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Air America: The Playbook: What a Bunch of Left Wing Media Types have to Teach you about a World Gone Right Hardcover – September 19, 2006
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Incisive political commentary delivered with a healthy dose of humor—and a decidedly left-of-center twist—captures the essence of Air America Radio
For frustrated voters who like their politicians left of center, the era of George W. Bush has been a time of exasperation, eye-rolling, hand-wringing, and even despair. Since Bush's "election" in 2000, millions of blue-tinted Americans have fled in droves from their TVs and radios, no longer able to bear the "Swiftboat-ization" of the mainstream media or the haranguing voices of such "villains" as Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, and Rush Limbaugh. Where can these displaced persons go for political asylum?
Enter, in 2004, Air America Radio, a talk radio network exclusively devoted to liberal, progressive talk. With stars like Al Franken, Janeane Garafalo, Chuck D, Robert Kennedy Jr., Randi Rhodes, Rachel Maddow, and many more, Air America has become an oasis in a time of complete domination by a conservative Republican majority. With close to four million listeners on 89 stations around the country, Air America gives all of those voters who still feel Al Gore and John Kerry should have and perhaps even did win the last two presidential elections a place to vent their opinions and talking heads who share their righteous indignation.
However, for readers who don't know what to do when their favorite radio show is over and they're still wide awake, for those who loved Jon Stewart's America, Bill Maher's New Rules, Thomas Frank's The Trouble With Kansas, and books by Al Franken, a new balm in book form awaits.
Air America offers a roadmap to the landmine that is American politics today, through an array of eyes and voices unabashedly left of center. Combining new original material with radio transcripts, useful sidebars and statistics, and interviews, all offered in an irresistibly unexpected mix of humor, outrage, sarcasm, and thoughtfulness, this essential guide to how our government works, who are the best hopes and the biggest offenders, and most importantly how liberals can take back their country from the ruling right wing is a must-read.
- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRodale Books
- Publication dateSeptember 19, 2006
- Dimensions7.5 x 0.94 x 9.13 inches
- ISBN-101594865140
- ISBN-13978-1594865145
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Product details
- Publisher : Rodale Books; First Edition (September 19, 2006)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1594865140
- ISBN-13 : 978-1594865145
- Item Weight : 1.01 pounds
- Dimensions : 7.5 x 0.94 x 9.13 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #5,121,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,196 in General Broadcasting (Books)
- #7,076 in Political Conservatism & Liberalism
- #60,541 in Performing Arts (Books)
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About the author
Thom Hartmann is the four-time Project Censored Award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of 25 books currently in print in over a dozen languages on five continents.
Hartmann is also an internationally known speaker on culture and communications, an author, and an innovator in the fields of psychiatry, ecology, and economics.
The co-founder (with his wife, Louise) and former Executive Director of The New England Salem Children's Village (1978) and The Hunter School (1997), he has led national innovations in the areas of residential treatment for abused children and private/public education for learning-disabled children.
He has helped set up hospitals, famine relief programs, schools, and refugee centers in India, Uganda, Australia, Colombia, Russia, and the United States through the German-based Salem International program. Formerly rostered with the State of Vermont as a psychotherapist, founder of The Michigan Healing Arts Center, and licensed as an NLP Trainer by Richard Bandler (who wrote the foreword to one of Thom's books), he was the originator of the revolutionary "Hunter/Farmer Hypothesis" to understand the psychiatric condition known as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD).
A guest faculty member at Goddard College in Vermont, he also synthesized the "Younger/Older Culture model" for describing the underpinnings - and possible solutions - to the world's ecological and socio-political crises, suggesting that many of our problems are grounded in cultural "stories" which go back thousands of years.
Leonardo DiCaprio was inspired by Thom's book "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" to make the movie "The 11th Hour" (in which Thom appears), and a series of environmental videos narrated by Hartmann and DiCaprio, available at Green World Rising.
Talkers Magazine named Thom Hartmann as the most important progressive talk show host in America for the past decade, and for three of the past five years the #1 most important progressive host, in their “Heavy Hundred” ranking. His radio show is syndicated on for-profit radio stations nationwide by WYD Media, on non-profit and community stations nationwide by Pacifica, across the entire North American continent on SiriusXM Satellite radio, on cable systems nationwide by Cable Radio Network (CRN) and Free Speech TV, on its own YouTube channel, via subscription podcasts, worldwide through the US American Forces Network, and through the Thom Hartmann App in the App Store. The radio show is also simulcast as TV in realtime into nearly 60 million US and Canadian homes by the Free Speech TV Network on Dish Network, DirectTV, and cable TV systems nationwide.
As an entrepreneur, he's founded several successful businesses which still are operating, and lived and worked with his wife, Louise, and their three (now adult) children on several continents.
He was born and grew up in Michigan, and retains strong ties to the Midwest, although he and Louise have lived in New Hampshire, Vermont, Georgia, Germany, Washington DC, and Oregon.
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The book is basically a compiliation of interview transcipts and essays by Air America's broadcasters, seperated by several comedy pieces. Don't be fooled, this isn't filled with hilarious Franken material or stunningly new insights.
Here's my recommendation:
a) If you stood and clapped at the TV when you heard that Ann Coulter was almost hit with a pie... this book is for you.
b) If you're disgusted by seeing Cindy Sheehan shake hands with Hugo Chavez... this book probably isn't up your alley.
Nonetheless, it was interesting (and disheartening) to read in "Air America" that 21% get most of their news from talk radio (eg. Limbaugh, Hannity, Liddy), and congratulate Al Franken for trying to present something more accurate and interesting.
On the other hand, reading Ted Kennedy's push for Davis-Bacon coverage for "guest workers" (illegals) was more than a little rankling - those wages should only go to legal citizens, period! (Claims that there are not enough Americans willing to . . . are bogus - the problem is that illegals push wages down to unreasonable levels.)