Talk Show Bullies

I leave the office every day to go to lunch. I find that sitting at my desk for lunch causes all of the following to happen:

1) Everyone living toddles into my office to talk to me, ask me to do things, borrow aspirin, generally disrupt my (mostly derailed) train-of-thought.
2) My blood pressure, stress level, and head-achiness grow like bamboo.

When I leave the office and eat out, the following things happen:

1) No one talks to me (except to say "You want fries with that?"), no one wants anything from me, I get to think about the Browns and the next season of The West Wing" and whether we'd all be better off being hunter-gatherers.
2) My cholesterol and weight grow like the Andromeda Strain.

It's not a perfect set-up, granted, but it's better for me to go out to lunch.
So. Since I take lunch at mid-afternoon, I always hear Jim Rome (who is on opposite Rush Limbaugh) as I drive to my gourmet repast. Both these guys disturb me. Well, truth be told, their listeners disturb me far more.

There's an unpleasant undercurrent in (many) Americans today, a sneering superiority, a build-myself-up-by-slamming-everyone-else attitude, a "Me me me" mode that is, at the very least, unbecoming to a country that prides itself on diversity and acceptance and free speech.


Rush Limbaugh and Jim Rome and Bill O'Reilly (especially Bill O'Reilly) (oops, did I let a bit of my petticoats (otherwise known as "disdain for the right") show?) cater to the most unthinking, mean, and bully-attracted among us. Now, this comment is not meant to convey any opinions as to the general rightness or wrongness of these guys and their ilky ilk....rather, it's the trend of so many people to choose to align themselves with the loudest and pushiest among us that distresses me. Rome and his clones, Limbaugh and his ditto-heads....these are people who choose snideness over kindness, clever put-downs over thoughtful discussion, closed-wall entrenchment over any sort of interpersonal relationship.

These are bullies, no different from Spanky's Butch or Franklin's Adolph....they're small men who speak loudly, and who attract an even louder following full of pride in their own thoughtlessness.

I find it all distressing.