Friday, February 03, 2006

Air America

Here in Santa Barbara, we receive Air America via 1340 am station, a ClearChannel outlet.
We get three hours of Al Franken in midmorning, three hours of Randi Rhodes in late afternoon, Stephanie Miller (I think it is) in early morning, with three hours of a non-Air America personality, Ed Shultz, in between. (Shultz is a liberal, too.) In the evening the lineup reverts to conservative talk, which is what is carried all day and night on the other local ClearChannel station, 990 am.
Franken and Miller are, IMHO, tolerable, Shultz is barely so, and Rhodes is, frankly, unlistenable. In sum, Air America is a bust as a competent alternative to the incessant conservative talk shows. A wasted opportunity, a failed effort in the main.

Two exceptions: Rachel Maddow (who's on our local station only for an hour, between five and six a.m.), and Laura Flanders (weekends).

I received this quote by email recently, attributed to Air America, and it's cute, I gotta admit.

"This year, the State of the Union address and Groundhog Day happened in the same week. It is an ironic juxtaposition of events: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication while the other involves a groundhog."

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