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Blog Entry 125 of 181 Bad Mom
I call myself Bad Mom because at the time I came up with it, I was learning about the assumptions we put behind our words. I was following the pattern of not believing that my kids are okay, and speaking to them from that basis. I changed that, and it made a big difference. I am from Utah and my people are still living there. My husband was in the Air Force and we rattled around until we saw Colorado, and we stuck.

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~Huh

My Own Prairie Home Companion
Contributed by: Lisa Arata   on 9/6/2008

I used to love tuning into Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion show. It let us be entertained while doing mundane things on a Saturday afternoon. We laughed at all of the jokes and got to know new talents in the music world. Keillor's monologues were so charming.

Plus, we were sort of on the liberal side, my husband and I, before we had kids. The show felt like an enclave of like minds, a refuge for those of us living in conservative Utah. And there was nothing insulting in it. It just gave a little kick in the pants to those hidebound, closed-minded folks.

As our political thinking drifted to the right, we still listened to A Prairie Home Companion. It was still our friend and we were its friends, too. We supported Public Radio because it always sounded good. The announcers had and still have that soothing way of talking. There's no hullabaloo about it.

I'm trying to remember how my husband and I got off track with PHC.

We didn't like how Bill Clinton had affairs, but that wasn't an insurmountable problem until he lied under oath.

Plus, my husband had been in the Air Force while Ronald Reagan was president, and at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and those related events, you couldn't find anyone more pleased than my husband. He had done some work that helped to defeat communism. We felt solidarity with all the people who could understand that victory.

We did think that President Clinton did pretty well as president. I voted for him when he ran for reelection. But then he drew down the numbers of military personnel. That was a big change for us.

When the Twin Towers were attacked, we had already become quite conservative. We voted for Bush in 2000 and so the controversy over the electoral vote, and the exit poll data, and the recount, and the subjective measures controversy, the deadlines, the lawsuits, and the lack of unified standards, and the US Supreme Court vote, didn't trouble us. By most standards, Bush barely won.

However, many people continued to believe the Supreme Court gave the election to Bush. They say it was a theft.

And everything after that put a stain over the perception of those who didn't want to accept Bush. This stain spread to A Prairie Home Companion in the form of outright acceptance of not-so-funny material ragging on Bush and Republicans in general. So PHC became a show for liberals and Democrats.

That same stain is still spreading, in the eyes of the people who took a stand against Bush. There's nothing anyone could ever say that would ameliorate it. I think it hurts them. And I think it's why Barack Obama is getting such a manic response and so much love.

Well, I can't really listen to PCH anymore. It sounds pinched-off and vindictive to me. I wish there was a safe place to visit, but there isn't anymore.

I watch a show called Weeds. I have to get it on DVD because I don't subscribe to HBO. That show is fantastic with the storytelling. But it takes license to criticize Bush--not for any reason. It just...says things like, "President Bush's war on drugs" and this and that. The name George Bush, they use like a shorthand indictment of all things they don't like--turning it criminal.

What we call this, here on the right, is Bush Derangement Syndrome.

I'm fearful of the election if McCain wins. What will happen with the BDS? Will anyone recover? Will anyone forgive the other half of the nation which decided to take what we've got and use it, rather than scratch everything and start over, as the Obama camp says they want to do?--That's the message I get with the buzzword "change."

I wish to start my own version of A Prairie Home Companion, and it would be genuinely funny, not bitter. I think what's happened to it is similar to past times, when that comic strip, Li'l Abner, stopped being funny and started to be a political diatribe.

I think Minnie Pearl of Grand Ole Opry fame, with her feathered hat and the price tag still on it, always trying to get herself a feller, would provide a great germ of intelligence and pathos. And I'd bring in Archie Bunker. Carole O'Conner could mangle a phrase so well. And any actors and actresses intelligent enough to keep mum about their political affiliations. And racial material that shows how there are some things different, and some things the same with everyone.

The Left could still have Prairie Home and all of us could relate to this new show. It's time.


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Showing 1-3 of 3 comments
Submitted By: Michael Rule
posted on 9/8/2008 @ 8:32:09 AM
Rated Blog Entry
Almost Purple Suburban Home Prairie Companion?
[Report as objectionable]
Submitted By: Lisa Arata
posted on 9/7/2008 @ 3:58:47 PM
(Not Rated)
It'd have to have the word "purple" in the title, maybe.
[Report as objectionable]
Submitted By: Michael Rule
posted on 9/7/2008 @ 7:16:26 AM
Rated Blog Entry
Gosh, I still catch PHC from time to time and still think it's great. I'm kind of a simple feller, though. I'll tune into your show, though. Would it be the "Almost Prairie but starting to get Suburban Home Companion" or do you think Garrison might sue?
[Report as objectionable]
Showing 1-3 of 3 comments
CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Lisa Arata

Greeley , CO

Lisa Arata has posted 181 blog entries and 280 comments since joining on 4/18/2007. Lisa Arata 's average blog rating is 4.74.
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