Enjoy the Silence

The Rush controversy is slowly disappearing from the mainstream press, but it reminds me of this, from the June 2010 issue of Index on Censorship, an essay on talk radio by Joe Queenan, a pretty good writer I know of mainly from his work in GQ. (He sure gets around.)

But most important, I dislike talk radio. I dislike talk radio for one reason and one reason only: because it is unrelentingly unpleasant. (This is true not only of politically oriented radio but of sports-talk radio.) Talk radio, the stomping grounds of a battalion of Johnny One-Notes, creates the impression that everyone in the United States is at everyone else’s throat, that everyone is angry and bitter and outraged and miserable all the time. Talk radio is dominated by crackpots and paranoids; talk radio is dominated by people whose entire emotional repertoire consists of rage and disbelief; talk radio is hysterical. Thus, if you turned on your radio while motoring past the wheat fields of Kansas or through the foothills of the Rockies or across the wide Missouri you could easily forget what a remarkable country you are living in, a country of hard-working people who love their jobs, love their families and love their country.

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My own listening to Rush is a long story, on which I'll elaborate soon.

Cornucopians to the Left, Cornucopians to the Right

Keith Olbermann:

http://twitter.com/#!/KeithOlbermann/status/177472185424818177

It means, Sasquatch, that if you can artificially recreate the natural compression process you can MAKE crude oil

http://twitter.com/#!/KeithOlbermann/status/177457115110191104

Answer? Oil was once algae, plankton RT @GingerGibson Newt "I don't think your car is going to go very far if you s... http://tl.gd/ga8hph

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Rush Limbaugh: "The supply may be infinite [sic], but we're nowhere near its end. There is enough oil in this country to run this country at current levels of usage for around 250 years, and the regime wants you to believe we've only got 20 billion barrels; we're gonna run out here in ten years or so. That's outrageous."

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Cornucopians: A Guide for the Perplexed.

A further definition.

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10 March update: The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore on "What North Dakota Could Teach California: While One Plays Host to a Modern-Day Gold Rush, the Other Shuns Evil Fossil Fuels and Wallows in Debt.":

"Williston [North Dakota] sits atop the Bakken Shale, which will later this year be producing more oil than any other site in the country, surpassing even Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, the longtime leader in domestic output." (Subscription required for full access.)

Michael Klare, interviewed in 2010 by Chris Hayes, is certainly not a cornucopian. Neither is he a doomer.


(Here, Chris Hayes casts a skeptical eye on Kunstler's book The Long Emergency.)

Rush Limbaugh: No Longer on KPUA

Who could have thought today was the last day The Rush Limbaugh Show would air in Hilo--at least for now? KPUA became the first radio station in the United States to stop carrying the program. This New England station soon followed suit.

KPUA's announcement

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/141474943.html

I wonder if this will make tomorrow's Tribune-Herald.

(6 March update: Full front-page treatment. An article by John Burnett incorporating content from the Associated Press, and a large color photo of station manager Chris Leonard.)

And check out HFP for this pungent rant, headlined CENSORSHIP:

(Make one nasty comment about an abortion activist and you will be silenced. Meanwhile UH Hilo Faculty is infested with 9-11 trooothers and anti-Semites. And they are PAID to spout their filth.)

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11 March update: Rush scrubbed his website of "slut" comment and demand for sex videos.

Dropping Rush Attracts Support Across Nation (10 March Hawaii Tribune-Herald)
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14 March update: Michael J. Smith at StopMeBeforeIVoteAgain takes it in stride.

Rush Limbaugh, et al. vs. Ron Paul

Here.

I've tried to do remain giddy and lighthearted, it's Friday, and I've tried to have one day here of just not lackadaisical, but lightheartedness, but let me get serious here for a second. I appreciate a lot of you are suspicious of Trump. What's happening with Ron Paul is something to which I think we need to pay attention. The media is understandably excited, and they are pushing Ron Paul. They're very excited. Ron Paul was just on Megyn Kelly on Fox. But he's all over everywhere and he's being discussed with total credibility, and it's a problem -- and I'll tell you why it's a problem for me. Pure and simple, it is Ron Paul's foreign policy. This is what Ron Paul said recently:
"Think of what happened after 9/11, the minute before there was any assessment, there was glee in the [Bush] administration because now we can invade Iraq, and so the war drums beat."

Ron Paul said this Wednesday night, "before a packed room of a thousand students and supporters," and he said, "That's exactly what [this administration is] doing now with Iran." I know a lot of people like Ron Paul's domestic policy. He's very tough talking on budget cuts and shrinking government and individual liberty, and that's attractive. But, folks, this foreign policy is disastrous -- and to sit there, to attack the country this way, to say that the Bush administration was in "glee," the Bush administration was happy? This is Democrat talk, to say that George W. Bush was happy, that Cheney was happy after 9/11 because, "A-ha, there's our excuse to attack Iraq!"

This is the reason that there are a lot of people who are uncomfortable with him. Now, the long knives continue to be out for Newt today all over. It's exactly what I told you yesterday. I hope you were here yesterday. George Will has a column coming on Sunday -- I'm just gonna tell you -- that warns that Ron Paul will probably give Obama the election. [Here.--P.Z.] Ron Paul might go third party. This foreign policy, it's just nutty, folks! The Republican establishment wants no part of Newt for the reasons that I detailed yesterday. ...

RUSH: Yeah, but that's not gonna go anywhere. I mean to advise people to write in "Herman Cain" when he's gonna end up as a commentator on Fox News? I didn't mean to let anything out of the bag. I don't know that. I just know the career trajectory here on failed candidates. I just know where they end up. I don't know anything, folks. "I know nuthink," as Sergeant Schultz once said, "I know nuthink." But no, I mean to write in somebody's name that's pulled out of the race. We don't need a write-in. This third party business, a lot of people are worried Trump's gonna do it. I think Ron Paul would do it, and if Ron Paul does it -- look, we know that anybody after this nomination process is over is ticked off enough that goes third party, that's it. You split the Republican vote, no third party candidate's gonna win, no third-party candidate is gonna win beans in this election.

All the third-party candidate is going to do is secure victory for Obama, and if that happens, if somebody on our side goes third party, as far as I'm concerned, that's what they're trying to make happen, reelect Obama, for whatever reason, anger at the electorate on the Republican side for not nominating them, anger at other people for what happened to 'em, what was said during the campaign, whatever. But I think it's one of the reasons why the GOP is afraid to get tough and tell Ron Paul, "Look, you're not polling anywhere, get out of this debate, you don't belong here." They're not gonna tell him that. They don't want to upset him and have him go third party. That would really upset. What they're doing is boosting his fan base. They think Ron Paul can split the conservative vote. Folks, I'm here to tell you, there is no conservative movement in the Republican Party. By this I mean the establishment, the inside-the-Beltway crowd. The consultants are trying to split the conservative vote in the primaries, not coalesce around it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT
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END TRANSCRIPT
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[Newt is part of the Republican establishment!--P.Z.]

10 December update: From Cockburn's latest:

Meanwhile supporters of Ron Paul eagerly devour reports of his campaign’s diligent grass-roots organizing in Iowa and New Hampshire and scan their crystal balls for omens for a January surprise on the order of Gene McCarthy’ ambush showing against LBJ in New Hampshire in 1968, followed by victories against Bobby Kennedy in Wisconsin and Oregon.

One of the strongest arrows in Paul’s quiver is his anti-imperialism and anti-interventionism and so some were shaken by an interview Paul recently [had] with the right-wing Newsmax:

Newsmax: What then, if anything, should we do for Israel?

Ron Paul: We should share intelligence for mutually agreed-upon goals. We should honor our pledge to refuse any arms sales that would undermine Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region.

But we should stop interfering with them. We should not announce bargaining positions even before she begins her negotiations. We should not dictate what she can and cannot do. We should stop trying to buy her allegiance. And Israel should stop sacrificing their sovereignty as an independent state to us or anybody else, no matter how well-intentioned.

Sending me this exchange, Jeffrey Blankfort commented: “Maybe the Republican Zionist Coalition will give the old boy another look.” John Walsh, an ardent Paul fan strove to reassure me:

“Of this a friend writes me: ‘It’s a tack he has taken for years: calling for non-intervention in Israel’s disputes by saying it’s bad for Israel. He may be right about that; he may be wrong. I’m just interested in the non-intervention.’

I tend to agree. I think the Jewish Republicans knew exactly what they were doing when they told him he was not welcome to their debate today. That with RP’s call for friendship with Iran and his consistent non-interventionism is about all I can hope for now.”
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16 December update: Another anti-Paul rant.

M.T. is the mirror image of B.F.

M.T. is a grouch.

Considering the source.

16 December, 11:27 P.M. update: Rush Limbaugh falsely claims Ron Paul had nothing to do with the Tea Party.

19 December update: Rush rants about Ron Paul possibly winning the Iowa caucus.