Although, I will tell you my friend’s two kids FREAK OUT every time they see me on TV. Something, I’m told, akin to “OMG OMG OMG OMG IT’S SHANNNNNNNNON!!!!”

Which, in the case of too-young-to-talk Henry sounds more like, when translated from baby-ese, “HEY! It’s the one who does Star Wars tauntaun impersonations for my STAR WARS SUPERFAN self! AWESOME!”

Thanks Shannon – really, really well said.

I think we do children a disservice when we simply tell them “X is wrong,” but don’t explain why there are people out there who do X, or put it into context.

If I was explaining this news story to a child, I would put it like this: “Randi Rhodes called two women politicians a word that’s not nice, but she said it because she is very frustrated with the state of the current election process. I’m not saying that’s ok, and there are probably better ways she could have expressed her frustration, but what happened next was very sad, because the company she worked for tried to use what she said against her to gain advantage for themselves. That’s not nice either. You should pay attention to the reasons people do things as well as what they do, because people tell stories about other people to make themselves look better sometimes.”

(or something like that)

It makes sense in a child’s context (hey, kids get the concepts of tattling and lying to make yourself look better very well, I’m sure), it expresses your disapproval with the incident, and it shows them there is not a simple story here, that they should question what they hear and read. What do you think of that?

Of course it’s not cool to call anyone a you know what, but taken in the context of her entire show run as a whole, it’s hardly surprising and at least right now, not the highest priority on my things to worry about list. Bad American’s got it right — it’s nowhere near the nonsense spewed by the idiots on the right hand side of the dial.

I just emailed AAR and asked for a refund on my subscription. Sigh. No more Randi, no more Al Franken…not worth listening any longer.

But then again I was a talk radio jock before I was canned in a political hit over the Iraqi invasion in 2003 and blacklisted from radio ever since. To say I did not go quietly is an understatement.

So I do listen to the lameness that passes for progressive talk radio in this country. Love her or hate her, Rhodes at least set a fire under some people. The only other lefty talkers that do that and I respect are Mike Malloy and Thom Hartmann and occasionally Lynn Samuels when I can get past her grating NYC accent. People like Ed Schultz, Bill Press and Alex Bennett make me want to throw my Sirius radio at Mark Penn. They are thin gruel for true libs.

I haven’t talked about Randi because I don’t do articles about rather immaterial people’s excessive rhetorical profanity. In general terms I disapprove of it as a public display. The f-ing whore is simply profanity there is no connective tissue. Corporate whore gives you context, it makes a specific complaint, whether you agree or not, you know what it is about. I propose that what Randi said is a flat out untruth, I am quite sure that Hillary has never done such a thing and saying it is more than just rude, it is pointlessly rude. Rush and Ann get scant notice from me, a very seldom ridicule mostly for my own amusement.

I sometimes have to remind my construction workers that an occassional f— over a smashed finger is one thing but a steady string of loud profanity as conversation is not good for relations with neighbors. That’s a pretty simple concept for Randi to have ignored so the outcome was pretty predictable and she seems to have landed on her feet.

That makes me 28?

Not at all – I don’t even really know what that means, lol. No. I want people on the SAME side criticizing their own – that’s far more powerful and meaningful. Note that I’ve not mentioned Maggie Thurber – I wouldn’t expect her to necessarily say something about Rhodes – if I don’t listen to Rhodes, why would Maggie (no offense at ALL to Maggie – who I find easy to banter with).

No – I’m upset with the ones center to left of center and beyond.

But I can understand why you might raise it.

But you know me – I don’t really care whether others do or don’t – I want to understand why and what that means.

The pre-occupation with Dann’s situation was abnormal last week – how many times did we need to have the same junk re-hashed, and with NO delving into the hostile environment aspect.

To then have someone like Rhodes call two top tier female politicians what she did…well, that pissed me off.

Anyway – may you live to play poker with Barack Obama some day.