Saturday, April 19, 2003

A "Diversity" of Opinion on Radio in Oklahoma?

NE OKlahoma finally gets an alternative to the far-right radio of KRMG and its even more far-right radio. KFAQ Radio picked up Michael DelGiornio from KRMG and also has put together a line-up of other screaming extremists like Michael Savage and the not-so predictable but predictably rude Bill O'Reilly. I was flipping around on the radio dessert for something worth listening to tonight and came across a radio "personality" on KFAQ I had not heard before, Laura Ingraham. I caught her monologue as she was into a horribly biased discussion on Islam. I won't even go into her lame opinions on Islam vs. Christianity but suffice it to say it was uninformed.

Is all of American radio talk as looney toon far right and hate-filled as what we get to hear in Oklahoma? Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't listen to far-left shock radio (does such a thing exist?) either but we don't have that choice in Oklahoma. Wouldn't level-headed and informed talk radio be wonderful? What would it be like if we had talkshows featuring intelligent moderates willing to weigh issues from all sides? Why can't we have that? In the meantime I'll listen to NPR.

Thursday, April 17, 2003

Cultural Treasures Lost

The BBC reports that three White House cultural advisers have resigned in protest at the failure of US forces to prevent the looting of Iraq's national museum - home to artefacts dating back 10,000 years. Yes, it was Iraqis that made off with their own museum treasures but every society has their useless bandits who prey on society at large. But our military should have planned for this. It's hard to fathom how the protection of this storehouse of some of the world's most treasured ancient artefacts was not planned for by our government and military. Not only is our lack of consideration of this matter deplorable but it's an absolute public relations disaster for our country. How could we have been so stupid? Now we need to do everything we can to get back what was stolen and do our part to safeguard the Iraqi's cultural treasures for them - and humanity.