Radio Sweethearts

Given the events of this weekend, neither Kerry nor I were able to focus long enough to sit down and write our “On the Media” highlights post for this week.

Thankfully, Matt Bloom – an astute NPR listener and one of my best friends – was listening to OTM as soon as the podcast downloaded, and had an opinion. When I asked him, he was all too ready to step up to the plate and write for us. What follows is what he sent me.

thanks,

Matthew

OTM Recap: The Special Dramatic Stepping In of Matt To Relieve the Newly-Engaged Blogger-Couple of Their Recapping Duties Edition

It turns out that when you take a conservative who believes that tax cuts increase revenue and tell him it’s not true, he’s twice as likely to believe it. Also, it appears you need to precede the news that there just ain’t no WMDs in any given foreign country by making sure the member of congress you’re informing knows she’s a stone fox. But that’s not why I agreed to write this.

It wasn’t because Bob used the phrases “total abject world financial collapse” and “post-apocalyptic Mad Max world” – back-to-back – in describing a vision of the future he hoped budding financial journalists could avoid. As sexy as following the money sounds, the 1970s’ porn industry just totally jacked up the meaning of the name “Deepthroat” in the American psyche. And good luck getting college students to watch All the Presidents’ Men without just giggling at the haircuts all the way through. I certainly did.

And no, I wasn’t even inspired by the bitter reality that the more tapping capability our government puts into our communications network, the easier it will be for some Pentagon janitor to hold the entire country hostage with his hand on a lever some day. With the economy tanking into that apocalyptic Mad Max world Bob described, I’d be tempted to demand a few million bucks in exchange for not shutting down every urban power grid in the country myself. (To readers monitoring from Homeland Security: lighten up, I’m kidding, please don’t arrest me.)

Honestly, I agreed to write this recap because I am overjoyed that Brooke Gladstone helped me discover that I am truly a hardcore grammar nerd.

This weekend found my wife listening to OTM in the bathroom as I charged in, screaming profanities at the top of my lungs. When she bade me actually pay attention to what I was hearing, however, I realized that OTM was not praising Sarah Palin for her inane “change/career, career/change” comment. Instead, the informative commentary was quite wonderful.

I’ve had an itch for weeks, and by providing the ailment with a name, I now know what medicine to use on it. The itch’s name is antimetabole, and my medicine is hating the grammatical sins of speechwriters. I’d been making the mistake of hating politicians and it just wasn’t doing the trick. Ahhhh, that’s the spot. Way below JFK, just above Mitt Romney and even localized somewhat in the Obama region. Thanks, Brooke.
Matt Bloom is an author who lives and works in Muncie, Ind. You can find his work at readmattbloom.com.