I had an occasion to be on the "Mancow" radio show last year a few months after returning from my operation.
Mr Cow has received recent notoriety on the Kieth Olbermans show on MSNBC for allowing himself to be waterboarded to prove that it wasn't torture. The ->-bleeped-<- lasted all of six seconds and said that he would have confessed to anything to make it stop. He was interviewed on Olbermans show and renounced the idea that waterboarding wasn't torture. That was big of him.
When I was on his program he refused nonstop to refer to me in my chosen gender or by my legal name. It infuriated me. I endured the encounter by countering his japes with facts which he refused to accept and he constantly taunted me by saying to me that I neither sounded nor looked passable in any way.
I knew that if I let him anger me to some sort of outburst, he would have won. I also held on to the hope that there may have been some other transsexual searching for answers and hearing my voice perhaps gave them hope.
Once the mike was off, he apologized for his behavior saying "Hey, it's just radio."
So when I saw him ->-bleeped-<-ING TORTURED! and lasting all of six seconds, I said to myself "Hey, it's just radio".
Unfortunately, I was not invited to witness the actual event, nor participate. I would have probably forgotten to stop the process when he waved his hands. After all there was a doctor standing by.
I recorded the waterboarding event and play it back now and again. I know it lessens me because on some level I enjoy watching it. And torture of *anyone* is wrong. Period.
In the same manner these clowns are following the same formula by taking the same extreme position so that they can maintain their rating. They are making their living by ridiculing those who have no one to defend themselves.
I can imagine that mancow has received a significant ratings bump because of his stunt. Perhaps it will become the next great right wing radio fad. Each shock jock trying to out do the others by holding out longer and longer being not-tortured. They should be careful though, someone could get hurt.
I'll send flowers.
Really.
-Sandy
