Busy Weekend

The Almighty had a busy weekend.  She had to induce the last Houston Astro batter to chase a 3-2 pitch a foot outside the strike zone to preserve Cub pitcher Carlos Zambrano's no hit, not run gem and move the Cubs close to cinching a play off spot. 

And then she had to reward Barack Obama's White Sox with a double header win to keep them in first  place in their division.

Then she had to punish the Bears for stupidty for failing to get a first down on 2nd and 1 yard to go with 2.01 left in the game.

But first she had to punish Houston for hosting the worse hate filled right wing radio talk shows in the nation.  Now I didn't use to think that the Almighty was so petty and capricious as to punish many innocents to get at the guilty few, but then I listened to what members of the religious right had to say about the cause of New Orleans' distruction by Katrina.  And I thought perhaps I should try to keep an open mind about our so-called natural disasters.  

Being liberal minded, naturally I have a different slant on things, but I feel obligated to assign blame here.  Thanks to Bay Area Houston for the rest of this post.

The Center for American Progress and Free Press today released the first-of-its-kind statistical analysis of the political make-up of talk radio in the United States. It confirms that talk radio, one of the most widely used media formats in America, is dominated almost exclusively by conservatives. “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio” 

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out in Houston. Houston's airwaves is completely dominated by right wing radio. Case in point, KTRH (Keep The Rightwingers Here). KTRH used to be one of the best stations in Houston with the Garden Line with Randy Lemon, Tom Tynan on home improvement, Astros Baseball, news and weather together, and Tom Martino with consumer issues. 

Now KTRH is composed of some of the worst right wing talk radio in the state.

Tom Martino. 9-11. Tom has been a consumer advocate for many years, but has recently branched off into a "Sean Hannity" wannabe with his ranting and raving on social issues. His show has become less about helping people and more about complaining about them.

Rush Limbaugh. 11-2. An overweight loudmouth conservative once addicted to oxycontin. Enough said.

Chris Baker. 2-6. Four hours of sheer (edited thanks to Matt the spelling bee winner) ignorance. Baker, a self proclaimed "independent conservative" is a Republican party hack, too ashamed of his own party to associate himself with it. Baker's style is to bring a very complicated issue down to the level of an idiot. Keep it simple. Keep it wrong. Baker is known for walking off the set of MSNBC after being schooled by another talk show host, calling immigrants "Gimme grants", and Katrina survivors "Katrina Trash" among a list of other things. A real class ass.

Joe Pags. 6-8. Pags comes from God knows where and should return there. He's a fast talking, simple minded conservative hack, who out talks his callers, continually changes the subject when being overrun by facts, or simply cuts off call. Try to get a fact in edgewise.

Dennis Miller. 8-10. Dennis Miller? There is so much wrong with Dennis Miller on KTRH, that saying Dennis Miller is an idiot, is insulting to idiots.