BlatherWatch

Talk radio: will it matter in 2008?

Barack Obama is our candidate, now, and we've been thinking about whether right-wing talk radio and Fox News will help Olde John in 2008, as much as it did George W. Bush in 2004.

We don't think so.

While talk radio can be influential, things have changed radically since those dark days that re-elected George Bush and brought such shame and catastrophe down upon the land.

There's more liberal talk radio
    Air America did not exist in 2004; and Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, Stephanie Miller, Randi Rhodes, Thom Hartmann, Sam Seder, Marc Maron, Mike Malloy, et al. were but local hosts or unknowns. While they're not close to being Big Pants, Hannity or Don Imus, they're competition on the dial to the conservatives, and even within a shrinking industry, progressive radio is growing one talker at a time. We now have a crop of bright, name-recognizable media progressives where there never were before. A good thing.

There's a general downturn in radio, and in talk radio in particular 
    Part of this can be directly attributed to the stink of Bush, the failings of a conservative majority and that the yapping poodles of right-wing media have been so wrong about so much. They've stuck to a political explanation of global warming, powdered Iraq War soft drinks, voodoo fiscal matters, tax cuts for the rich, immigration fear-mongering, Bush's no-policy energy policy; American exceptionalist go-it-alone foreign policy -- they even still claim Bush is competent.The wild-eyed partisan recitations of such GOP apparatchiks as Hannity have left him and his cohort with about the same credibility as the president's... and Arbitron reflects it. As the Democrats come together after the hard primaries, Rush Limbaugh's supposedly monkeywrenching "Operation Chaos" turned out to be as it was intended: a way for Big Pants to get his name in the papers and to be able to piss in a tent from which he's usually excluded.  

Tuesday oddems: vanishing penises; tiny tiny hot tiny; stefan and the hoi polloi; lickspittle bouquets; effervescent candidacies; perfidious pancakes; hulking hope; hot rachel wrapped in the glory; and nothing whatsoever about dori or luke!

~~ Penises Disappear. Excellent commenter Gay Gary sent us this case of Mass Psychogenic Illness in Sudan in 2003. Mass hysteria spread through Khartoum, Sudan caused by rumors via cell phone text messaging of foreigners roaming the city, shaking men's hands, and making their penises disappear. Gary writes, "With the rise of internet-borne consumer generated media, one could imagine the conditions are now ripe for an event of disastrous proportion, especially if intentionally provoked by an organized non-state actor with advanced training in psychology and new media modes and methods."

~~ BlatherMunch, our new Sunday diversion into food and dining, went off with the clamor and uproar of the Phil the Junkie Show (KIRO Sundays, 4-7p) : we thought there'd be gritches and biping from the usual readers who argue that we pay too little attention to either radio, or politics. Not much of a peep out of either side. Our main objective, of course, is to get back on the media A-list for fancy dinners, and restaurant openings.

~~ Can we get busted for this? Seems if you Google, "sex tiny tiny hot tiny boy girl," you get to... BlatherWatch. We know nothing.

~~ Above it all. Stefan "harrumpf" Sharkansky, the stuffy right-winger who owns the official state GOP site Sound Politics.com has returned after a sabbatical. He's posting again, but has turned off the comments;  handing down pronouncements to the quaking believers and hovering over the proceedings like The Almighty. A telling distinction between right and left wing blogs is the way they handle comments: the righties police comments, control the conversation, and tamp down dissension; lefties let it run democratic and free. Stefan has chosen to remain aloof and above reproach.

~~ "If Hillary walked on water, she'd be criticized for not swimming, And if Obama swam, he'd be lauded for being able to do what Hillary couldn't." ~~Chris Lehane

Fox News: porno and censorship; conservatives may rather... prefer rather

Are conservatives disillusioned with and pissed off at Fox News?

Yes, writes Doug Parris, socially conservative blogger (at The Reagan Wing and an Old School paleoconservative who's always trying to out manipulate the state GOP leadership and sometimes succeeds.

Doug is a crazy conservative. Pragmatism, to him, is a concept most foul-- something lower than say, treason or coprolagnia. Compared to Parrish, Stefan Sharkansky looks like Barbra Streisand (We mean politically, but when Stefan puts on pumps, and a little lipstick, there's a Barbranic physical resemblance as well).

We like Doug Parris, and we think, he likes us. We couldn't say why... it's love for all the wrong reasons. He's a good writer, funny, and a little nasty; he sticks it daily into the eye of the Republican Party. Maybe that's it. 

Shark attack: the stranger, l'affaire sharkansky, and the terrible karma of the 15% tip

In  "Shark Attack," a new story in The Stranger, ace reporter Erica Barnett did the due journalistic diligence, and spoke with almost everybody  involved. They even got a picture of Steffany Bell the waitress in the center of this shitzkrieg.

(photo: stefan sharkansky- why is this man laughing? -seattle post intelligencer)

The Sharkanskys public image is still in tatters.

Read Barnett's story here. Read our story here.

Stefan sharkansky: waitress slayer

I just get tired of rich people thinking that they can just do whatever they want, whenever they want. I just hope I don't lose my temp job. I know I will. This is just stupid and I don't know what to do.

It started as an waitress's amusing tale on a blog with few readers. It was about waiting table on dour Republican activist Stefan Sharkansky, his attorney/wife Irene and their 5-year old son at the Fremont Classic Pizzeria & Trattoria.

According to her, (and others who wait on them) the Sharkansky's 5-year-old was often "marginally attended," and permitted to be loud, obnoxious, and run annoyingly free in the dining room.

What's more, the Sharkanskys, she wrote, only tip 10%.

Sounds like trivial gotcha gossip well beneath the majesty of the likes of Sharkansky so often called an "influential Seattle Republican." Right?

Wrong.

Hell hath no fury like parenting scorned! And you don't know vindictive 'til you meet the Sharkanskys! Instead of letting this go and minimizing eyeballs to this trivia, the Sharks turned both barrels on the single mother of two who works two jobs and barely keeps her head afloat.

Puce friday oddems: home on the range; testicle lock box; sharkansky family values; lederhosen news you can use; a thong in our heart; words fail condi; dori, dori, dori

~ Dave Ross's (KIRO m-f, 12-3p) musical intrusion on the live Michael Medved Show (KTTH m-f, 12-3p) Thursday was some very funny radio. Seems Ross was in the studio next door recording a jingle to the tune of "Home On the Range" for Ron Upshaw's (of Ron & Don) blackberry jam. For some reason, the pre-recorded noodling of a Floyd Cramerish piano and Dave's mellifluous baritone singing about blackberry seeds' colonic cleansing properties floated over the national right-wing speechifying by Medved, who, ever the trooper, ever the critic, acknowledged the music, briefly critiqued it (two thumbs down), and went on. It was funny, and enjoyed by all. Dunno (nor care) why Upshaw is selling jam, or why Dave is flacking it. Dori Monson was not involved for once.

~ Happy Puce Friday, the decorators' day off!

~ BlatherWatch is banned in China (also KIRO!) We told you we were cool- we got the word from our blog server just last week. We thought it was only subversive blogs like David Goldstein's (KIRO Sat. Sun., 7-10p) Horses Ass.org who got that distinction from the Chinese commies. We're also banned on Dori Monson's KIRO- the word has come down: we're never to appear over their airwaves, nor is our name ever to be uttered on-air. We are the Blog That None Dare Speak Its Name- but the one everyone reads!

Horse's ass TV: will john mcKay run against jim mcdermott?

Stefan Sharkansky, David Goldstein, and David Postman (3 bearded Jewish bloggers, two of whom are pictured above) will join Robert Mak on Upfront, KING-5's  fine, too brief, local issues  TV magazine, Sunday at 9:30a; and on Northwest Cable News at 8p.

They will discuss, among other things, the hottest of hot Seattle political buzz: that the spectacularly fired former prosecutor, moderate Republican John McKay might run against Rep. Jim McDermott.

We've been saying for years, now, that the Democrats should've challenged Sunny Jim before he blows up somehow or the Republicans get someone humanoid to give him a race.

Friday oddems: SANJAYA RETURNS! plus more bonnevillainous foolishness, erotic endocrinology, astral geography, asstral etymology, boanthropy, nude oniochalasia, your sweet ass, a break-down in sino-goldstein relations and new hope for stefan sharkansky

~ We've finally got a diagnosis for what ails Rush Limbaugh. According to Endocrinologist to the Stars, Dr. Edgar "Choch" Manaña, Big Pants suffers from boanthropy.

~ David Goldstein will be filling in for Frank Shiers tonight (Friday, May 11) from 9p to 1a. At 9, he'll speak with liberal pundit Cliff Schecter about flip-flopping Republicans.

~ Very, very, impressive. We speak of course of KIRO's exclusive, live  coverage of Sanjaya's triumphant return to Federal Way. That's what the Ron & Don Show is for! If you missed it, here's KIRO's Trey Thomas with the hard hitting interview.

~ Attention Stefan Sharkansky and the ambiguously gendered among us: Welcome to safe2pee.org and a handy list of Seattle public loos where gender doesn't matter. 

Alan gottlieb: far right creepy crawler

We were disgusted at reports of the blame-the-victim rants Thursday on the Kirby Wilbur Show (KVI m-f, 5-9a) in the discussion of the Griego murder case.

She's the woman shot in a UW office by a British ex-boyfriend who'd been stalking her. He was in the country illegally.

According to the KVI choir, it was her fault she was shot in the head because she should have turned him in for both being a coke dealer, and an illegal immigrant.

One genius even said "it's her fault he's dead."

Sunday Oddems: Who will Dennis do? what does Bryan suit? where will Lydia lunch? who knows Dick? what's under Stefan's skirt? where will Dori go? Did Mikey eat the whole thing?

~ Dennis Kelly popular program director at Fisher's KVI and KOMO and founder of News Talk Concepts, a radio consulting firm, was hired by new KIRO owners, Bonneville Communications to help choose a Program Director and General Manager for KTTH and KIRO. "Dennis will give us 3 finalists," said our source who would not confirm that the contenders are Monorail guru Joel Horn, former KVI PD Mike Webb, and Spokane talk show host, Mark Fuhrman.