All The Rage

This story makes me angry.

I've been outraged by it for two days, and every time I think about it, my blood boils even more. It's been on boston.com, CNN, and all over both the liberal and conservative radio stations I enjoy. I'm hoping that by adding my two cents now, I can stop thinking about it in the future.

Here's the long version - I promise I'll get over and under and through the woods and back to my point eventually. Anyway, last week, CBS announced that it is axing WBCN and starting an all sports talk station on the FM dial in Boston. I'm excited about this because for the past year, I have spent my mornings driving to work listening to the seething rants of Dennis & Callahan on WEEI.

If you aren't familiar with D&C, they are a duo that can best be described as Conservative (Dennis) and Just-Shy-of-Neo-Nazi-Conservative (Callahan). This of course may seem strange for a sports talk station, but they have massive following of people that both love and love to hate them. Unless there is a major sports story going on, my ride is usually filled with diatribes against the MA legislature (which I always agree with), Deval Patrick (which I almost always agree with), President Obama (which I sometimes agree with) and liberals in general (lets call that on 50%/50%). Though some listeners agree with them, the majority of callers (affectionately called "moonbats", a term that I wholeheartedly agree with at times) argue with D&C and escalate the "conversation" into an all out yellfest.

As you can imagine, this is just quite awful radio. Though MA has more than its fair share of lunatic liberals, the D&C gestapo is just blatantly wrong about climate change (it isn't a myth), recycling (it really isn't that bad, or that stupid) or liberals (some of them are actually decent people). They are even wrong abut the Bush administration - according to them it wasn't conservative enough. Believe me, it was.

The cure for this awful radio? No, its not calling in and contributing to the nonsense. Its as simple as changing the dial. If the moonbats would only get this, and change the channel, maybe they wouldn't be so incensed. Yet every morning they call in and freak out. The moral of the story? Liberals and conservatives enjoy hating each other as much as they enjoy their own points of view. More broadly, there's a certain subset of the population that enjoys conflict and argument, even if (and especially when) it isn't productive.

And that's what I think we have with the Gates case. Do I think this whole affair is his fault (as opposed to the arresting officers?) Well, I can't say for sure. But based on the police report, and his own admissions, it seems like Gates supplied the lighter and the fuel, and the police officer provided the opportunity for the arson to take place. I'm not saying that Gates wouldn't have been arrested if he had cooperated, but the likelihood would have been much, much less. But by creating a scene - and getting arrested - Gates has created a commotion that is more caustic than it is constructive. Gates apparently likes to fight, and the folks in the media that love a fight are loving to fight over this.

And yet while D&C railed against Gates this morning, I found myself extremely annoyed, even though I find myself leaning more on the side of the 5-oh than that of our dear professor. D&C spewed more hate and anger than the situation needed. Its hard to agree with anyone when all anyone wants to do is be angry.

So I'm looking forward to the debut of WBZ-FM. Maybe with a little more sports, and a lot less rage, I'll enjoy my rides to work just a little bit more. And maybe a few listeners will come with me... but I get the feeling that the majority of D&C's audience will remain, if only because there will be less incentive to talk sports with the sports listeners departing, and more reason to argue over why everyone is wrong.