Mr. Silton, Radio Star

This morning, after hearing a semi-sensational news report on the normally reliable KFOG, I dropped my bag on my way out the door and jammed out an email to the radio station criticizing their coverage. As I arrived at Aragon at 7:15, the main DJ read a good chunk of it and they proceeded with a few minutes of discussion, basically agreeing with my premise. Apparently they got (and shared on the air) a number of calls in support of my point over the next 45 minutes. Obviously, this was the highlight of my day. Some tens of thousands of people heard my analysis -- cool.

I hope this doesn't come across as showing off, because the point of sharing this with you is that being politically active is about more than voting, and often, being willing to speak up has far more impact than you might think. This is actually the third time I've been on the KFOG morning show; on other occasions I called in and they put my comment on the air. I used to think, "there's no point in calling. I'll never get through, or, why write a letter to the editor? They'll get tons just like it." Actually, no, they don't.

Years ago, my older brother got annoyed with one of my many political rants and threw down, "all you do is whine and moan, but you never *do* anything. Shut up already!" He had a point. And this is why I love political blogs... I don't have to shut up, and I'm actually doing something to advance the causes I believe in at least some of the time.

I believe voting is basic civic duty, but let's face it, in a one-sided election, one vote counts but doesn't have an impact. Over the past few years, I've become convinced that the time I take to write to journalists, politicians, and blogs has had far more impact than my vote. For your consideration.

For the record, here is the letter, in full. They basically read the last paragraph. I'm not sure how I wrote this in 10-15 minutes, but I guess sometimes it flows.
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Good morning!

I've spent about 10% of my waking hours over the past 10 years listening to KFOG, and I respect Peter Finch's work in general, especially his Fog Files on the weekends and his fun trips to schools to review music. However, the news blurbs the past 2 days about the campaign have been atrocious. I expect Peter and your team to be better than repeating the sensational media hawking talking points from the campaigns.

Yesterday, Peter mentioned how factcheck.org had debunked a number of bogus claims about Sarah Palin, including the idea that she tried to ban books when Mayor of Wasilla and the idea that she belonged to a radical fringe political party that promoted the secesssion of Alaska.

I like factcheck.org, in fact, I assigned a book written by two of its principal authors (_UnSpun_) to my students over the summer. The problem is that Peter didn't read the whole article and tell Fogheads that the actual truth was that Palin had inquired with the librarian about possibly banning books (she was rebuffed) and that her husband had belonged to the Alaska Independence Party for many years and that she had sent the party a videotaped message earlier this year. I'd rather not have a VP that thinks banning books or seceeding from the Union is even remotely OK.

I'm a bit disappointed in factcheck in this instance, actually, because the claims they are debunking are the sloppily reported versions of reasonable concerns. The way they -- and Peter -- presented the situation makes it seem like Democrats in general are repeating the exaggerated claims. Debunking the bogus version is all fine and good, but without reporting the whole truth it comes across as unduly helpful to the GOP and their meme about media bias.

Today, we hear Obama's quote about putting lipstick on a pig. I'm sure Peter knows that the Republicans are being disingenuous and hypocritical when accusing Obama of making a sexist remark; after all, Palin described herself as a Pit Bull with lipstick, Obama has made the comment about "lipstick on a pig" on several other occasions in regards to male politicians, and McCain isn't exactly innocent when it comes to making flagrantly sexist statements. Yet he repeats this as "big news." What makes it newsworthy? Because idiots on cable news have nothing better to talk about? Because one party is going to hype it up and try to score points with voters? Why would Peter repeat the Republican talking point of the day? Whichever camp gets their outrage cranked up to 11 doesn't deserve to have top billing on the news. Peter ought not to fall for their manipulations and subject Fogheads to a campaign about sound bites instead of a campaign that is at least partially about issues and government policy, not just personality and media spin.