Saturday, May 2, 2009

Parrallels between Obama and Joan of Arc?

There may be a rare reader who knows that AKIC likes to download podcasts off the Net and put them on his now old mobile phone. He readily admits to a preference for right-wing talk, but he is willing to give other types of shows a listen. He religiously listens to Radio Derb. He regularly listens to Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt (always downloading interviews with Chris Hitchens, Marc Steyn, James Lileks, and Victor David Hanson), G Gordon Liddy, and PJM Political. He wants to listen to EconTalk podcasts but is having a hard time downloading them in China. He shyly admits to listening to EWTN.

This taste for podcasts is a continuance of his habit of listening to radio. Before the Internet, he would stay up late listening to A.M. stations from America which could only be picked up at night. In New Brunswick, he could listen to the great stations from New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. He first, while in Winnipeg, encountered Rush Limbaugh on a Minneapolis station which replayed the great one's show late at night. Moving to British Columbia, he could pick up Washington State stations in the day. Working as a courier, talk radio was his best friend. He even went to meet Rafe Maher of CKNW fame.

He refuses to listen to CBC radio, having never been able to forgive them for their coverage of 9/11. He still rankles at the suggestion heard on that national station that anti-abortion activists stages the attacks.

He has tried to download other types of podcasts but has so far been very disappointed. One entitled "Stuff they didn't teach you in History Class" drove him nuts because of the boorishness of the two female hosts. A guy who will watch Kenneth Clark's Civilisation over and over again can't stand low-class accents accompanied by bad diction and vocabulary. He just tried a Military History podcast and again finds himself driven to the edge of insanity by a host who doesn't have a radio voice.

AKIC listening to one of these Military podcasts heard a comment that inspires the title of this blog entry. The podcast episode recounted the story of Joan of Arc, the girl who saw visions that inspired her to approach the King of France and to ask for, and be granted military command in a war against England. That a 17 year old girl would be given command seems inexplicable. But the King of France had tried everything else and this strong-willed girl seemed a source of hope. It was at this point in the podcast that a parrallel was made with Obama's election. The podcast host readily admitted that Obama lacked the executive experience to be President, but was being elected anyway because he was seen as a source of hope. AKIC had thought that the right's accusing the left of cannonize Obama was a trite overdoing it. But apparently it is not.



I took off my clothes for my wife as she feeding Tony. I then did a dance for her. After a few minutes, she said that no one was watching me. On the ball, I responded that if she wasn't watching me, she wouldn't be saying that she wasn't watching me. Aha!!!

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