BlatherWatch

Laura ingraham news you can lose...

~~ What's in the water in Seattle...? There's something going on in the Pacific Northwest that I can't explain, that I don't think any of us can explain. ... they're so politically correct, gone so far around the bend, Bill, that even the Muslims think they're crazy." ~~ Laura Ingraham to Bill O'Reilly, June 24.

~~ Michael Medved is strangely silent about "celebrity bastard babies" when it comes to Laura Ingraham's recent adoption of a 3-year old girl from Guatemala. Usually, when a celebrity who's single and decides to adopt or have children, the Wizard of Politics and Culture goes off on a tirade about the righteousness of bi-gendered, bi-parental parenting, by golly. But not, apparently, if the celebrity is a hot-looking, blonde, single woman who happens to be a religious, conservative talk host with a law degree. ~~ Edgar "Choch" Manaña, media critic

There is no cure for the common scold apparently, so after a 20 days of radio silence in a contract dispute, Laura Ingraham (KKOL m-f, 6-9a) will return today, June 30.

Didn't seem that long, unfortunately -- what with her new weekdaily, Just In...with Laura Ingraham (Fox News m-f, 2p PST) which, as our pals over at NewsHounds have said FNC made unabashedly right-wing in order to balance Sean Hannity.

But seriously, folks... Laura took the place of John Gibson who was fired in April and exiled to the Devil's Island that is his radio show's tiny market share.

Laura's new show, which we watch because we're very ill and have a pathological need to do it so you won't have to, is even more appalling than you'd imagine.

BlatherMunch17: spring hill

Spring Hill
4437 California Avenue SW; Seattle

Spring Hill? It was a mine disaster, wasn't it? (I said it in that peculiar didactic way I have which turns everything into Trivial Pursuit, and makes normal people want to excuse themselves).

A British "progressive" school? I offered obliquely. The town in Oregon where Ken Kesey lived? I said cutely. A cheap, sweet wine favored by teenage girls? I persisted...

(None of the above guesses were anywhere near correct in the context of restaurants in Seattle, showing that my age and experience belies my surprisingly limited deductive skills, and dataset).

(photo: Chef Mark Fuller)

Turns out this sleek West Seattle restaurant is named after Spring Hill Pond, the euphemistic name for the swamp that once graced where The Junction of California & Alaska Streets which now defines the spiritual, if not retail center of West Seattle. Sitting there, we remembered where we were when a roughly dressed crowd inquired of the hostess, "Denny, party of 10?"

Al Franken fights from behind in minnesota

Despite former Air America talk host Al Franken's nomination on the first ballot as the DFL (Democratic) Party's candidate for U.S. Senate. Minnesota voters favor the incumbent Norm Coleman by double digits.

And they favor Barack Obama by even wider margins over Olde John. Coleman led Franken 51% to 41% in the Senate race. Obama was up 54 percent to McCain's 37%.

Moreover, Democrats are worried that if independent, erstwhile pro wrestler, ex-governor, and fractious blowhard Jesse Ventura decides to get in, as he's threatening, Franken would suffer even more vote erosion. A recent poll gave Ventura 24%  despite he's not even running.

The peabody in bill o'reilly's closet

Bill O'Reilly again made a lame attempt Thursday at Olbermanning another of his many nemeses, this time it was PBS's Bill Moyers for receiving Peabody Awards.

The Peabody is broadcast journalism's most esteemed award given each year by the University of Georgia.

We're not sure why Billo brought this up today -- he's vulnerable on the subject, as we'll explain -- besides, the awards came out in April and Moyers didn't get one this year.

Billo claimed, "Seems like our buddy Moyers wins one of these every few minutes, and we're happy for him."

(Far as we can see, Moyers has received just one Peabody: a lifetime award in 2003).

So happy in fact, Billo and his crack staff (staff crack?) did some digging into the "political leanings of the Peabody Board."

 

Austin jenkins ascends to TVW dizzying heighths

Austin Jenkins, 37, as ubiquitous is as donuts in Seattle media was named today as the new host of TVW's Inside Olympia.

Jenkins is a reporter for public radio's Northwest News Network and Crosscut.

The long-running show has been hosted since January when Dave Ammons left by Jenkins and Seattle Times reporter David Postman, 55.

(photo: Jenkins interviewing blue spruce in a red state)

TVW (the 'W' stands for wonk) is the state's premier political wonk-teevee channel viewed by 100's each month.  .

The competition was ugly between the two for the show, considered the "crown jewel" of TVW, and the apex of any Olympia political reporter's career.

Postman reportedly rinsed the gray highlights from his hair and a picked a very public fight with blogger David Goldstein in order to enhance his status. Jenkins added gray highlights and launched an indepth and riveting public radio six-part series Lentils: Legumes With an Agenda chronicling how money from the Palouse lentil crop is funneled into the state Republican Party.

(photo: Postman, unfortunately highlighted)

The lentils impressed, and TVW bigwigs said "Amen!" to Jenkins.

In January, Postman will go back to hosting another TVW show, Olympia On Call which examines the hookers who relocate in the capitol during the annual bi-annual legislative sessions.

Barack Obama: no fairness doctrine!

Right-wing broadcasters have been trilling and tremulating for a week that the Democrats were bringing back the Fair-mess Doctrine to choke off their mighty Windpipe of Freedom -- talk radio.

Turns out: it's just another red herring brought out in the election cycle because the Republicans have no bigger fish to fry --and they can use the money that scaring the ditto-heads can bring.

Maybe some Democrats dream of re-installing the Doctrine, but one very important Democrat does not: Barack Obama.

 He put a fork in the fear-monger$ Wednesday saying the issue continues to be used as a distraction from more pressing media business.

"He considers this debate to be a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible," press secretary Michael Ortiz told Broadcasting & Cable's John Eggerton.

Can Luke Burbank Make A.M. Radio Cool Again?

A brilliant profile of Luke Burbank and Too Beautiful to Live in Seattle magazine:

Luke Burbank lives a blessed life. He’s got his own radio show on KIRO-AM 710, Seattle’s mightiest, highest-rated AM news talk station, where he can do anything he wants and be exactly who he is. What’s more, he has every male radio host’s dream: a female sidekick who gets paid to laugh at his jokes...

Read the rest here.

(photo: Richard Darbonne)

Michael Medved: remembering dead gays killed by Nazis is 'misleading political correctness'

Holocaust-denying is OK, if it's not your homeys who got massly murdered.

After a memorial to the gay victims of the Nazis was inaugurated in Berlin last month, Michael Medved, the syndicated, vegetarian, neoconservative talk host, wrote on his TownHall Mcblog:

"This commemoration follows a longstanding, misleading attempt to depict homosexuals as prime targets of Hitler. In fact, even historical material released with the memorial noted only 'an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 gay men deported to concentration camps' –and by no means all of them were killed."

But Michael "forgot" to include the sentence preceding the estimated numbers in the AP article: "Nazi Germany declared homosexuality a threat to the German race and convicted some 50,000 homosexuals as criminals."

Even so: Isn't 10-15,000 hauled off to the camps enough to remember in stone, Michael?

Maybe they weren't dead enough.

The tiny memorial (see photo above) is dwarfed by a massive one to Jewish Holocaust victims just across the road. A commenter writes to Medved: "The Holocaust Memorial occupies nearly 5 acres, and consists of 2700 slabs; the gay victims memorial consists of one slab, equivalent in size to one of the largest Holocaust Memorial slabs, and occupies a space equivalent to the living room in your house."

Dori monson pies the i-man

As if aligned with the Death Star, Don Imus did it again, Monday. Another a nihilarious "racially freighted" remark on the air.

On his morning show, when one of Imus' on-air partners discussed Dallas Cowboys cornerback Adam Pacman Jones' legal troubles, Imus asked, "What color is he." When told that Jones is African-American, Imus said, "Well, there you go. Now we know."

(Imus: go away you nasty old man)

After his spectacularly stupid and piggish racist/sexist remarks about black women college basketball players in 2007, he was fired by MSNBC, and CBS Radio. He came back to radio on WABC, the big NY talker last December.

After the new gaffe, Imus,  67, says he was "misunderstood." In an e-mail to the NY Times, Imus wrote: “I meant he was being picked on because he’s black.’’

We'll never know, we suppose, what's in Imus' heart, and who cares? He ought to go home to his ranch and leave us alone. We for one are sick of talking about whether Don Imus meant what he said.

At a theater near you... run, run!

(Hat tip: Mercifurious).
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