Tuesday, Tuesday . . . consult script - oh. Right. A few dashed-off comments, and a link.

Over at fraterslibertas.com, the Elder posted a note about Michael Savage, stating what I’d felt the first time I heard his show: Good LORD, man, shut up. Never mind the voice, which switches between a needling sneer and hoarse loutish shouting; never mind the six-foot-wide brush he uses to smear anyone who disagrees with him. (You’re a commie doper hippie gay-loving scumbag. Yes, you.) If you shoved six ounces of meth up each of Archie Bunker’s nostrils and jammed a roman candle up his hindquarters, you’d get this braying ass, and I’d rather go over Niagara Falls in a barrel with a greased Molly Ivins than listen to his show.

But I can’t escape the promos. They’re funny, really, because each one has some stupid inaccuracy - one celebrated baseball as an example of the free market, the other described Ed Asner as “Ed Asinine” (haw, haw) and called him the founder of People for the American Way. And so on. You get the impression of someone who decided long ago that his Brilliant Mind and Piercing Epiphanies obviated the need for research and preparation - after all, research would only confirm what he already knows, which is that he’s always correct.

Who wants to be yelled at for three hours because you don’t realize how bad things are? There are, of course, other options. If you want to skip to the point of this entry, click here - otherwise the next few grafs linger over some talk radio hosts I enjoy. You’ve been warned.


I don’t listen to Limbaugh - a bomb could go off in New York on Sunday morning and come Monday, he’d talk about the last golf tournament he was in. I listen to Ian Punnit, who’s a friend of mine - he has a daily obituary feature that picks out some story from the wires, and tells a tale of a life both ordinary and extraordinary, and at the end of it you always want to be a better person, the sort of person Ian would send off with a note of sadness, admiration, and exhilaration at the wonderful things one life can contain. (Me, I’ll probably be boiled down to “sat on his ass for four decades and wrote.” Maybe I’ll be lucky and go down on a plane full of nuns and scientists, and I’ll get into heaven in the confusion at the gate.) There’s Hugh Hewitt, a smart and decent fellow, he has guests from both ends of the spectrum, knows the blogworld well and, ahem, plugs Your Humble Narrator from time to time. I met him a few weeks ago when he came to town - he’s a Regular Guy, a Good Sport, and not a trace of artifice or ego. And I’m not just saying that because he reads this page from time to time. Hi, Hugh!

There’s Dr. Laura, and I “love” her show in the sense that I “love” having hot knitting needles hammered up my urethra.

In the afternoon I listen to Dennis Prager, who’s thoughtful and respectful. Today he was reading a letter from a reader, and he said “if this isn’t true, someone please call and tell me,” and I thought: I detect the vanguard aroma of an Internet hoax. He went on to read the letter: a fellow was watching Sunday morning Disney cartoons with his daughter, and on came the classic tale of the Grasshopper and the Ant. But the child said “this isn’t how it’s supposed to go,” because in this version the Grasshopper did not suffer for his prodigal ways, he was welcomed into the ant colony and took his part in the society as a provider of music.

I could tell what had tweaked both the writer and Prager - in this new PC version, the Grasshopper suffered no consequences, and we all learned the lesson of belonging to the happy collective. Why, another fine moral lesson defanged, another hard lesson dumbed down.

Well, I know that cartoon, and it’s from the 30s. Granted, there may have been Red penetration of the Disney studios back then, but I don’t think this cartoon was a sly piece of propaganda for Uncle Joe. Not to say the cartoons aren’t without a political whiff now and then - in “Mickey’s Moving Day” from 1936, the plucky Mouse is living with Donald and Goofy, and they’re evicted because they haven’t paid the rent for months. It’s odd now to think of Mickey as being poor, but remember, back then he wasn’t the denatured squeaker he is today, but Everymouse. He had a lot more personality. He got pissed; he punched Donald; he obviously tried to evade the mean old law in “Moving Day.” If it was an unacceptable act of propaganda to sympathize with those in the Depression who fell behind on their rent, fine, call Mickey up before HUAC and be done with it.

Anyway. The Grasshopper, in this cartoon, does indeed rejoin the ants. It’s a cartoon. You want him to die? What counts most is the song he sings all through the pit’cher: “Oh, the World Owes Me a Livin’” is the prominent lyric. After he’s staggered to the ant colony’s door, frozen and hungry, he’s revived and realizes the errors of his way. He literally changes his tune, and as the cartoon ends, he sings “Oh, I Owe the World A Livin’.”

Not exactly a corrupting message for Today’s Youth.

Ever you wonder who calls talk radio? Well, the answer is me, because I’d punched in the numbers to the program before Prager was finished asking whether anyone had seen the cartoon. I got right through, said my piece, set the record straight, and that was it. Peculiar world: one moment you’re standing in the kitchen with the tot and the dog, and then you’re talking to a couple million people, then you’re alone with the tot and the dog.

What fun. How often do you get the chance to set the record straight, on a national level, immediately?

<smirnoff> What a country! </smirnoff>

The link? Here: Reynolds Wrap Playing Cards from 1955. I think it’s safe to say you’ll get those no where else.