Uppity Wisconsin

What radio talker Jerry Bader said on the air about Barbara Lawton is indefensible.

Lawton is correct. A two-week suspension is not adequate punishment for Bader's reckless disregard of the truth or the wild claims he described as factual. He should lose his job.

Maybe Lawton thinks that will be the end of the story, that the news media will move on and leave her in peace. If that's what happens, she should thank Bader for overstepping so far that it frightens off others who would explore her reasons for abandoning the governor's race. But that's not likely.

Before we shed too many tears for Lawton and deplore how her privacy is being invaded, let's consider how her bizarre handling of the announcement precipitated the media inquiries.

When someone who was, by all accounts, running full-tilt for governor on Saturday pulls out of the race on Monday -- and does it in an email of fewer than 100 words, citing only "very personal reasons" -- it is not surprising that it would prompt some speculation and questions.

She says no one in her family is ill. Her marriage is intact.

Update: Complaints prompt The Mic 92.1 to bring back 'Thom Hartmann'

I listened for the Lee Rayburn show on 92.1 (Madison)  today, and asked around and found out that Rayburn quit.

Rayburn had the best local show pretty much in the history of Madison, excluding WORT Radio.

There are lots of programming changes going on for the worst at Madison's progressive radio station, for example, there's some religious-financial guru where Thom Hartmann used to be. 

Emily Mills has the story a Lost Albatross:

"I am thoroughly bummed. Madison's only progressive talk radio station, the Mic 92.1FM, is undergoing some sort of strange programming flip. This change has already resulted in two terrible casualties of the airwaves: the loss of Thom Hartmann's show, and more recently, that of Madison's own Lee Rayburn."

Meeting tonight:

.Republican radio's Charles Sykes has stepped in it big time, calling the hateful work above "pure genius."

Milwaukee's ecumenical Interfaith Council begs to differ.

Jim Rowen summarizes thoughtfully on the national Daily Kos blog, and Mike Plaistad weighs in with, "Sykes bravely fights coexistence."

Marquette Prof. John McAdams, taking a brief respite from defending policies that lock up 10 times as many black people, per capita, as white, has taken offense at my recent post about Charlie Sykes's bullying of former we energies exec Dick Abdoo.

I'll have to thank Illusory Tenant for pointing that out.  Can't say I'm a regular reader of McAdams's drivel. (If you're attacked and don't know it, does it make a sound?)

He was so taken with the comment of one Sykes fan who responded to my post on this blog that he reprinted it in its entirety.  He didn't however, bother to reprint my responses, so I'll do that here:

There's a name for what Sykes did.

It's called bullying.

It is one thing to disagree with someone. It's quite another to try to silence them.

That's what Sykes did.

WELCOME, MCADAMS & SYKES READERS. When you've finished, you may want to read this as well.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Since late in 2001, under the title McCarthyism Watch, Matt Rothschild, editor of The Progressive, has collected and chronicled abuses of civil liberties in the post-9/11 era in the United States.

His book, You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression, tells 82 stories of people caught up in the web of the Patriot Act and other heightened security measures. (Rothschild will speak at a book-signing event Thursday, Sept. 28 at Harry W. Schwartz bookstore, 2559 N. Downer Ave., Milwaukee.)

I generally find the concept of live-blogging inexplicable.

Why, for example, would I want to read someone blogging about a speech on television, and get their fragmented report, when I could be watching it myself?

Likewise live-blogging meetings and conventions. There's no reason to report everything that happens, like you're the secretary taking minutes. How about writing a newsy or critical item, even a brief one, when something actually happens?

Which brings us to the "live blogging" of Marquette Prof. John McAdams, making sure we get every inane comment from an appearance by rightwing radio talker Charlie Sykes at Marquette University.

WARNING: BORING MATERIAL AHEAD

The best of the uncritical professor (I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. I HAVE SPARED YOU THE WORST):

Mike Gousha does the introduction, mentioning that Sykes has written six books.

Gousha mentions that Sykes also has a talk radio show, and writes a newspaper column. Sykes replies that it all fits together -- when you start thinking about things, you can talk about it, and write about it too. Particularly, talking about it requires conciseness... (HOLD PAGE ONE!) ..

An Iowa school superintendent sounds off on Charlie Sykes's 50 rules.

 UPDATE: You will read it on Sykes's blog, however. He's proud that educators disagree with him. Which proves his point, of course: He's smarter than they are.

Too bad he didn't choose to spend his time in the classroom, doing something worthwhile, instead of in the studio. Maybe it's the pay.

Charlie Sykes gets a plug from Michelle Malkin:

THANKS, MICHELLE

Michelle Malkin gets an advance peak at "The 50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School" and has some kind words.

"Charles J. Sykes has long been one of my favorite chroniclers of our dumbed-down education and the corrupting effects of the self-esteem movement. I just received his new book, set for release on August 21, titled “50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-Good Education.” Witty, acerbic, reality-grounded. It’s a great purchase for college-bound friends/family or parents with school-age kids. "

The book will be officially released in about two weeks.... watch this space for updates and announcements.

An advance peak?

This from the guy who wrote "Dumbing Down Our Schools?"

A rule Sykes forgot: Sometimes, Spell Check ain't enough.  Ya hafta spell your own self.

UPDATE: The spelling's been corrected.

A new report, "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio," by the Center for American Progress and Free Press, looks at the vast disparity in programming on the nation's talk stations.

 Former talker Jessica McBride calls it, "The shut up the conservatives crusade." [UPDATE: Charlie Sykes calls it "a campaign to stifle conservative talk radio."]

But no one is suggesting the conservatives be shut up. The suggestion is that perhaps progressives should have the opportunity to get a word in edgewise.

In other words, that there be a bit more balance than the current ratio of 91% conservative and 9% progressive talk. Every day, stations across the country broadcast 2,570 hours of consevative talk and 254 hours of progressive talk.

 What makes the idea of more balance so threatening to the right? It doesn't have to be 50-50, but 91-9 does seem a bit hard to justify. Are conservatives afraid to compete on the battleground of ideas?

With Eliza Doolittle McBride having succumbed to the Peter Principle, Milwaukee's right wing king/queenmaker Charlie Sykes has begun to work on his next project, one James Harris.

Harris has started to get The Treatment. Sykes and other conservative talkers link to his blog regularly. WTMJ-AM has given him a weekly Sunday night radio show. Now he's showing up as a guest on Sykes's Sunday TV show.

And what is it that makes Harris so special in the eyes of Sykes and Company?

He's an African American conservative who writes things like this:

Will things ever get better in the inner city?

My response: Sure they will. When the civil rights generation that allowed this crap to happen either repents or dies.

Clueless McBride speeded up departure

Radio is a tough business. It can be cruel. No two-week notice. You'll find out at the end of your shift that it's time to clean out your desk.

The decision to replace Jessica McBride had been in the works for some time, WTMJ management says. There is no reason to doubt that. She apparently had a small audience, and deservedly so.

But the station's general manager also acknowledged to columnist Tim Cuprisin that McBride's failed attempt this week to incorporate the drive-by killing of a 4-year-old into a comic routine(!) hastened her demise.

She may have been on the way out, in other words, but not this week.

McBride herself clearly didn't have a clue she was going anywhere. She introduced her disastrously unfunny "Left Side of the Moon" feature on Tuesday night, saying on the air and on her blog that it would run on Tuesdays and Fridays in the future.

 Actually, it only ran once, and that was the segment with a chicken sound effect substituing for Eugene Kane. Kane, who was on vacation, won the "debate" by a knockout without even being there.

Here's a recap of the McBride developments this week on Daily Kos, written by yours truly.

620 WTMJ Resolves McBride Problem: Fires Her

   McBride and WTMJ-AM 620 Fail The Responsibility Test