Liberal tools

So I'm listening to the FM talk radio station here in Des Moines.  Like the AM talk radio station, it's a passing effort to offer national conservative radio personalities in the DM area, often on time-delay.  The upshot is I get to listen to Sean Hannity in the evenings, whereas in Minneapolis, I was only able to follow him in the afternoons because I had joined the "job mobility program", courtesy of our President, whom never met spending he didn't like, except of course defense spending.

Anyway, I left work early today.  I listened to one of Des Moines' more liberal-- er, progressive radio personalities, Chris Bradshaw.  He goes solely by "Bradshaw", like he's Madonna or Cher or something.  Big thinking for a small, closed mind.

Bradshaw's guest today was a lady from the Iowa Atheists & Freethinkers (IAF) organization.  Talk about snark and elitism!  Her organization promotes what she called "non-confrontational" reminders that not every one believes in a supreme being or beings.  Well, thank you, Ms. Obvious!  One of the rah-rah cheerleader callers told a story of how when he was going through a rough patch in his life, and his boss said how he and his wife would pray for the troubled employee.  The caller said how he "politely" told his boss just to keep him in his thoughts, as he was an atheist.  He said his boss, a devout Catholic, was stunned.

I'll bet.  He was probably stunned that the guy would be such an anti-religious douchebag!

If a friend or colleague said they were going to offer a prayer for me to God or Allah or Kali or Buddha, I would simply say thanks.  There's no attempt by them to prosleytize to me, to get me to convert to their religion.  I regard it as a kindness of them and their religion that they're willing to pray for me.  It's an indication that some organized religions are more evolved than the anti-God folks would have people believe.  These religions can co-exist.  If an atheist told me they'd keep me in their thoughts, I'd say thanks.  I wouldn't demand that they make it a prayer.  That's being a jerk.

The IAF lady continued with her laying out her organization's viewpoints:  If you sneeze, you shouldn't say "God bless you" or "Bless you" because of the phrase's origins in the notion that the soul was thought to momentarily escape.  Give me a break!  These so-called free-thinkers must have a lot of free time on their hands to worry about shit like this.  I normally say Gesundheit to those around me when they sneeze, but I envision the following conversation with one of these anti-God acolytes:

THEM:  "Ach-hoo!"
ME:  "Bless you."
THEM:  "Thanks, but I'm an atheist."
ME:  "Oh.  Well, I take it back then.  Does 'screw you' work better?"
THEM:  "You don't have to be a jerk about it!"
ME: "You mean like you just did?"
THEM:  "I'm just politely reminding you that my beliefs don't reflect yours."
ME: "Do me a favor and pronounce 106 as a cardinal number."
THEM: "One hundred and six?"
ME: "You just made my point.  It's actually one hundred six.  The "and" is used to signify a decimal point.  The majority of people say it incorrectly, yet I typically refrain from correcting them."
THEM:  "How is that even the same thing?"
ME: "It shows how I can be tolerant of someone being wrong on the facts more than you can be tolerant on a matter of faith and opinion.  The majority of the people alive on this planet believe in some higher being or beings, yet you demand they conform to your minority viewpoint."


Bradshaw, to his credit, espoused a more go-with-the-flow attitude, hoping the guy with the "Darwin fish" and the guy with the "NASCAR sticker" could just co-exist without anybody getting their cars keyed.  The lady from IAF said how she actually is a Jeff Gordon fan, shattering Bradshaw's crude stereotype of the right versus the left.  As the interview concluded, Bradshaw made a remark about how Ms. IAF talking-head shouldn't hold out hope that Jeff Gordon would become her dream man, as he is already married with kids.  I think Mr. Bradshaw couldn't help himself with his parting remark:  "Wait a minute, is he a Republican?  Then you might have a shot."

Hmm, despite being an enlightened liberal-progressive-socialist-marxist-whatever, Mr. Bradshaw failed to learn from his very-recent lesson on the dangers of stereotypes.  Is it a learning disability?  Is he blind to the number of Democrats embroiled in sex scandals?  John Edwards fathered a bastard while on the campaign trail and while his wife simultaneously battled breast cancer and stood by her husband.  The facts of the scandal are slowly trickling out, but all indications are that this guy is the sleaze-ball ambulance-chaser I've always thought him to be. And how about Eliot Spitzer?  Though the woman he cheated on was a much better looker than most of these political mistresses are, the fact is she's a hooker.  She spreads her legs for money.  She's a common whore.  Then there's Mr. Woods, his line of "conquests", and his club-wielding wife.

The common thread between these individuals and scandal-ridden Republicans such as Mark Sanford and John Ensign is narcissism, and neither side holds the monopoly on that.  It's an unfortunate by-product of such ego-centric occupations as politicians, star athletes, and high-priced actors.

Back on topic:  In the evenings, there's an hour-long program called "The Fallon Forum", hosted by a husband-wife pair of "progressive" political activists.  Their advertisements talk about restoring civility to politics.  Haven't listened to them too much (just on the short car ride from my apartment to the fitness center when it's too cold to walk), but they're apparently not up on current events.  Ed Fallon commented on Michael Savage, whose time-slot follows the Fallon Forum, playing an undated clip from the host in which he told a "sodomite" that he hoped he "choked on it."  Fallon remarked with amazement how Savage still was on the air.

Like I said, the clip was undated, and that's important.  It was incendiary, to be sure, and Savage crossed the line.  But what Fallon either didn't know or misrepresented is that Savage made the remarks on his short-lived MSNBC show years ago, and he was fired for it.  Savage maintains he was set up, that unlike his radio program where he's got control over the callers, he was forced to sit and endure the taunting of a prankster caller.  Where the call screener was during all of this is unclear.

I occasionally listen to Savage, and I'll grant he's very conservative, but he has the facts on his side.  I've never had it explained to me how that's a bad thing.