Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Turning that radio on again...

To the kind readers who've inquired, yes, indeed I've been away for many weeks now--not just from RadioactiveSeattle, but also, somewhat, from even listening to my favorite media genre.

That distraction is mostly over, I suspect, and I look forward to catching up herein on some of the fascinating things we've all been hearing on newstalk shows of late.

BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle

Savage Sure Is No Einstein

It will be interesting to hear how Michael Savage opens his annoying nationally-syndicated newstalk radio show this afternoon. If the brazenly-inconsistent host were as intellectually honest as every newstalk radio audience expects its host to be, he'd begin today's broadcast with an apology, in light of the Einstein news this week.

It's come out that Time's Person of the [20th] Century, the man whose very name is synonymous with brains, was apparently not merely an atheist but even regarded belief in G-d as "childish superstition". That and other ungodly statements were made by the aging physicist in a heretofore unpublished letter going up for auction. Einstein penned it in German the first week of 1954, barely a year before his demise two Aprils later, and thus near the end of a career which featured numerous, if often ambiguous or even cryptic, musings about his religious belief.

For his typically half-informed part, Savage has on several occasions at considerable length claimed Einstein as a believer. Savage is hardly the first on his side of the religious divide to make that assertion; after all, if the figure almost universally seen as the acme of intelligence shared a given supernatural inclination, considerable weight is added to the argument for that faith. But Savage has also vigorously, if absurdly, painted those of us who had reason to be dubious about the icon's supposed faith as part of a larger secular assault on decency in general and conservatism in particular.

Not only do I not expect any retraction in light of this news, much less an apology, from the unprincipled Savage, but if he handles this as he does virtually every event which disproves his often reckless words, it won't even be mentioned during any of his three hours today.

BRYAN STYBLE/Seattle