I hate when I buy a new car because the old car is eight years old and we MIGHT have to make a lot of trips back and forth to Houston sometime in the future so I buy a new car and the extra extended warranty to cover the entire term of the note and then a week before we DO have to start going back and forth to Houston some dumb bitch rear-ends that car at a stop light and it's in the shop getting fixed right at the time we have pre-surgical appointments and surgery followed by rechecks galore all in Houston- the very reasons I got it in the first place.
I hate that.
So we have this rental car while my new car is getting fixed.
It's a 2013 Chevy Malibu and we all hate it. It's too low to the ground and all of us are bumping our heads getting in and out (even ME). Poor Sparky is folded into the back seat like a road map. It feels too light and unsafe.
Actually, we don't hate EVERYTHING about it.
It has heated seats. Those are incredible. Which is weird because I HATE heating pads and electric blankets but LOVE the heated car seats.
And it has satellite radio.
Ward loves that.
So on our first road trip in the rental car, we turned on "politics" and "left" and waited for the shows we never get to hear...because on the entire spectrum of that whole "left wing liberal agenda slanted media" regular everyday radio, except for some intermittent stuff on PBS, the only talk shows on the air are fucking Rush, Bill and Sean, plus the whole Bethlehem's stable-full of preachers. And they're all batshit crazy insane hateful fear mongers.
They're also ugly.
But I digress.
So we were listening liberal talk radio. Stephanie Miller is awesome.
Thom Hartmann was OK, but a little annoying.
Ed Schultz? Unbelievable.
And not in a good way.
We watch The Ed Show pert near every night and enjoy it both content and host.
On the radio? Holy shit.
Ed hollers at his callers. He hollers at his guests. He sounds for all intents and purposes like Rush.
Wanna know the most disturbing parts?
The advertisements.
Not just the sheer bulk of 'em- 10 minutes of ads for 5 minutes of show- but the content!
How can a left-leaning station advocate a "child re-training program"- to turn your teen back into that adoring obedient toddler you loved and who thought you knew everything???
Script was something like "Has your child turned from a loving toddler into a surly, angry, argumentative teen? Wouldn't you give anything to have that obedient child back? We can show you how to re-train your child!"
(Voice from the back seat of our car- "OR you could just ask your kid what's bothering him and why he's so damn angry...") No shit.
How horrifying. I want my kids to learn to think for themselves, not be little copies of me. Sure that means
Equally frustrating was Ed himself in one commercial...hawking GOLD.
What the fucking hell?
The same goddamn advertisers on both sides of the spectrum.
I know, I know- they're not newscasters (there are precious few of those now), they're opinion commentators...all of them.
The difference (at least in our house) is that we take what the commentators say as a starting point- something to spark interest and a spot to start our own research in order to form our opinion on something. Do we end up agreeing with them more often than not? Yep. But we make sure it's true, first.
Those who listen to Rush et al seem to take every word as commissioned from God Himself and go no farther- it just gets imbedded into their brains as Truth. Because they're either not checking shit out or they flat don't care if it's complete bullshit as long as it fits their comfort zone of what they want reality to be. On accounta 95% of what spews out of right-wing-world radio can be debunked in about 5 minutes of fact checking.
So some of the satellite stuff is great, some is informative, and Ed- sorry buddy, but I just cannot listen to you on the radio. I'm sure he'll lose sleep over that.
The Classic Vinyl station totally makes up for it, though.
And the heated seats.
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