Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

The willow is too close to the house.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Monday Evening Open Thread: Ripples

Monday Evening Open Thread: Ripples

by | 123 Comments

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Small bit of cheering news, from NYMag:

More than a year after Rush Limbaugh’s assessment of Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke as a “slut” for advocating federally subsidized birth control, the broadcaster that carries his show is experiencing a “residual hangover” in its ad sales thanks to the boycotts Limbaugh’s comments sparked. At least, that’s how Lew Dickey, the CEO of Cumulus Media, has characterized the lingering slump. Limbaugh disagrees, and he’s now threatening to take his show elsewhere if Dickey keeps blaming him. If Limbaugh left Cumulus, the company would lose the rights to broadcast his show on its 40 radio stations, including WABC in New York….

In the weeks after Limbaugh’s comments caused a national uproar there was talk he could be taken off the air, or even replaced by someone such as Mike Huckabee, but all that amounted to nothing, and it looked like the Fluke episode would leave the host and those who carry him unscathed. Clearly, though, that hasn’t been the case. The Fluke fiasco may yet drive Limbaugh off the stations that carry him in some of his biggest markets.

***********

Apart from toasting confusion to our enemies, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

123Comments

  2. 2.

    IowaOldLady

    It seems to me these guys make a mistake when they go after issues that people have personal experience of. That’s why Terri Schiavo didn’t work for them. Lots of people have had to make end of life decisions and they didn’t want the federal govt interfering.

    Similarly, almost all sexually active women use birth control and they don’t believe that makes them sluts. Plus Rush just kept on and kept on and went way over the top.

  3. 3.

    JoyfulA

    There’s apparently a very vigorous Twitter campaign. My feed always has some sponsor’s Twitter ID with a “Limbaugh said this and that, aren’t you ashamed to sponsor this message?” or the like.

  5. 5.

    Suffern ACE

    I have a new record player that I chose a few weeks ago from an assortment of gifts as a reward for passing some milestone anniversary at work. I now need records. I’m thinking what I want to use it for are novelty and comedy albums. A lot of those albums don’t seem to be transferred to other formats and there isn’t a big collectors market for them (which means they are cheap to buy). Any suggestions for pre-1985ish records that I should seek out? I’ve got some Moms Mobley and Jonathan Winters coming. But could use other suggestions.

  7. 7.

    quannlace

    Yeah, sure, there’s some sort of satisfaction in Limbaugh leaving/being kicked out of his radio gig. But honestly, this guy will never have to work another day in his life. He made millions spewing out his particular brand of venom. But will he stop being a significant voice to the Repub base?

  9. 9.

    dmsilev

    More mysteries of the Google Adutronic 3000: What websites did I visit that I’m now being spammed by ads for oscilloscopes?

  13. 13.

    Schlemizel

    I wish I had a hundred bucks for every time I have heard that the bloated pustual was losing advertisers and listeners and was going to lose stations and blah and blah and blah.

    I could afford to retire while Mush continues to poison the airways and this nation.

  15. 15.

    DFH no.6

    @Suffern ACE:
    Anything by Firesign Theatre.

    “How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All” would be a great place to start.

    And fuck a downturn in his ad revenues or ratings or whatever — Limbaugh can’t shuffle off his corpulent mortal coil soon enough, far as I’m concerned.

    Not very many people whose actual demise I look forward to (a few, though).

    This fucking monster in human guise is top of the list.

  17. 17.

    ? Martin

    @dmsilev: That usually happens to me after looking at something at Amazon.

    Either that or you just outed yourself as being into spectrum analysis porn. (Not judging.)

  19. 19.

    Schlemizel

    @Suffern ACE:

    Bill Cosby & Richard Pryor – both the best at what they do that there has ever been. Second Bob Newhart & Jonathan Winters also both top notch.

    Firesign Theater is right up there too

  23. 23.

    lamh35

    Wow, uk ok how’s about I bought the new Samsung Galaxy 4, not realizing it was just released like a little over 8 days ago!!! I didn’t even realize it until I just tried to get a otter case for the new phone at best buy on Saturday (I got the phone Thursday, 3 days after it was released). I wanted an Otterbox case, but the only colore they have is black and when I asked the Otterbox rep when the color cases were gonna be released, she said, they don’t have a release date! Ugh. The phone is soo thin, that I’m just too paranoid to NOT have a case on it.

    Anyway, my cuz says I always be getting the newest & latest…this time I didn’t even do it on purpose…lol

  24. 24.

    gogol's wife

    @Trollhattan:

    And how about Rusty Warren and “Knockers Up”? Just kidding, I never listened to it, but that was what the “adults” were giggling to when I was a kid.

  25. 25.

    scav

    @dmsilev: Ripples? Waves? Must explain why I went out and purchased some Lays Potato chips in celebration — last two threads.

  31. 31.

    Maude

    @Suffern ACE:
    If you can find it, The Bickersons.

    Cumulus owns WABC in NYC. That’s the first NY station Rush started on. It would be a real kick in the.. if he gets the boot.

  32. 32.

    hoppipolla

    @Suffern ACE: You might consider Vaughn Meader’s The First Family, if only as a conversation piece/curiosity. A very gentle satire of JFK and his admin/family, it vanished from record racks immediately after the assassination, and Meader’s career was pretty much spavined.

  33. 33.

    Ben Franklin

    Talkers publisher Michael Harrison told MSN Money that Limbaugh’s enemies are trying to make too much out of the normal fluctuations
    flukeuations in his ratings. Limbaugh, who began his career in 1984, isn’t in danger of losing his job, Harrison says.

    “If he wants to stay on the radio, he certainly can,” Harrison says, adding that if Limbaugh wanted to follow Glenn Beck and Howard Stern into alternative outlets, he could do that, too, and “bring a large segment of his audience with him.”

    http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=386132a7-7830-481d-b605-f5ed32423161

    Sat radio did a lot for Stern, so that’s a hope.

  34. 34.

    Haydnseek

    @hoppipolla: Hoppi! What’s shakin’? “The First Family” is excellent. I still have my parent’s copy of that, too. Nice to see you stick your head up around here! Did you ever pull the trigger on an analog rig?

  35. 35.

    daryljfontaine

    Gonna leave this here: If you have any love at all for Baz Luhrmann’s anachronistic use of music in film, check out his soundtrack for The Great Gatsby. Despite the sullied musical reputations of will.i.am and Fergie of late, their tracks are actually kind of fun. The Jack Black cover of U2’s “Love is Blindness” and the Lana Del Rey and Florence in the Machine tracks are simply killer.

    D

  36. 36.

    lamh35

    @Baud: heres the funny thing, I distinctly remember looking at the Galaxy S3 maybe a month or two ago, but my Iphone was not cracked at the time, so I was just gonna wait for my usual upgrade and I had already been planning to get away from the Iphone, but then I broke the face and I started looking at the Galaxy III. I was looking at the III and just so happened to see a Galaxy IV and I figured hey, IV gotta be better than one right? I mean there was like 1 review(!!!) for the IV, but I figured IDK, maybe it was refurbished…lol.

  40. 40.

    gene108

    The great question is, who will replace Rush, if he leaves Cumulus?

    The local Philly talk radio station stopped carrying Rush. They replaced him with a local right-winger and Dick Morris.

    The real victory in the war will be to get these stations to start carrying left-wing radio types.

  42. 42.

    NotMax

    Having the term “toasting” anywhere in the vicinity of the word Ripple is a tad déclassé.

    @SuffernACE

    Adding to the excellent suggestions already made:

    Godfrey Cambridge

    Mike Nichols & Elaine May

    In the fringe/acquired taste arena:

    Redd Foxx

    Lord Buckley

    Lenny Bruce

    Uncategorizable:

    Jonathan & Darlene Edwards (Paul Weston & Jo Stafford)

  45. 45.

    Baud

    @gene108:

    The real victory in the war will be to get these stations to start carrying left-wing radio types.

    Do you think there is a market for that? Air America didn’t do so well.

  46. 46.

    Haydnseek

    @Baud: You beat me to it. One station has 3 hours of ranting, raving, and human sacrifice. The other has someone reading a biology textbook. Guess which one is right, and which one gets the ratings………..

  48. 48.

    Trollhattan

    On a completely different topic, my nominee for addition to the brave women list–Elizabeth Smart.

    Speaking to an audience at Johns Hopkins about issues of human trafficking and sexual violence, Smart recently offered an answer to that question. She explained that some human trafficking victims don’t run away because they feel worthless after being raped, particularly if they have been raised in conservative cultures that push abstinence-only education and emphasize sexual purity:

    Smart said she “felt so dirty and so filthy” after she was raped by her captor, and she understands why someone wouldn’t run “because of that alone.”

    Smart spoke at a Johns Hopkins human trafficking forum, saying she was raised in a religious household and recalled a school teacher who spoke once about abstinence and compared sex to chewing gum.

    “I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away.’ And that’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you no longer have value,” Smart said. “Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value.”

    http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/05/06/1967591/elizabeth-smart-abstinence-ed/

    Not only does she not live in anonymity, she confronts her horrid past by trying to prevent it happening to others, while skewering the society that tries to make the problem go away by ignoring its existence. Bravo.

  50. 50.

    Dolly Lllama

    @Ben Franklin: A snippet from the piece you linked to:

    As Limbaugh knows, controversy sometimes doesn’t hurt ratings, and the Fluke issue may have helped the show attract fans.

    What kind of fucker who did not listen to Rush Limbaugh before the Sandra Fluke thing would hear about the controversy and say “Oh, man, I am missing some good shit! Got to find me some Rush on MY dial!”?

    And supposing there is such a fucker or fuckers in the terrestrial-radio-listening universe, how much disposable income could they possibly command to make them attractive to advertisers? What would a demographic like that look like, exactly?

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    @dmsilev:

    What websites did I visit that I’m now being spammed by ads for oscilloscopes?

    That’s a very interesting question. I have the same experience, except mine is for thermal imagers. Maybe they’ve done some kind of data mining and discovered a link between specific web sites and other purchases that humans would never guess. Stranger things have happened.

  54. 54.

    gene108

    @Baud:

    I think in pockets there maybe an audience for it, but generally I don’t think liberals fall into the “ditto head” group think type of listener right-wing radio has as an audience, so they liberals won’t be as tuned into talk radio.

    Also, I think the fact there have been so little in the way of liberal talk radio hosts, liberals have just gone elsewhere for information/news/opinions.

    I do think there’s a market for some left-of-center reality based commentary, where a host would deconstruct or explain why employment is more important than short term deficits, for example.

    There’s a real problem with consumers of media today, in that we do not trust the providers of our content with regards to accuracy, ethics, etc. If someone could fill that void, I think it’d do wonders for their ratings.

    And as reality has a liberal bias, you’d get a lefty on the radio by default.

  55. 55.

    Anne Laurie

    @Roger Moore:

    Maybe they’ve done some kind of data mining and discovered a link between specific web sites and other purchases that humans would never guess. Stranger things have happened.

    I blame Tom Levenson, and the other professional Smart People here. They’re skewing the curve for the poor little algorithm spiders!

  56. 56.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Dolly Lllama:

    What kind of fucker who did not listen to Rush Limbaugh before the Sandra Fluke thing would hear about the controversy and say “Oh, man, I am missing some good shit! Got to find me some Rush on MY dial!”?

    People who are not Dittoheads, but instead tuned in to see the car wreck. “He said WHAT?! No way! Okay, I gotta tune in to see if he is really that bad.”

  57. 57.

    Haydnseek

    @Roger Moore: LOL! We have o-scopes and thermal imagers. I get the same thing, only for telescope boxes. Not actual telescopes, mind you, just the boxes. I mean, WTF?

  58. 58.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Haydnseek: The profile they have on you suggests you already own a telescope but that you take appallingly bad care of it.

  59. 59.

    Baud

    @gene108:

    There’s a real problem with consumers of media today, in that we do not trust the providers of our content with regards to accuracy, ethics, etc. If someone could fill that void, I think it’d do wonders for their ratings.

    This is me. I’d like to have a source of information that I can rely on instead of leap frogging to opinion shows, which is how the current media operates.

  60. 60.

    lamh35

    hmmm, so Lauryn Hill going to jail for not paying her taxes.

    Ok, I”m sorry, but man, rich people PAY YOUR DAMN TAXES!!!! Shoot, you got people who poor as hell be struggling to pay $50 damn dollars in taxes. I ain’t got no sympathy for rich folk who know they got taxes to pay, but don’t pay attention or don’t control they own money.

    Bet she gonna pay them on time next time!

    See this is what’s wrong with some people when they get some money. Oprah gave one bit of advice once about money…”SIGN EVERY DAMN CHECK THAT LEAVES FROM YOUR OFFICE/ACCOUNT”…even if u have to use a darn stamper.

    Lauryn Hill, Chris Tucker and the rest of ‘nem, need to stop just letting accountants and personal assistants handle everything.

    Oh and if you just have a “principled” objection to paying taxes (I’m talking bout you Wesley Snipes), that’s fine, but guess what, when the taxman cometh, you azz is grass and off IRS prison you go…sorry ta tell ’em.

    Ugh rant over.

    http://www.essence.com/2013/05/06/lauryn-hill-gets-3-month-prison-sentence-tax-evasion

  61. 61.

    Dolly Lllama

    @Omnes Omnibus: OK, granted. But how many of those “newfound listeners” stuck around for more than half an hour after finding out that he’s lame as shit unless you’re an old fart just addicted to anger?

  62. 62.

    the Conster

    @gene108:

    Conservatives need to be lied to, and liberals hate to be lied to, so there’s an asymmetry there that left wing radio will never be able to take advantage of.

  66. 66.

    hoppipolla

    @Haydnseek: Greetings, Haydnseek, if that’s really your name. more or less fit for human consumption again, thought i’d pop up and say hi. still dithering about the analog rig — still dithering about quite a lot, actually. thank the FSM for the BJ commenters, all those semi-sane sharp minds are good for morale.

    general question: Jackie Vernon must have made some records, no? loved his routine about the pet watermelon.

  68. 68.

    hoppipolla

    @Ben Franklin: oh, lawsy, i’d forgotten about that. haven’t listened to that record since i don’t want to say how long. christ, i’m old.

  69. 69.

    piratedan

    shouldn’t that be Nipples instead of Ripples? Because mine get hard at the thought that the hypnotoad has to work for a new radio gig to spread his poison.

  70. 70.

    Haydnseek

    @hoppipolla: Yep, that’s my nym. Ask me again and I’ll tell ya the sym. Jackie Vernon was very funny. I still remember seeing him on Ed Sullivan or one of those shows doing a slide show—with no slides. He would point a clicker at a blank screen and then describe the image, pushing the narrative along. Good to know you’re OK.

  72. 72.

    hoppipolla

    @SiubhanDuinne: which song passed through my head the day in ’78 i met Caroline at a preppy friend’s student apartment. fortunately my Tourette’s was under control that day.

  73. 73.

    NotMax

    @Haydnseek

    (describing a treacherous trek)

    [click]

    Here’s our guide, Guido.

    [click]

    Here’s some quicksand.

    [click]

    Here’s Guido’s hat.

  75. 75.

    gene108

    @Maude:

    There’s no money in left wing radio. They might change format and could go sports.

    I don’t think you can have a pure left-wing radio format. The ground/audience hasn’t been made fertile for that yet in a broad sense.

    Right-wing media started up in the 1970’s and 1980’s for the purpose of pushing the right-wing agenda, even though most of the media – mostly print media – was losing money, but I think the uptick in right-wing media helped make the ground fertile for someone like Rush to come in, by the late 1980’s.

    There was a murmur during the 1970’s and 1980’s about “tax and spend” liberals, “welfare queens”, “tax cut magic” and the cult of Reagan and the demonization of the Great Society, to the extent that people believed the rise in teen pregnancies/out-of-wedlock births, in the black community, during the 1980’s was caused by LBJ’s welfare programs and not 300 years of slavery and Jim Crow not being fully remedied.

    The shock value of “this is America and we don’t do that”, which accompanied Watergate was already being picked at by right-wingers, with an agenda, as evidenced by the opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, that had overwhelming support, when it was first proposed.

    Anyway, back to the topic of left-wing radio, I do know, when Air America was on, I really did try to listen as much as I could, because it was the only source for counter-arguments to the crap Bush & Co. was pumping out back then.

    For all the faults of Air America Radio – a lot of it was with the business model and management, as much as the ratings – it did serve as a platform to get information out regarding, why reforming Social Security isn’t as pressing as Bush & co. made it out to be, for example.

    Though I don’t think you can really get a hardcore left-wing radio up and running, because people aren’t ready to embrace it, I do think there’s alternatives to right-wing radio that will be a step to the Left.

    People really do want media sources they can trust, because at some level, people know what they have isn’t what right-wingers are promising they should have by following prosperity-Jesus or whatever. They just don’t have the information to really figure out where things have gone wrong.

  76. 76.

    Roger Moore

    @Haydnseek:
    I remember reading about this stuff quite a while ago. There was some mail order company that crunched numbers behind the scenes and would have its sales people make sales suggestions that appeared to have nothing to do with what the people had ordered, but that the suggestions worked a surprisingly large fraction of the time. For all you know, they’ve decided that you need a telescope case because you buy toilet paper in bulk or were shopping for dish drainers or something just as apparently irrelevant to telescope ownership.

  77. 77.

    Haydnseek

    @NotMax: That’s it! Damn, I hadn’t thought of Jackie Vernon in years until Hoppipolla mentioned him. Still funny. Thanks, NotMax.

  78. 78.

    Haydnseek

    @Roger Moore: It does sound weird, but apparently it’s effective. I’m now in the market for a telescope to put in my spiffy new case!

  79. 79.

    Joel

    Pandora plays a lot of Slightly Stoopid on my reggae/ska revival station. I have to admit they impress me a lot more than they did when I saw them back in 1999. Going acoustic/jam works out a lot better than Sublime-lite.

  80. 80.

    Todd

    Speaking of ripples across time:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/linguists-identify-15000-year-old-ultraconserved-words/2013/05/06/a02e3a14-b427-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html

    You, hear me! Give this fire to that old man. Pull the black worm off the bark and give it to the mother. And no spitting in the ashes!
    …
    It’s an odd little speech. But if it were spoken clearly to a band of hunter-gatherers in the Caucasus 15,000 years ago, there’s a good chance the listeners would know what you were saying.

  82. 82.

    Yatsuno

    Sheesh. 80 comments and no one mentions The Chipmunks? A lot of their older stuff is quite classic.

  84. 84.

    different-church-lady

    Open thread, huh?

    OK, I’ve had 9 hours of sleep in the past 3 days, and a mint julip, and I’m in the mood to pick a fight. So someone say something damn fool stupid about the Marathon Bombing and let’s get this party started.

  86. 86.

    different-church-lady

    @Dolly Lllama: You’re right. I’m tired, just not on my game. Thank you for correct… HEY, I’M DOING THIS ALL WRONG!

  89. 89.

    Dolly Lllama

    @different-church-lady: You wanted a fight. It’s the best I could do. Couldn’t think of any stupid Boston shit I could get behind with any fake conviction in order to oblige you. If I can’t get on your fighting side with nitpicks like that, I can’t help you.

  90. 90.

    different-church-lady

    @Ben Franklin: I thought, of all people, you’d bring more than that.

    Answer: not extremely common. I had two different producers lie to me about the hours over the course of three days. The camera guy actually said to the second one in front of the crew, “You’re a producer. Your lips are moving. That means you’re lying.” And he’s on the same staff as her!

  91. 91.

    different-church-lady

    @Dolly Lllama: Well, I thank you for your effort nonetheless.

    I really need to look into this conflict-seeking behavior. Apparently I want the duck hunting.

  95. 95.

    NotMax

    @gbear

    Also too, Myron Cohen.

    Don’t know why, but your comment triggered a particular set of neurons to fire; shall forever have a soft spot for Jackie Mason because of his jab at Nixon.

    (paraphrasing)

    Phlebitis? He doesn’t have phlebitis, it’s syphilis!

    You don’t get phlebitis from screwing 200 million people!

  97. 97.

    different-church-lady

    @Suffern ACE: Putting my treasure-trove of obscure wisdom to use, be careful with comedy vinyl. For some reason comedy records tend to be very poorly cared for, and are the most likely of all genres to damage your stylus.

  98. 98.

    NotMax

    @different-church-lady

    Only because you asked.

    (dons Kevlar long johns and hockey mask)

    Sounds as if work lately has been a real pressure cooker.

    (Forgiveness for that asked for in advance.)

  99. 99.

    Roger Moore

    @different-church-lady:

    OK, I’ve had 9 hours of sleep in the past 3 days, and a mint julip, and I’m in the mood to pick a fight.

    Maybe you should just have a few more of those mint thingies and pass out for 16 hours or so. Sounds like a better approach to your problem than sitting around arguing on a blog. And fuck you if you don’t want to take my brilliant advice.

  100. 100.

    gogol's wife

    @Roger Moore:

    Balloon Juice is the perfect antidote for a bad day at work! And it doesn’t damage your health or make you fat.

  102. 102.

    gogol's wife

    Okay, “Shopworn Angel” is starting on TCM. I’ve never seen it, but it’s James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, and Walter Pidgeon, so how can it be bad.

  105. 105.

    NotMax

    @Roger Moore

    That was by far the least distasteful of the dozen or so bad japes which my addled, idle mind conjured up, the rest far better pitched into a bottomless pit and left unsaid.

  107. 107.

    Haydnseek

    @NotMax: Favorite Myron Cohen punchline: “Alright, give me the fly and I’ll bring you a raisin.”

  111. 111.

    Ruckus

    @Ruckus:
    Should have read all the thread first. But I did see a question about the actual comedy value of Rusty. She works blue. Dark, midnight blue, at least given the time frame. At least that is what it seemed like way back then. I seem to recall I was just old enough to drive the first time I heard her played.

  115. 115.

    Haydnseek

    @Jamie: Detained with Viagra? That’s all it took? I figured it would take repeated strikes with tranquilizer darts loaded with industrial strength doses of weapons grade thorazine to bring down that bellowing shitbag. Those boner pills are more dangerous than I thought.

  118. 118.

    Haydnseek

    Moderation? For three hours? Is this FYWP or just FY? Let’s step our game up, shall we?

  120. 120.

    Wally Ballou

    Mort Sahl’s late ’50s Verve LPs (The Future Lies Ahead, A Way of Life) are a fascinating memento of topical lefty humor in that era.

  122. 122.

    Wally Ballou

    @NotMax: Well, they were already mentioned a couple times upthread so it seemed a little redundant.

Comments are closed.