Traen Derailment at KQRS

KQRS-FM (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

KQRS (92.5 FM) is once again the center of controversy in the Twin Cities radio world, having said goodbye to popular personalities Terri Traen and Brian Zepp, both of whom had been hosting a late-afternoon show on the station for about a year.

Traen and Zepp had been regulars on "The KQ Morning Show", bantering with host Tom Barnard.  Traen's naive act did not sit well with Barnard, so she was the subject of many verbal put-downs that were less funny than mean spirited.  How she put up with it for three decades at KQ, we'll never know.

Judging by the comments on the local media's Facebook pages, most of those who posted blamed Barnard for Traen's ouster and vowed never to listen to KQ again.  Others bragged about not having listened for many years.

Isn't it also possible that Traen's and Zepp's show was canceled on its own merits?  From all reports (meaning we didn't listen to it either), the show was lacking artistically and in the ratings.

Barnard, meanwhile, has two more years to go on his contract at KQ.  He replaced Traen with Michelle Tafoya of NBC Sports, but otherwise things haven't changed much on the morning show.  Barnard still beats his chest over the issues of the day in a manner that would make Rush Limbaugh proud, talks about himself and his family, and plugs his separately-produced daily podcast.  The rest of his on-air crew react as if they were verbal bobbleheads.

Barnard's show used to be the most dominant on Twin Cities morning radio, to the point where every other station gave up trying to compete.  No longer.  The top-rated show is now "The Power Trip" on KFAN (100.3 FM).  Either this is an indication that the quality of morning radio has gone way down since Barnard started his show 30 years ago, or listeners have grown tired of him, or both.

Another familiar complaint is that KQ's classic rock format has devolved into playing the same number of songs from the same number of artists that were popular 40 or 50 years ago.  Classic rock has been a lucrative format for years, but is now becoming stale as more people find better music options and Baby Boomers are aging out of the 25-54 demographic.

Cumulus Media, KQ's parent company, has been accused of skimping on the hundreds of radio stations they own just so they could avoid bankruptcy.  So, for that matter, is iHeart Media.  CBS Radio is selling its stations to Entercom.  But as long as Cumulus still thinks KQ is making money in its current format, they don't see a reason to change.

Everyone who works in media gets fired at one time or another, and Terri Traen and Brian Zepp are no exception.  Maybe they'll find gainful employment somewhere else, maybe they won't.  But the years spent as well-known personalities at a top-rated rock station probably won't be duplicated.

100 Days of The Donald

English: Donald Trump at a press conference announcing David Blaine's latest feat in New York City at the Trump Tower. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They say the first hundred days of a presidency is the most important, because it sets the agenda for what will happen during the next four to eight years.  For President Donald Trump, he's just now learning the do's and don'ts of what his new office entails.  What follows is a rundown of what Trump did and did not accomplish in his first hundred days in office.  Let's just say it's been interesting.

WHAT TRUMP DID:

• Drops out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal no one except President Barack Obama was excited about anyway. 
• Start a trade war with Canada over lumber.
• Reversed his stance on China as a "currency manipulator", and is getting along better with its leaders, if only to keep North Korea in line.
• Decided that NATO wasn't as obsolete as he thought it was, as long as member nations pay their bills.
• Nominated generals, climate change deniers, business leaders and other strange individuals to Cabinet positions.
• Separated himself from his business dealings by setting up a trust, handled by two unofficial advisors who also happen to be his sons.
• Brought in daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner to serve as White House advisers.  It also gives Ivanka a better platform for hawking her jewelry and clothing lines.
• Bombed a Syrian airfield in response to Bashir al-Assad's use of sarin gas on his own people.
• Spent weekends playing golf and hanging out at his Mar-a-Lago club on the taxpayers' dime.
• Gets his news from "Fox & Friends", the only source he doesn't consider "fake news".
• Dropped a 22,000-pound superbomb on an Islamic State bunker in Afghanistan, killing 94.  Who needs diplomacy?
• Neil Gorsuch became a Supreme Court justice, but only after the Republican Senate changed the rules to get him on the bench.
• Signed a dozen executive orders that affected federal regulations on such things as internet privacy, immigration and the environment.  In other words, reversing most of Obama's accomplishments.
• The stock market improved four percent since Trump took office.
• Has tweeted more than any President in history.

WHAT TRUMP DIDN'T DO:

• Failed to get his travel ban against people coming from mostly Muslim nations past the courts.  Twice.
• Didn't get his plan to "repeal and replace" Obamacare to a vote in Congress before the Republicans pulled it.  Yet.
• Did not declare war on North Korea.  Yet.
• Failed to convince folks that he's nothing more than a bobo for Russian President Vladimir Putin, or that the Russians gave him and his staff plenty of help to win the election.
• Let go of grudges against Obama or Hillary Clinton.
• The number of jobs created was half as many Trump claimed.
• Separate the rift between Kushner and chief strategist Steve Bannon.
• Convince more than half of the American public that he's doing a good job in office.  However, ABC News reports that 96 percent of Trump voters didn't regret choosing him.  Then again. the President considers polls to be "fake news" anyway.
• Get that wall built on the Mexican border.  Yet.
• Release his tax returns.
• Convince wife Melania to move to the White House from Trump Tower, or at least act like she enjoys being First Lady.
• Resign from office or get impeached.

What will the next hundred days bring us?  How about the next thousand?  One shudders at the thought, given what's happened the past hundred days.

Bill O'Reilly, Outfoxed

Bill O'Reilly at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, September 30, 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bill O'Reilly was spun out of Fox News Channel Wednesday after two decades.  He was the longtime host of the network's most popular show "The O'Reilly Factor", where his confrontational style and unabashed conservative leanings set the example for other cable discussion shows to follow, for better or worse.

O'Reilly's departure came when his corporate bosses at 21st Century Fox (also known as the Murdoch empire) wearied of his reportedly having spawned several sexual harassment lawsuits, resulting in millions of dollars in "buy your silence" payouts to the women involved.  Fox had planned to keep O'Reilly on the air until at least 50 major advertisers pulled out of "The Factor".  Then they really had to do something.  As usual in corporate America, the bottom line counts more than the complaints of women.

Charges of sexual harassment have run rampant in recent years at FNC.  It's what caused Roger Ailes, who guided the network to its greatest success, to be shown the door.  It's also what caused some of its best-known personalities to seek employment elsewhere:  Gretchen Carlson (whose lawsuit against Ailes started all this), Megyn Kelly and Greta Van Susteren, among others, have all left.

Both O'Reilly and Ailes have denied the charges against them.

O'Reilly has at least one supporter in President Donald Trump, who has also been accused in the past of making unwanted advances towards women.  Takes one to know one, right?

Tucker Carlson has been announced by FNC as O'Reilly's replacement starting Monday.  Carlson's show had already replaced Kelly's in January when she moved to NBC News.

Fox News Channel is one of the top rated networks on cable, and leads CNN and MSNBC among all news channels by a distant margin.  It should remain that way even after O'Reilly's departure, because where else are Republicans and other conservatives going to go for what FNC promotes as "fair and balanced" news?  They will remain relevant as long as the current President of the United States trusts their information more than he trusts the classified briefings he gets.

As for Bill O'Reilly, he now has plenty of free time to work on his "Killing" book and TV-movie franchise ("Killing Kennedy", "Killing Reagan", etc.).  Maybe the next volume should be titled "Killing My Career".

Making The Middle East Safe for Democracy. Again.

Coat of arms of Syria -- the "Hawk of Qureish" with shield of vertical tricolor of the national flag, holding a scroll with the words الجمهورية العربية السورية (Al-Jumhuriyah al-`Arabiyah as-Suriyah "The Syrian Arab Republic"). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A century after the United States entered World War I, a conflict that was notorious for introducing chemical weapons to the battlefield, Syria's leader Basher al-Assad ordered the use of sarin gas on the small village of Khan Sheikhoun, believing that members of the Islamic State have been hiding out among the rebels.  Instead he killed 80 people, mostly civilians.

Like most of the world, President Donald Trump saw footage of the aftermath on TV and reacted in much the same way we would when confronted with images of starving children in Africa or abused animals.  Only instead of writing checks, Trump sent 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles that damaged a Syrian air base.

The world, with the notable exception of Russia, China and Iran, cheered this development because it meant the Assad dictatorship was one step closer to being overthrown.  But the Syrian civil war has been going on for six years with no end in sight.  Millions have fled the half-destroyed country, creating a humanitarian crisis in Europe.  And there are no obvious successors to Assad, who has either killed or jailed his opponents for as long as he's been in power.

This should put to rest the notion that Russia and its president Vladimir Putin, who has supported Assad during the war, are buddy-buddy with Trump.  But what about reports that the Syrians and the Russians were given a heads-up about the bombing before it began?  That sounds mighty suspicious, don't you think?

What this airstrike really does for Trump, besides making him look like a hero, is to provide cover from all the bad publicity he and the Republican party have been getting lately.  Neil Gorsuch is finally sworn in as Supreme Court justice, but only after he got in via the "nuclear option" of GOP senators voting in their man on a majority vote.  Over the ashes of the first attempt to get rid of Obamacare rises a new health care bill that's worse than the first.  And, oh yes, the investigation into whether the Trump team colluded with the Russians to fix the presidential election in their favor continues.

What happens next?  Sanctions?  Further military intervention (as if the U.S. really needs another excuse to get into another Mideast war)?  Maybe Trump should have asked Congress for permission first.  But as we've seen in recent wars, that train's already left the station.  Or how about letting in people from Syria who are not card-carrying members of any terrorist group, instead of treating them like criminals?

Just like those ads on TV begging for your money so the starving children of Africa could have something to eat, or all those abused animals can be better cared for, President Trump's attempt at saving the Syrian people can be seen as emotional blackmail on gullible Americans to keep himself relevant.  What's going to happen if, for some reason, he blunders into another opportunity to make the world safe for democracy?  Then we've learned nothing in a hundred years.