The radio in the gunsmithing shop where I used to work was tuned to the local AM talk station in the mornings for Neal Boortz's show, but it usually got shut off when Boortz went off and Rush came on.
I didn't mind that at all, because I am far from the world's biggest Rush Limbaugh fan. Truth be told, I can't stand him; he's like Howard Stern for guys with mortgages. But when Mark Steyn would guest host, I'd make a point to listen, because I *heart* me some Mark Steyn.
Here he is being all awesome and stuff...
Yeah, it's thirty minutes, but if you're all "Short Attention Span Theater" like me, you can break it down into two chunks.
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34 comments:
Read the book about a year and a half ago. Been depressed ever since.....
The problem with all radio shows is the propensity and insistence to give up large portions of your programming to amateurs that are able to pay a phone bill and like to hear their voice come out of the radio. The biggest thing I admire about Rush is his ability to effectively handle this species of our countrymen, the 'Call-in Boobus Americanus.'
If only all radio show hosts were as good.
Unlike one of his host compatriots, Rush avoids saying the word "Literally" less than 80 times an hour.
But yes, Steyn is easy to listen to on the monologues.
I would have agreed with you about the Boortz vs. Limbaugh comparison. I thought Boortz was a libertarian-leaning conservative.
That was before I heard Boortz advise a caller how to snitch to the IRS. Also, recently he expressed glee that the idiot cop used a taser on a non-violent streaker at a ball game. The more I listen to Boortz, the more examples of anti-freedom ideas leak out from his microphone.
His "libertarian" principles run very shallow. Sure, he might be better than Rush in many ways, but I think it's worse to have someone who purportedly represents the libertarian position who undermines real application of the principles of freedom.
I'm no fellow traveller with Boortz, but I find him a more enjoyable entertainer.
Marky is pretty fab in any forum, I'm glad he get's a cahnce to guest host anywhere.
How can such a sensible, non-blow-hard guy like Mark Steyn be a stand-in for Limbaugh?
I'm so averse to Limbaugh's golden microphone rants, that I hadn't ever heard Steyn before, at length. Good stuff.
It is an "FM" station. 100k, Class "C" broadcasting from 3800 feet above the Tennessee Valley. Give 'ya a tour of the Xmiter sometime if ya want.
Steyn is nothing more than a court jester. His book is quite ridiculous. (judging from the excerpts )
See this review.
http://www.johannhari.com/2007/03/09/-america-alone-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-by-mark-steyn
Steyn apparently cannot probably appreciate anything to do with counting or ratios.
What was that you said once when you were reading that the first time? "From zero to jackboots..."
(Actually, I had the exact opposite reaction to hearing Steyn as a talk radio guy - just like with Victor Davis Hanson's current events essays - it seems to me their "high brow/intellectual cred" gets trashed once they get into the gutter of daily politics. It makes it too easy for half the country to dismiss everything they're saying as "oh, just another of those wingnut loons" rather than listen to the arguments they make on their merits.
I agree re: Limbaugh. It is funny how he rails against drugs so often, yet is a drug abuser himself.
To Elliot: I don't have a problem with tasing the ball game streaker, even from a libertarian standpoint. Not only was he resisting arrest AND violating the property rights of the stadium owner and ball club, but he was violating the rights of the thousands of fans who paid to watch a ball game, not an idiot streaker.
IMO, this is no different than the "Don't tase me, bro" guy- why should one person who is disrupting the event and refusing to leave when instructed be given greater weight than the thousands of others there? The easy way to not get tased is to 1) not trespass, 2) leave when instructed, 3) not resist when being arrested for failing at #1 and #2.
Außenseiter...
Johann Hari. Really?
The man's an idiot and is a complete stranger to logic.
He used to be a favourite for fisking on UK blogs but shooting fish in a barrel gets boring really quickly.
AuBenseiter,
Quoting Johann Hari in a review of Steyn's book does not give your comment any credibility whatsoever. Of course he would trash Steyn, a conservative, because Hari is very much a leftist (notice I did not use the term "liberal", because most people who are considered liberals these days are far from the traditional definition). Go back to the "The Nation" online or Huffpo and soak up some more of Johann's blather and stop wasting your time trying to start something here.
nbc,
So, great minds DO think alike!
Außenseiter,
Sorry, kid, you're all wet.
My grownup friends from your side of the puddle seem to agree.
(...and I'd read Hari's "review", which largely amounts to "Lalalalalala Ican'thearyou!" back when it first came out. It's just as dumb now. Thanks for playing, though.)
The part about a society of permanant adolescents was chilling.
That really is how the Nanny State and elites work.
And "self neutering of the multiculturism mindset".
Limbaugh is friggin' hilarious. His insight and his ability to be able to be able to see the core of any situation is light years beyond most other people. He is a brilliant commentator, whether you like him or not he is one of the best in the business period.
Divemedic, when, since 1993, has Limbaugh 'railed about drugs' on his radio program?
The logical extension of this is that some practical energy program that gets America off imported oil should be priority 0 for all funding and other resoures, if America wants to maintain sovereignty. (Ironic choice of word for the subject (heh) but there it is.)
Jim
I'm a Dittohead. And Rush hasn't railed about drugs for years. He even admitted that he was wrong in his opinions about addiction.
There exist hardcore true believers of Rush, Medved, Boortz, Savage, Hewitt, Steyn, Coulter, et al.
I disagree with all of them about some things, some about most things. But they are all doing more to bring people to fiscal conservatism than am I, so I just let them do their jobs, and I concentrate on doing mine. Hell, takes most of my energy just to do that. Thankfully, radios have knobs.
Steyn is amusing and has the kind of voice that makes certain types of women involuntarily disrobe, butlike Rush and the others, he's all question and no answer, for my dollar. I'd like to hear someone with actual, workable, solutions. I'm still listening.
Og,
Rush and the other conservative radio hosts are not in the business of providing solutions. That is what politicians are for.
The host's/commentator's job is first to entertain (if you don't like to listen, for whatever reason, then that is failure right off the bat).
Second, is to point out what is being done incorrectly or improperly. In other words, to shine a light on the subject.
Third, is to define the problem as clearly as possible. Then people have a basis from which to start developing a solution, or at least to recognize if a proposed solution is workable.
Fourth, is to point out WHY a conservative position is better.
Some people have suggested that Rush and the others should run for office. Most have stated that they are not suited for a politicians job. Plus, they are much more effective doing what they are good at. In addition, they would have to take a pay cut, since they would probably not be inclined to play the patronage game most politicians end up doing. In some cases, an astronomical pay cut!
@Tam
Hari may be a boob in many ways, but unless he has been making up stuff about that Steyn's book and criticizing that, I cannot a critical flaw in his review.
Steyn is an entertainer, not a thinker, and what Hari has against his book is pretty reasonable.
Few of the assertions Steyn makes hold up. Especially the one about demographics, and the one about Muslims being a monolithic Sharia-seeking group. EU as a bloc will have to cut welfare in the next decade.
Sure, there will be a political struggle over welfare and immigrant rights, but it is a safe bet to assume Europe will turn less tolerant of troublesome cultural aliens as it gets poorer.
Only way his visions could come to pass would be if business as usual continued in Europe for the next fifty years. Take a look at treasury bond outlooks of Western EU and you'll see they can't.
@Will
Politicians providing solutions?
:D
That's a good one.
Will: Any two bit hack can stand on a soapbox and tell me what is wrong. I could go to my boss and bitch at him about what is wrong with this or that or the other, and my job would last ten minutes, and I'd be unemployed.
Amateurs whine about problems.
Professionals provide solutions.
Divemedic, when the taser was introduced to law enforcement, authorities claimed that it was to be used as a "non-lethal" alternative to using a gun or other more lethal force.
By that reasoning, the idiot cop could have been justified in shooting the streaker with a gun.
Please note that the taser is not actually non-lethal. In rare cases, people do die. If LEOs honestly only used tasers in cases where guns would be justified, one could argue that even a small risk of death is preferable to being shot.
But the reality is that LEOs routinely use tasers in an inappropriate fashion, even on old people, disabled people, and children. In many situations, they aren't reasonably justified in doing this. LEOs are supposed to be able to handle people in a professional manner, including using reason and, if necessary, physically restraining a smaller, weaker person without resorting to sadistic methods. And, if they're afraid for their safety, they shouldn't have become a cop in the first place. Fire the cowards who can't handle such situations.
The problem is that LEOs have become unaccountable, paramilitary automatons. They know that people like you will defend their inappropriate use of force ("don't tase me bro") and that they can do what they want.
I'm disgusted that you, or anyone else, could look at either situation and decide that "law and order" must be maintained, that not disrupting other people's "enjoyment" is of such a paramount importance that thuggish violence ought to be used to expedite the resolution.
This is the mindset that has led to SWAT teams swarming into the homes of non-violent suspects, risking the lives of innocent bystanders (like children), murdering family pets, and generally escalating a non-violent situation into a very violent one. Despite what apologists might argue, this happens hundreds of times a day.
Police are supposed to be professional and display exemplary behavior. They are supposed to be brave and strong, not cowards. They are supposed to use reason and restraint to resolve problems and defuse situations before they get violent, not inject unnecessary violence into them. And, most of all, they ought to be held to a higher standard than the rest of us, not given a free pass to do things that would put us in prison for years.
Außenseiter,
"...but it is a safe bet to assume Europe will turn less tolerant of troublesome cultural aliens as it gets poorer."
nb. Jenn's post regarding my several-year-old comment about Yuropeen's habit of going "from zero to jackboots".
We'll soon be seeing how interesting these times are, but only in US TeeWee sitcoms does everything return to status quo ante at the end of the episode.
Elliot,
You plopped your copypasta in the wrong post.
@Tam
One thing the Steyn gets right in his book is, that in Europe, some topics are simply untouchable in politics.
Then he follows it with pearls like that islam is a refuge from the slatternly image of post-feminist Western
womanhood.
US isn't much better, what preoccupies politicals is mostly ridiculous social stuff. No one does anything constructive regarding the energy situation.
50 years ago, US developed a nuclear bomb in about, what, four years. Today, you can't even build a proper nuclear power plant in that time.
Tam, your place your rules. My comment section is open for responses, in case Divemedic or anyone else is interested.
Truth be told, I can't stand him; he's like Howard Stern for guys with mortgages.
That's pretty dang funny, Tam. I won't listen to either of them.
John Venlet, I didn't get the "guys with mortgages" quip. I just don't see a Howard fan switching over to Rush because he gets a mortgage. The two talk shows' attributes are so orthogonal, I don't see any way to line them up, beyond the trivial facts that they have huge market shares and are both arrogant.
To me, that makes as much sense as saying that Sex in the City is like Gilligan's Island for women who live near the beach.
Say what?
Elliot,
1) It's a joke. Not everybody is going to find every joke amusing.
2) I'm referring to the fact that both entertainers (for that is what they are) exist to... you know, if you have to explain a joke, it's just not funny. About fifty percent of the people I've used that line on chuckle, and the other half just don't dig it, and either one's cool.
Oh, and:
"Tam, your place your rules."
Sorry, I had not noticed the thread drift comments about the ballgame gate crasher. My bad.
Eliot,
Just saw your note. Tam took care of it, and her explanation makes the quip less humorous, though it still makes me chuckle.
My Howard Stern listening friend thought it was funny, too, but then I didn't have to explain it to him. Fifty-fifty chance I guess.
I hate to be that guy who spoils the fun, especially for such a simple quip.
I'll shut up now.
Can't stand Steyn. He HA HAHA starts WAAAAAA laughing at HAHAHAH his own chortle chortle chortle jokes while he is BWAAAAAH telling them. Usually they don't make sense. He is a great writer and I enjoy him there. But he has a voice for print material.
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