I Hate the Haters

I tried to listen to the radio today.  Made me want to stick something sharp in my eye.

I used to be able to turn on the radio and pleasantly listen to WGN (AM 720) at any time of day, regardless of who was on. But then the "new management" drove my beloved station into the ground.  So since John Williams wasn't on yet, I usually turn to NPR.  They were talking about snowboards.  Really?  They just finished an 11 day pledge drive and the first day back they're talking about snowboarding.  Whatever.  Next.

Let's try music.  I have 11 non-NPR pre-sets in my car, all are music stations.  Nothing on.  Seriously?  I only get about 15 minutes of time in my car where I don't have a four-year-old dictating the radio/music we listen to and there's nothing on.

I hit the SCAN button.  No...  No...  No...  Next...  I don't stop when I hear some guy talking about Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on Chicago's Progressive Radio station...  Next... Next... Oh, I am a sucker for talk radio.  I always want to know where the conversation was going after the 10 second hit I get from the SCAN button.  So two stations after I passed it, I reach over and manually go back to hear what they were saying about Wisconsin.  I have been known to do this same thing when I SCAN past the religious talk stations, too.  I just have to know what the point they were making was going to be.

Now listen here folks, I am a liberal.  Not a crazy liberal, but I really don't hold many conservative positions.  But this guy was impossible to listen to!  He sounded like a liberal version of Rush Limbaugh.  How do you people (of either political stripe)  listen to this?  Who finds this enjoyable? I mean, I basically agreed with most of the points he was making, but it's so acerbic! It literally made me cringe. Why are so many people drawn to radio and TV shows where the whole premise is to point out that they think they people who hold different opinions are completely wrong and are idiots?  (This, coming from someone who was considering naming her blog, "People Are Idiots."  I know.)

I, more than most people I know, LOVE a good debate.  I love to discuss religion, abortion, taxes, politics, you name it, with people who disagree with me.  I don't do it often, because most people HATE to discuss these things.  But even if no one changes their position, I feel I can learn from the discussion.

What I don't understand is listening to hate.  And that's what I hear in most talk radio and 24-hour news today.  Stir people up.  Do that by playing to the things that make them mad.  And that makes me mad.

So after 2 minutes, I had to turn it off.  I drove in silence.  It was really my best option.

Grrr.