be willing to accept your bias in making decision on how I would program my station? What is the penalty for me if you are wrong?

It's not my personal bias. In fact I'm going to great lengths to be specifically non-biased and inclusive in my points. It's pretty well established by political scientists that the party faithful on both sides are more ideologically to the far left and right than the average citizen. That's why politicians will move to the outer parts of the spectrum during primaries and back to the middle for general elections. The same can be said for radio and TV viewers. The people who listen or watch more are always going to tend to be the more "extreme". That doesn't mean they're going to start assassinating politicians or blowing up government building.
 
Liberal programming is everywhere else, liberals don't need to go to radio for their fill of like minded news. That's the major reason liberal talk radio programming always fails. /color]
Liberal talk succeeds quite well on NPR and PBS. People want that programming enough to pony up their own money to help pay the bills. You can't get anymore successful than where you have people willingly paying their own money to hear a radio or TV program.

I wonder how many of Rush's listeners would pay out of their own pocket to hear his daily harangue if the EIB was a non-comm network like NPR? Sure some would, but I wonder how many really would.

Clear Channel does have some lib shows. Maybe they picked up those shows so that if the Fairness Doctrine was ever restarted, they'd have some lib shows their stations could air. Maybe CC hopes to build a lib audience, especially in the Blue counties, with those lib talkers. Maybe CC wants a piece of the NPR dynasty and is hoping Randi Rhodes and Jesse Jackson can bring some of that loyal audience and their money to support CC's sponsors. Loyal listeners to NPR probably never hear the spots played on their local CC news/talk station. My guess is CC would like to change that. Right now, NPR is the only real lib radio game in town, generally. They may be all the market can support. So any other lib network unless it can steal NPR's audience is doomed to failure. That's basic market driven economics.
 
Don C said:
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Not everybody listening to Talk Radio is a rational, middle-American, mature individual.

And not everyone listening to NPR or watching Chris Matthews is a highly educated thoughtful kind person. This myth of "right wing violence" has gone too far. Violence is violence. It's not caused by radio, nor is it spurred on by Rush Limbaugh, Rachel Maddow or even Howard Stern. The whole thing reeks of sour grapes against the guys who are successful. The people who commit acts of violence would do so no matter who they listen to. Not to mention, no one can come up with a single instance of any of these violent people even listening to these hosts.

I don't believe my post said anything highly educated listeners; I don't believe my post said anything about violence, right wing or left wing.

I believe my post was trying to indicate that some people are more responsive to various forms of communication. Radio broadcasts. Magazines. Blogs. Cassette tapes or CDs distributed by U.S. Postal Service.

I'm talking about a preacher in Ft. Smith. Arkansas trying to convince people to wipe out a nudist camp... by calling the prosecutor, by writing letters, by making local vendors inhospitable to the camp. (years ago)

I'm talking about community leaders who convinced white folks to never let black folks think they had a chance at obtaining civil rights. (years ago)

I'm talking about people in the WWII era who became convinced it was perfectly proper to round up folks of Japanese ancestry and imprison them. (years ago)

I'm talking about farmers who teach the next generation that setting fire to pastures is essential to the process of good farming. (years ago. Maybe today for all I know)

Some of those things have been discussed on radio at various times, back in an era when we didn't know that radio stations could be identified with an ideology. But also people talk about these things over the back fence, in Letters to the Editor columns and while sitting on the old timers bench at the rural court house.

Mature people who understand a little bit of psychology, a little bit of the mechanics of folk lore, and a little bit about filtering ideas that are dumped on them. Matters not where the mature person is liberal or conservative. Mature people can be Phd level, Mature people can have a 6th grade education.

Immature people "shoot from the hip" (that's an expression those of us who grew up in cow country sometimes use) because they don't always know the difference between 1. the straight gospel 2. trash talk 3.baloney disguised as patriotism 4. political mumbo-jumbo. Immature people can be graduates of a fine university, they can too can have limited education.

Now let's get back to radio. Does the general public have any reason to be concerned whether or not the operators of radio stations and the talk hosts they put on their program schedule have any idea of this mature thinking listeners vs. immature thinking listeners concept?

I am assuming you are mature-thinking-enough to recognize that I have not addressed the categories of conservative or liberal being a factor with the idea that the behavior can be affected by the information people take in.
 
Holland, nice plug for your article again but it wasn't right wingers who trashed Asheville NC last weekend after rallies supporting lawbreakers. Despite Michael Bloomberg and the left wing blogosphere's hopes, it wasn't a right winger who ineptly planted a bomb in Times Square. Your partisanship is showing. Which is OK if you aren't pretending to be non-partisan.
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
I am assuming you are mature-thinking-enough to recognize that I have not addressed the categories of conservative or liberal being a factor with the idea that the behavior can be affected by the information people take in.

I don't doubt that it "can", I'm saying it hasn't in this case. The masses can be fooled into a lot of things by slick talking guys who pretend to be well meaning (as has been proven over and over throughout history), but I don't think this is the case with talk radio. Maybe you could make a case that fringe guys like Alex Jones and some of the Internet broadcasters could have the sort of audience that would do such things, but your average Rush listener or your average Ed Schultz listener isn't going to be taking up arms against the country. As I've said before, we survived 8 years of the most vile and slanderous things being said by one side and not a single person took up arms. I think you're underestimating the rationality of the average American radio listener.

gr8oldies said:
it wasn't right wingers who trashed Asheville NC last weekend after rallies supporting lawbreakers.

I doubt they were NPR listeners either. They were criminal hooligans. People like that don't engage in political discourse, they just go smash stuff because they're generally just bad people.
 
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