NEW MEXICO -- Drive across the United States, mostly on Interstate 40, and you'll
have plenty of time to listen to the radio. Even more time than usual if, to take my own
situation, you're in a 1976 Ford 350 one-ton pickup, ploughing along at 50 mph. By day I
listen to FM.
Bunked down at night, there's some choice on the motels' cable systems, all the way from
C-SPAN to pay-as-you-snooze filth, though there's much less of that than there used to
be, or maybe you have to go to a Marriott or kindred high-end place to get that. By
contrast, the choice on daytime radio, FM or AM, is indeed a vast wasteland far more
bleak than the high plains of Texas and New Mexico I've been looking at for the past
couple of days.
It's awful. Even the religious stuff has gone to the dogs. I remember 20 years ago making
the same drive through the Bible Belt and you'd hear crazed preachers raving in tongues.
These days, hell has gone to love. Christian radio is so warm and fuzzy you'd think you
were listening to Terry Gross.