...there's the pivotal role that AM talk radio has played in promoting Schwarzenegger's candidacy.  It has been true for some time that AM talk is almost entirely the preserve of the right wing.  Within the universe of California media, conservative radio talk show hosts have been the recall's most consistent and passionate advocates. When the majority of them also appeared to make "Arnold" their candidate early in the race, it seemed a clear win for Schwarzenegger.

 

But, as the Times and Field polls suggest, it may have been a Pyrrhic victory.  Like the action film audience, AM talk radio's listeners are overwhelmingly male.  The prevailing industry wisdom holds that the talk audience is 60% male to 40% female.  However, many shows now have gender gaps the size of sports talk, where 75% of the listeners are men.  An unnamed "senior advisor" to Schwarzenegger's campaign conceded to the New York Times on Tuesday that "Arnold's" reliance on friendly talk show hosts has alienated many women.

 

That doesn't surprise media scholar Martin Kaplan, who directs the Norman Lear Center at USC's Annenberg School of Communications.  He suggests that "the anthropology of talk radio explains its predominately male audience.  After all, when you listen to one of these shows, it's all about screaming and chest thumping - sort of like what you see in those studies of the great apes.  Think of the host as the silverback: He screams and thumps his chest, and the listeners call in to emulate him.

 

"That's not a mating call," Kaplan says wryly, "it's a macho dominance game.  In that sense, talk radio is no longer much different than the sports call-in shows, which use knowledgeability of the game as a kind of male bonding ritual."

Berlusconi quoted defending Mussolini: Italian leader tells newspaper WWII dictator didn't kill anyone
 
Associated Press  ROME, September 11, 2003

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was quoted Thursday as saying that Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini never killed anyone and only sent people away on vacations in internal exile, a claim that distressed Jewish leaders. Berlusconi's party was quick to say that the quotation had not been confirmed.  The newspaper that published the comments said they were as close as possible to those transcribed from a tape-recorded interview

The remarks appeared in La Voce di Rimini, following an August interview with two journalists for London's The Spectator and for the Italian paper.
      
The comment reportedly came during a discussion of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, which brought up Italy's experience with a tyrannical leader.  Mussolini ruled Italy from 1922 until his ouster in 1943.
      
"Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini used to send people on vacation in internal exile," Berlusconi was quoted as saying.
      
Berlusconi's Forza Italia party spokesman Sandro Bondi said "these lines must be confirmed," the Ap.Biscom news agency reported.  He added, "the Fascist regime, as we all know, was a dictatorial and authoritarian regime.
      
"But as is universally accepted by all historians on the right and on the left, it cannot be in any way compared to Nazism or communism, which practiced systematic genocide against their own people and other peoples."
      
Amos Luzzatto, president of the Italian Jewish community, expressed "sadness" over the reported remarks. 
       
"The Fascist regime did not make extermination camps for the Jews, but certainly it contributed to creating them," he told the AGI news agency.  "If killing someone only means hitting an adversary and killing him, then not even Hitler killed anyone. But in that way, we can say that there are no murderers in the world."

This day is called the feast of Crispin:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispin.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispin:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispins day.'

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names
Familiar in his mouth as household words

Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin - Crispin shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he neer so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

3. The way things are going  

The Bush-Sharon solution has its curious appeal?

Jerusalem Post: Editorial 12 September ... Excerpt -

"The world will not help us; we must help ourselves. We must kill as many of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders as possible, as quickly possible, while minimizing collateral damage, but not letting that damage stop us. And we must kill Yasser Arafat, because the world leaves us no alternative."

Well, our government talks this way about Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and we got Hussein's sons.  They're real dead.  But maybe this is not assassination, not the kind the Israeli folks are fond of. 

It just sound so familiar.

And there is by-passing the silly judicial process -

Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday said that most of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba will be held until the global war on terror ends but they will not be afforded trials.

Rumsfeld said the 660 or so men held at the Guantánamo Bay naval base are imprisoned not as punishment but "to keep them from going back and fighting again and killing people." He said most would be held until the global war on terrorism is over - a fight that Rumsfeld has said could last years, if not decades.

The defense secretary said he expects some suspects to be tried before military tribunals but prefers that most continue to be imprisoned indefinitely.

"Our interest is in not trying them and letting them out," he said in a question-and-answer session after a speech to the National Press Club. "Our interest is in - during this global war on terror - keeping them off the streets, and so that's what's taking place."

So we're going to continue to pay to incarcerate hundreds of men for possibly decades?  With no criminal charges, no access to a lawyer and no judicial hearings or trials? 

One fellow said - "What country is this?  Ah, yours and mine."  Indeed.