FEAR & ANGST

Today I went to see A Prairie Home Companion at my local multiplex. As you know, this is based on the long running NPR (National Public Radio) show. What's on celluloid is not necessarily what has happened to the show, but it's very close if not a dead-on account of what happens on the actual live show. I went because not many of my friends showed an interest in it, and I wanted to see it before it left the theater. This isn't what my entry is about, but it was a strange contrast from what I heard on the radio on my way home.

I left the theater pleased the movie didn't completely suck, but, instead, left a pleasant after-taste. I walked over to my car. I put the key in my ignition and then my radio came on. "I'll Always Love You" by Taylor Dayne was playing, so I changed the station. Not because the song was overplayed back in the eighties, but because I wasn't in the mood for the cool stylings of Ms. Dayne. I search settled on my local talk radio station, and when I say settled I mean settled. I wasn't in the mood for talk, but there wasn't anything else good playing.

Anyway, the agony and ecstasy to talk radio is that you are always entering in the middle of a conversation. Sometimes the conversation is entertaining, and then other times it can be as annoying as waiting in a long line when you only have to buy one thing. However, with radio you can always change the station. Waiting in line is not always optional. Sometimes you have to be there. So, I'm listening to some woman talk and not really focusing on the conversation when I hear her mentioning something about illegal immigrants and asking the radio host about reporting people to Immigration (INS). She actually wanted to report some of her neighbors to INS. Words cannot explain the craziness of her statements. I mean, are these people having boxes and boxes labeled EXPLOSIVES being brought in and out of their house? Do they have a constant flow of people in and out their house at all hours? What makes them suspicious? She never said. She almost explained her reasons for needing to call INS, but the host cut her off and said they had to go to commercial break.

Our nation has been a place of fear and distrust for some time now, but are we becoming a nation that calls the authorities on you because you look foreign? This caller, kept saying the word foreigners when she mentioned her neighbors. Foreigners! Aliens! Fags! Niggers! What the Fuck?! I don't want to think we are spiraling down this slippery slope that we'll have a hard time getting up from. I hope a change will come soon, or at the very least in two years.