Don't Hate Me Because I'm Political!

Over twenty years ago, I started my career as a truck driver. When you drive for ten plus hours a day you become good friends with your radio. I started with top twenty radio stations but soon tired of hearing the same songs over and over. My mind would start to wander and I would have difficulty focusing on my driving. I started listening to talk radio and found that I could keep better focus on the road and drive longer with fewer breaks.

Talk radio back then was really lame. At the time they had a law known as The Fairness Doctrine. Radio stations would avoid controversial topics rather than attempt to maintain a balance of opinion as required by this law. It was impossible to give all sides of an issue and interviewing one candidate running for office meant you had to interview all the candidates running for the same office. Can you imagine a sponsor paying for the air time that included Joe of the "Raise-the-Country-On-Rafts-to-Float-It-South-So-Minnisota-Wouldn't-Have-Such-A-Harsh-Winter-Party" (however, George Norrie, of late-night radio fame, would probably enjoy interviewing Joe).

Some time within the first two years of my illustrious career, The Fairness Doctrine was repealed. I was driving for a company that was in the Chicago area and the local talk show hosts were becoming interesting to listen to. Unbeknownst to me, a talk show host was making a name for himself in the San Diego area and would, in a very short time, start this new format of being syndicated on radio stations across the nation. He was brash, self-assured, bombastic, entertaining and he would talk about things that most Americans could relate to. Rush Limbaugh would bring up items of news that main stream media would never report or they would do so reluctantly and with an obvious spin. I was hooked. Here was a form of media that was entertaining and informational; something that could keep my interest for hours.

In the intervening years, I have listened to numerous talk show hosts. I feel that I am one of the better informed people when it comes to issues of government. I do have my biases and I am not afraid to share my point of view to those who are willing to put up with me. The downside to this is that my poor wife ends up hearing my constant rants. This is why she has encouraged me to start a blog where I can rant away and others can choose to put up with it or not.