Contemporary essays, fiction, and opinion offered regularly by author Anne Brandt.






Question for the week
I am curious: is it proper usage of grammar to use these words together : Fairly quickly ex: We responded to the fire call fairly quickly.
Ten minutes to
write.
Less time to
read.
Talking Heads
Posted: 11/06/04
Maybe I’m just a sore loser, but I’ve grown weary of talk show hosts who have used the recent election as grist for their conversation mills. Granted, during the spring primaries, the summer conventions, and the fall race to the finish, the topic was relevant. I understood and accepted that.

But the contest is over. We know about red and blue states. We know who the winner is. Those of us who followed the campaigns probably also know the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate and what appealed to the voters about them. Rehashing more of the same won’t change any outcome.

I have a theory that the World Series and the election, with its accompanying diatribes about the war in Iraq and the economy, grasped our collective attention to the point where we haven’t followed other developments very well. Consequently, we’re not up to speed on them.

It’s all right for the rest of us to have election withdrawal symptoms in private; but it can be dangerous if you are a talk show host and haven’t found other issues with which to pique audience interest. Listeners are fickle. Maybe I’m not the only one who has already tuned out. Maybe there are enough of us to cause some hosts to be dumped.

So, Larry, Dr. Bennett, Rush, Bill O’Reilly, and the rest of you . . . get a life!


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