My Local Media Market

We swapped Bill O'Reilly for sports-talk. Good deal for us.

WJFK (106.7 FM) yesterday dropped Bill O'Reilly's nationally syndicated show, "The Radio Factor," and replaced it with a sports-talk program hosted by Jim Rome. O'Reilly, an avowed independent who takes many conservative views, occupied a two-hour afternoon slot on WJFK.

The popular Fox News Channel TV host never attracted much of a radio following in Washington -- in the most recent ratings period, his program had about 1.2 percent of the audience. But then, neither have many other conservatives, whose programs are popular in many cities but barely move the ratings needle in the Washington area, the nation's eighth-largest radio market."

From The Washington Post.

Obama's Gonna Win

The General

got a little bit of the bad taste of Imus out of my mouth. Drop by and see each of the lovely young women that the disgusting creeps who will do anything for money tried to soil. This is the perfect post.

And MSNBC has dropped him permanently from the teevee.

Maryland, My Maryland

I am so proud of my adopted state.

Today our son, Hall of Famer Cal Ripkin Jr.cancelled his scheduled appearance on Don Imus'show today. On the other hand Comic Bill Maher, CBS News political analyst Jeff Greenfield and former Carter administration official Hamilton Jordan all showed up.

In other good news Maryland became the first state in the nation to have a state-wide "living wage" law, or will when the Governor signs it. "The bill, as revised, sets up two pay grades for the workers - at least $11.30 an hour in the Baltimore-Washington corridor and $8.50 an hour in rural areas."

Digby

Profound as always.

The Administration's Creepiest

amongst a sea of creepy. Stephen Hadley, National Security Advisor to the President, is one of the few of Bush's Very Special Advisors who doesn't have a purdy mouth. He was bloviating on George Stephanopoulis' show this morning and, as usual, I can't focus on his words. It is too disturbing thinking about what he likes to do under the covers late at night. That innocent boyish face just makes it worse. I'm going to wash out my eyes with bleach now.

Perfect!

The flat tire from last night has been replaced by a new affordable one. The mail brought three magazines: Interweave Knits bringing the promise of spring, The Nation reminding me that vigilance is the price of liberty, and Poets @ Writers with a lovely picture of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. And not a single bill. The snow is gently falling. Every forecast tells me that tomorrow the sleet will be very dangerous, that the folks responsible for maintaining the roads are begging me to stay home tomorrow.

I think I will.

Jack Bauer and the Aqua Teen Hunger Force

One of the Problems With Blogs

is one of their strengths. They pick up links and repeat them across the spectrum of readers. This allows information to be spread near and far, to corners that only have a weekly newspaper that shows the wreck of the week on the front page. Information and even facts are really accessible.

People have come to view blogs as personal publishing devices, the modern-day equivalent of a private printing press. But the ubiquity of the blog denies the power of the printing press to any single blog.

I have a notion that original thought might be published on blogs but that any worthwhile thoughts are likely to be swallowed up in the vast swamp of mediocrity. I don't know a good way through the jungle today, but I hope that most of the vanity blogs go to myspace. It would be wonderful if somebody started a meta-blog linking to actual thoughts, but I am not optimistic.

Bill Moyers on the Media

Bill Moyers, the most sensible man I know, spoke last Friday at the opening of the National Conference on Media Reform.

"As ownership gets more and more concentrated, fewer and fewer independent sources of information have survived in the marketplace; and those few significant alternatives that do survive, such as PBS and NPR, are under growing financial and political pressure to reduce critical news content and to shift their focus in a mainstream direction, which means being more attentive to establishment views than to the bleak realities of powerlessness that shape the lives of ordinary people."

Here's the transcript or you can listen to his remarks.

Gerald R. Ford, The Last Chapter

A friend reminded me that we may, indeed, make fun of the dead even before they are planted. And Attaturk, substituting for Atrios, did it beautifully. He also relates Chris Matthews, henceforth known only as Tweety, as saying on the teevee

"The last time I talked to President Ford he was lying down much like he is now."

I'm just grateful that I'm not fighting the funeral traffic.