Londsberry Family Values

I love listening to Coast to Coast with George Noory. Ghosts, time travel, aliens...It really gives me a boost before I fall asleep. So, I set my radio alarm clock to AM 570 and put the snooze on for 20 minutes every night. I also set the radio alarm to wake me up at 7:30 am, smack in the middle of the Bob Londsberry show on KNRS, Family Values talk radio (I guess the family values part ends at 10:00, as I hardly understand how talk of aliens, ghosts and conspiracies fits into the FV theme).

Over the last three years I have ended up hearing Londsberry just about every morning. And, as a rhetorician, I have come to some conclusions about his need to excuse his own statements.

Bob Londsberry would not have to keep saying, over and over, every morning, "I don't mean to be insulting...," and "I don't want to be rude...," if he were not so insulting and rude. Also, he would not have to say, over and over, "Alright, I'll stop going on and on..." and "OK, I'll get off my high horse now..." if he did not go on and on so self righteously and offensively.

In the end, I think the "Family Value" that audiences learn, wittingly or not, from Bob Londsberry is that it is alright to self-righteously say insulting, rude and offensive things for as long as one wants as long as one uses rhetorical hedges to absolve and excuse himself. Unfortunately, it seems his largely Utahn LDS audience agrees, as his callers tend to congratulate his outspoken self-righteousness.

Last year I deprived myself for several months of Coast to Coast in an effort to prevent the anger Londsberry inspires in me when I wake up in the morning. This was spurred by his using an extended metaphor to talk about homosexuality in Utah. He compared gay people to rats coming out in an unkempt barn, and then, characteristically, claimed "I don't mean to compare anyone to an animal..." But, of course, that is exactly what he did.

After a couple of months back on my Coast to Coast bedtime ritual, and resulting months of morning frustration, I have decided to invest in another clock radio. That way I can be delighted at night, and wake up to KCRW and a fair day rather than hedged insults on the Family Values station.