Note: I added an update to this post from April 25th at the end.
KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is generally considered the world's first radio station. The first broadcast was election returns on November 2nd 1920 emanating from, as Wikipedia states it, "a shack on the roof of the K building of the Westinghouse Electric Company 'East Pittsburgh Works' in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania." Yes, that's the same 'Turtle Creek' mentioned in my post The Battle Of The Monongahela And The Tribulation from April 2nd of this month. Both of my grandfathers worked at that plant and at that time.
I've always been a radio person. It's a small world and pleasantly ironic at times as this anecdote may show: My cousin is a creative genius in radio and that genius was written up in Time Magazine back in the 70s. He essentially built the top station in Pittsburgh, through his consulting, which employed, at one time or another in the decade of the 70s, a young man named Jeff Christie and another named Jim Quinn. The moniker Jeff Christie must not have gone over too well so he went back to his real name.....Rush Limbaugh. The other ex-disc jockey is the one that this post is mostly about.
Western Pennsylvania is conservative, outside of Pittsburgh anyway, and moving more to the right all the time. One of the many reasons for this is that it had a powerful radio talker station and, in my humble but knowledgeable opinion, its local conservative talk show host was the third best in this U. S. of A. That's Jim Quinn. I listen to a lot of these hosts and they range from good to mediocre with a few that are just plain bad. Limbaugh and Mark Levin are far and away the best but next in line behind them was Jim Quinn from the The Warroom with Quinn and Rose, 'Rose' being Rose Somma Tennent, an established host in her own right, who sometimes fills in for Sean Hannity....and improves the show!
I'm going somewhere with this post and will get to it in the next paragraph but first a little more on why Quinn was that good. He could tell the difference between what really mattered and that which just inflamed for the sake of inflaming. He had the discernment of Limbaugh and the passion of Levin. He picked out the news stories that others missed. He was rough around the edges but that only made the powers that be in the liberal media despise him the more. He often made comments on his morning show that they were out to get him.
I was tuning in on my drive to work one morning in November of 2013 and Quinn And Rose were not on the air. The show was cancelled. I listened to his replacement for ten minutes and haven't tuned in since. I don't know the behind the scenes reasoning for the show's cancellation but I know this....it makes no sense money-wise to cancel a show that was hugely popular. So Quinn was gone but another surprise was just around the corner. It was an afternoon this time and I tuned in to hear Rush but lo and behold the station was playing country music! This powerful signal that I would always pick up just after passing through the tunnels on the Pennsylvania Turnpike heading home from points east.....this influence on all of Western Pennsylvania, was gone....another mystery. We were told not to worry because the same shows were just moving to another Pittsburgh station, but it turned out to be a much smaller signal that I can barely pick up, clearly anyway, in the car outside our home.
So from the perspective of politics this was a very bad turn of events but there is a silver lining. Sean Hannity is often on my truck XM on the road home from work, for I tune in out of habit. There is very little intellectual stimulation on his show, as well as many other conservative talk shows. We are too often condescended to. Right now the topic is Hillary, and over and over again we hear of her many corruptions. The purpose is not to inform us for we already know it, rather the purpose is to etch the facts into our minds. This may be practical but it is not stimulating nor does it even exercise the mind. So the move of conservative talk from a big talker to a smaller talker in Pittsburgh may just force us to think on our own more, to do a little bit of the analyzing ourselves and to make our own conclusions particularly on whether or not to even vote Republican anymore if thy continue to belittle, disregard and downright deceive their biggest block. Okay I vented...
So, I listened to Quinn and Limbaugh when I was much younger and I listened to them often over the past decade or so for an entirely different reason. I've been helped by them, but I can't help but think about their eternal souls. Politics, our government, our way of life, freedom, liberty.....these things are important....especially as they either help or hinder the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but they should never be the main focus of our passions. Neither of these two ex-DJ...talk show hosts disparage the Gospel or the Bible or God, in fact they defend the importance of the fear of God as to the very existence of America but this is not salvation and thus as I pray for America I also pray for those who love America but know not Jesus Christ or their standing with God.
Note: Jim Quinn now has an Internet radio show and can be accessed through warroom.com
Note: Salem Media Group purchased a Pittsburgh AM radio station (WPGP 1250) and Rose Tennent now has her own time slot (8-10 in the morning) among other conservative talk show programs.
KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is generally considered the world's first radio station. The first broadcast was election returns on November 2nd 1920 emanating from, as Wikipedia states it, "a shack on the roof of the K building of the Westinghouse Electric Company 'East Pittsburgh Works' in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania." Yes, that's the same 'Turtle Creek' mentioned in my post The Battle Of The Monongahela And The Tribulation from April 2nd of this month. Both of my grandfathers worked at that plant and at that time.
I've always been a radio person. It's a small world and pleasantly ironic at times as this anecdote may show: My cousin is a creative genius in radio and that genius was written up in Time Magazine back in the 70s. He essentially built the top station in Pittsburgh, through his consulting, which employed, at one time or another in the decade of the 70s, a young man named Jeff Christie and another named Jim Quinn. The moniker Jeff Christie must not have gone over too well so he went back to his real name.....Rush Limbaugh. The other ex-disc jockey is the one that this post is mostly about.
Western Pennsylvania is conservative, outside of Pittsburgh anyway, and moving more to the right all the time. One of the many reasons for this is that it had a powerful radio talker station and, in my humble but knowledgeable opinion, its local conservative talk show host was the third best in this U. S. of A. That's Jim Quinn. I listen to a lot of these hosts and they range from good to mediocre with a few that are just plain bad. Limbaugh and Mark Levin are far and away the best but next in line behind them was Jim Quinn from the The Warroom with Quinn and Rose, 'Rose' being Rose Somma Tennent, an established host in her own right, who sometimes fills in for Sean Hannity....and improves the show!
I'm going somewhere with this post and will get to it in the next paragraph but first a little more on why Quinn was that good. He could tell the difference between what really mattered and that which just inflamed for the sake of inflaming. He had the discernment of Limbaugh and the passion of Levin. He picked out the news stories that others missed. He was rough around the edges but that only made the powers that be in the liberal media despise him the more. He often made comments on his morning show that they were out to get him.
I was tuning in on my drive to work one morning in November of 2013 and Quinn And Rose were not on the air. The show was cancelled. I listened to his replacement for ten minutes and haven't tuned in since. I don't know the behind the scenes reasoning for the show's cancellation but I know this....it makes no sense money-wise to cancel a show that was hugely popular. So Quinn was gone but another surprise was just around the corner. It was an afternoon this time and I tuned in to hear Rush but lo and behold the station was playing country music! This powerful signal that I would always pick up just after passing through the tunnels on the Pennsylvania Turnpike heading home from points east.....this influence on all of Western Pennsylvania, was gone....another mystery. We were told not to worry because the same shows were just moving to another Pittsburgh station, but it turned out to be a much smaller signal that I can barely pick up, clearly anyway, in the car outside our home.
So from the perspective of politics this was a very bad turn of events but there is a silver lining. Sean Hannity is often on my truck XM on the road home from work, for I tune in out of habit. There is very little intellectual stimulation on his show, as well as many other conservative talk shows. We are too often condescended to. Right now the topic is Hillary, and over and over again we hear of her many corruptions. The purpose is not to inform us for we already know it, rather the purpose is to etch the facts into our minds. This may be practical but it is not stimulating nor does it even exercise the mind. So the move of conservative talk from a big talker to a smaller talker in Pittsburgh may just force us to think on our own more, to do a little bit of the analyzing ourselves and to make our own conclusions particularly on whether or not to even vote Republican anymore if thy continue to belittle, disregard and downright deceive their biggest block. Okay I vented...
So, I listened to Quinn and Limbaugh when I was much younger and I listened to them often over the past decade or so for an entirely different reason. I've been helped by them, but I can't help but think about their eternal souls. Politics, our government, our way of life, freedom, liberty.....these things are important....especially as they either help or hinder the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but they should never be the main focus of our passions. Neither of these two ex-DJ...talk show hosts disparage the Gospel or the Bible or God, in fact they defend the importance of the fear of God as to the very existence of America but this is not salvation and thus as I pray for America I also pray for those who love America but know not Jesus Christ or their standing with God.
Note: Jim Quinn now has an Internet radio show and can be accessed through warroom.com
Note: Salem Media Group purchased a Pittsburgh AM radio station (WPGP 1250) and Rose Tennent now has her own time slot (8-10 in the morning) among other conservative talk show programs.
