Beats Me
I like LA City Beat. It's the alternative to the alternative LA Weekly. But this week has me wondering.
First, there's the cover feature, "Rebel Radio." Here's the sub-head: "Beating the odds and predictions of its demise, Air America not only stays afloat, but helps swing an election and spawns a new industry in progressive talk radio.
Are we talking about the same Air America? The bankrupt network being sold at a bargain basement price? The one losing its biggest name? Is this an elaborate practical joke?
Next we see the DVD review of Idiocracy. It's by Andy Klein, who seems to be in decline. He spends half his space on pointless speculation as to why Fox (owned by the evil Rupert Murdoch) dumped this film in theatres.
But before then, he makes a mistake unfortunately too common. Here's his description of the premise:
A narrator explains how simple genetic logic has led to the world’s decline. Natural selection has ceased: And, since the intelligent are overly cautious about breeding and the least intelligent completely irresponsible, the gene pool grows stupider and stupider, until we’re a bunch of drooling morons...Differential success in breeding, no matter who succeeds, is precisely what natural selection's about.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:56 AM
2 Comments:
The really porky wingnuts like to pretend that bankruptcy means that Air America is a failure, even though the first credit Howard Dean gave for the November sweep was to Air America, for mobilizing Dem voters in a dozen key house races that flipped. And if you listen to the local L.A. affiliate you will hear a glut of commericals from United Airline (also bankrupt - are you calling them finished?), Bank of America, Carls, Jr, Audi, BMW - all of the usual liberal suspects - with sometimes 7 commercials in a row. So take your fingers out of your ears and listen to the sound of the rebuttal to the right's radio juggernaut which in 15 years took over and destroyed the reputation of the United States in the world (Pew center, 2/1/07, U.S. Now a Pariah Nation).
You had me and then you lost me. It's true you can still operate under bankruptcy, and that it's in fact a financial strategy to keep things going. However, the fact that AA just sold for a low price tells you no one thinks it's worth all that much.
The idea that they made a big difference in the elections is silly, despite what Dem PR man Howard Dean said (that's the stuff he gets paid to say). They're only a small speck within the media, and the media itself is only one part of the whole picture.
As to your misunderstanding of both right wing radio and the United States, the less said the better.
Post a Comment
<< Home