atoms into suns

For the past several months I've been taking a drive a couple times a week, one that takes a little over an hour each way. This adds up to a lot of time alone in the car with little to entertain me. Music doesn't keep my brain engaged; it's too easy to slip into a semi-comatose state. So I've been listening to a lot of talk radio.

At first it was something to keep me entertained, but morbid curiosity kept me coming back for more. I scan through the stations, listening to whatever the radio settles on next. The sports and Spanish-language stations I flip past, but I find myself listening to more and more of the political talk programs. Mostly I'm curious to hear what the hosts are ranting about this time. I like to listen to other people's reasoning and opinions, and since the US is so divided these days it gives me a little insight into what people are so enraged about.

That's a nice way of saying that the hosts are abusive, egotistical, rude, abrasive, extreme, and divisive.

As I drive I listen to hosts yelling about half-truths and imagined faults of those they disagree with, stating opinions as facts and shutting down any attempt at debate by abusing their opponents or just turning the volume down on the callers so they can shout over them.

I got my first taste of Air America. I had hoped that, as the answer to right-wing radio, they'd be reasonable and balanced, but they're just as abrasive.

Then there are the religious stations. I find myself listening to these more and more, in part because while they are often just as opinionated about current events, at least they're more polite about it. The other reason I listen to them is that, again, I love to hear how people think. I grew up Catholic, so even though I have a Christian background and know the stories and the history, a lot of the evangelical movement that's so strong now comes at these from a different perspective.

Interestingly enough, there's a unifying factor in all these different stations: the commercials. There are tons of commercials on all these stations outlining shaky business advice (invention and patent help, abusive commercials about how stupid you are and how you won't be successful until you Buy This Book!), investments (buy gold!), and questionable health supplements (anti-aging, hair loss, supplements made with everything from seaweed to cartilage to vitamins that don't exist). It's funny to hear the same commercials on all these stations with such different views, to hear the right-wing and left-wing hosts both telling me to buy gold. Advertisers, shrewd students of human nature that they are, seem to know that even if the politics are different, the listeners are otherwise the same.

Which makes me worry, since I've been listening to this crap voluntarily, several hours a week, for months now.

Next stop: the library's book-on-tape section. There's got to be something better I can be feeding my brain.