Goofballupagus just can't stop lying about me. It seems to be an addiction with him.

It is true that I was an announcer and news director in a small radio station in the Tri-Cities, Washington (Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland). The station played "easy listening" music, and as far as news was concerned, it was the local ABC Network affiliate. Other than flipping the switch at the appointed times to bring in the network news, I had nothing to do with the national news or with anything of a political nature.

As news director, I was responsible for editing the local news and seeing that it got on the air. Daily, before the 7:00 morning news, I would telephone the sheriff's departments of two counties (Benton and Franklin), and the State Patrol and ask if they had any news to report. This might involve a bad accident on one of the nearby highways or something of that nature. During a particularly cold February, they asked me to broadcast frequent warnings that the bridge over the Columbia River between Pasco and Kennewick was badly iced over, that the listeners should avoid the bridge if possible, or if they had to use it, use extreme caution.

The State Patrol also asked me, during the summer months, to broadcast a frequent warning to tourists that if they stopped in one of the rest areas on the highway between Yakima and the Tri-Cities, be very careful if planning to sit at the picnic tables in the area because on hot, sunny days, rattlesnakes might be hiding there, shading themselves from the hot sun.

Oh, and most important! Since this was a rural area with lots of farming going on, I had to get a taped feed from the local agricultural bureau and broadcast the Farm Report in the 7:00 o'clock morning news.

Man!! Lots of opportunity for me to insert misleading, Liberal political commentary there!!

In fact, other than flipping the switch to bring in the network feed, I had nothing to do with national news.

And the station did not do political commentary of any kind.

And, yes, they paid me. A regular monthly salary. For some strange reason I was never offered any bribes.

Goofball's big problem is that since he has no concept of personal integrity himself, he judges others (me especially) by what HE would do if HE were in the situation that he imagines I was in, i.e., try to take advantage of the situation so he could push his own warped political agenda.

Goofy squawks brainlessly like a parrot about "loony liberals" and other such clichés and posts stuff gleaned from Right Wing and conspiracy theory websites, and then he (knowing nothing of their qualifications), he bad-mouths my college professors and claims I learned nothing from them.

If HE is so well-qualified to speak on the subject of "loony Liberals," perhaps he can answer a few basic questions about Liberalism and its history. For example,

Who was John Stuart Mill?

Who was John Locke?

Who was Alexis de Tocqueville and what did he say about the future of American democracy?

Who was John Maynard Keynes and what were his economic principles?

How, when, why, and in what country did the terms "Left" and "Right" start being applied to Liberals and Conservatives? And who, exactly, were the liberals and conservatives being spoken of?

What are the general philosophical and economic beliefs of Liberals?

What are the general philosophical and economic beliefs of Conservatives?

In Plato's Republic, was Plato advocating a Liberal or Conservative system of government, and what was the nature of that system?

These are basic questions, and anyone who can't answer them readily does not have a good grasp of what is meant by the terms "Liberal" and "Conservative."

Oh! That's right! Goofballupagus doesn't answer questions.

I wonder why. . . .

Don Firth

P. S. Now back to our regular broadcast (for what it's worth).