Talk radio is one of those things that is a never ending source of amusement for your faithful correspondent. The lengths that the hosts sometimes go to attract listeners are often outright comical. A left leaning host suddenly, once the mike is turned on, becomes an apologist for Leon Trotsky and a right leaning host suddenly discovers that he is a second cousin to Ferdinando Franco. The sense of self importance is sometimes unknowingly a self parody. And the sense of public influence among some of the talkers is often overblown i.e., "Through my talk show I helped elect/defeat George Bush/anti-abortion legislation." Occasionally if the target of a talk show hosts questioning and/or wrath offers to invite a host to the HQ of the target's organization the wrath is deflected under the guise that the target, by being "open," has shown the true "self" of his or her self or organization.
In the past couple of months two talk show programs have rolled up their wrath rugs after being offered special treatment by their targets.
The first concerns the John and Ken Show heard on KFI 640 AM in Los Angeles. They were invited to the Orange County Islamic Center to broadcast a program. During this time they went from accusing all Mohammedans of being towel headed terrorists with bombs in their overcoat pockets to maintaining that Islam is a peaceful religion and that no true Moslem would countenance overcharging for a gallon of gas, let alone flinging a bomb into a group of Israeli teenagers. The various fatwahs, condemnations of Israel and conspiracy theories put forth my Islamic imams, college professors and national leaders all evaporated like the morning fog on a hot summer's day. Terrorists were not "real" Moslems despite the fact that few, if any, Islamic bodies have categorically condemned terrorism in the US, Iraq, Israel, Great Britain or Indonesia. In the course of four hours the hosts perception of Moslems went from being completely bad to being completely benign. At the same time they held to their belief that the Catholic Church as a whole is an ignorant and destructive entity and that Evangelical Christians are idiots. All that in exchange for a little couscous and stroking.
The second example involves a man who calls himself Mr. KABC who hosts an evening program on KABC 790 AM in Los Angeles. Mr. KABC is a particular bugaboo with yours due to one of his most frequent retorts to data offered by callers, "Do you believe everything you read in the paper/Internet?" while using the same sources to buttress his own positions.
Mr. K read part of an article about Scientology from a magazine. The article was critical of the "religion" and featured a glossary of terms/questions/answers used by Scientologists that revealed the "religion" as the ridiculous entity that it is. Soon after reading the article the host was contacted by the local Scientology body and was offered a tour of the Hollywood facility (The Celebrity Center) and an in studio interview with one of the Scientology bigwigs. The result? Scientology was all of a sudden Scientology was less bizarre than the local Unitarian Church or Ethical Culture Society. The antics of the SeaOrg were ignored, Scientology's habit of nuisance lawsuits against critics weren't mentioned, the active attempts of recruitment of celebrities to try to legitimize their nonsense was not mentioned. (Ask yourself this question: Is there a Roman Catholic celebrity center? A Baptist one? A Hasidic one?) The host has yet to bother to investigate the history of Scientology from sources other than Scientologists. Scientologists are okay because they invited the host into the house and offered a spokesman willing to spend a few hours on the air. Meanwhile, the host considers devout Jews and Fundamentalist Christians as bizarre and stupid. Perhaps if they changed the name of their believers to Operating Thetans instead of "believers" they might get a break.
Mr. K likes to describe himself as a "deist" by which, from listening to his natterings he means an agnostic. His understanding of classical deism is sadly lacking. So that may be why he gives Scientology a break. Scientology is a nothing for people who want to believe in something. But, if he bothered to do a little research he may have been able to spot that.
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