Good news of the day

I happened across a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie over the weekend, and started to think about the Depression and the ways people found to cope with the unrelieved bleakness of their daily lives. Struck by certain parallels, and suffering as I am from a severe case of outrage fatigue, I have decided on a new mission. The goal: to find at least one piece of good news each day and post it so we can all bask in its cheer. Here's today's, and it's a good one.

Limbaugh dumped for liberal show

January 12, 2005

By DANIEL BARLOW Southern Vermont Bureau

BRATTLEBORO — A southern Vermont-based radio station will trade in the rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk show hosts for the liberal commentary of Air America next week.

WKVT-AM 1490 in Brattleboro will replace four of its weekday syndicated conservative talk shows on Jan. 17 with programs from the fledgling liberal radio network Air America, which launched in March.

The station will be the second in Vermont to broadcast Air America programs, which include shows hosted by comedian Al Franken and actress Jeanne Garofalo.

The Brattleboro area is highly liberal in its political beliefs and the Air America shows will be a better fit for the station's listeners than the conservative programs hosted by Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, said WKVT program director Peter Case.

"We're calling this a right-to-left switch," he said. "For many years, our programming leaned to the right, but Brattleboro is a very liberal area and our lineup had to reflect that."

[snip]

The Air America programs will replace daily radio shows hosted by Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Howie Carr and Joy Brown, Case said.

"This is the 'clearing the air' campaign," Case said. "These new shows will be a better fit for the area."

A personal aside here. Howie Carr is an obnoxious loudmouth who also writes for the right-slanting Boston Herald and is well know in the Boston area for his personal vendetta against John Kerry. That should make this news especially sweet for Kerry supporters everywhere.

Conservatives took over talk radio several years ago and Air America is the start of liberal voices returning to the radio airwaves, said Lynn Bedell, the chairwoman of the Windham County Democratic Party.

Here's the core of the best part of this news: money talks. Yes, even liberal money talks.

"Vermont is a blue state, but its deep blue in Windham County," Bedell said. "Airing Rush Limbaugh — you are bound to lose a lot of listeners down here."

One small triumph at a time.