Am I missing out on something?
Some people are talk radio people, and some aren't. And it depends on what you listen to. There's a LOT of
different talk radio out there.
A rarity is the dry intellectualism of Issues, Etc. It's like a conservative Lutheran NPR, but with a lot of church history. I don't agree with a lot of their theological hobby-horses, but they have good analysis and info on a lot of social and theological issues. And they're a lot harder on us Evangelicals than on you Catholics.
http://www.issuesetc.org/ Despite the goofy title, the Bible Answer Man program is much in the same vein, though less high-brow (It IS Evangelical, after all).
http://www.equip.org/But maybe you've never listened to NPR. It's more informative and in-depth than TV news, and much less sensationalist. Pretty much leftist, though, and often too dry to listen to. They have some lighter stuff, like comedy and cooking shows and such on the weekends.
Let's get to the obvious - Rush Limbaugh. Possibly the most unknown celebrity in America. Everyone seems to know he's mean, angry, egocentric, racist, etc. In fact, he's none of those things. Maybe his ego is a little bigger than most, but most of his bragging and conceit is for comic effect. Keep your sense of humor about you, and remember that if he says something off-putting, he's probably joking.
Then there are the Limbaugh copy-cats few of whom I've found worthwhile. One exception is Laura Ingraham. She plays lots of awful soundbites from Sen. Byrd and the like, and then laughs at them. Laura gets on my nerves sometimes, like when she interviews some left-wing college activist and then demands to know if he reads Chomsky. Another one that is an acquired taste is Mark Levin. It should bother me that he makes "libs" call in on a segregated phone line, and tells them to "get off my show." Instead, it cracks me up. He's angry, but funny-angry.
Speaking of angry, there's Michael Savage. There's a guy who's riding Limbaugh's coat-tails, while pretending that Limbaugh is some kind of pretender to the throne. Conservative, liberal, libertarian, independent? No, he's just angry and hateful. There's no real consistent set of ideas, there, just anger.
