A willful disregard for the facts

Yesterday I allowed myself a listen to the carwreck which WTIC-AM has become.

Jim Vicevich was at the top of his form, playing the same soundbites ten or fifteen times per show, to somehow emphasize his misunderstanding of them, and occasionally playing one of the many bites he repeats over and over and over and over through the year, as if the repetition in someway bestows credence. When he wasn't beating the soundbites to death, he was mouthing empty platitudes from the conservative script - socialism, nanny state, enhanced interrogation, generational theft, blah, blah, blah.

If anything, old Vicegrip has become more shrill as the months of the Obama administration tick by. It was to be expected. For all the carping these conservative did about Obama, it was a boon to their ratings. Now they're the victims, and liberals are the persecutors. (Ironically, Vicevich, who demanded respect for the commander-in-chief, when Bush was in office, can't seem to muster the requisite respect for Obama).

But Vicevich got up a head of steam on a story that appeared in the Boston Globe about a Harvard program which helps lower income students adjust to life at a school where wealth, and all its perquisites, are considered commonplace. The program seeks to bridge the cultural, social and economic gap which becomes evident, and intimidating, in the most common ways - like being able to afford a winter coat.

Vicevich reinterpreted the facts of the stories, and created a distortion which made a mockery of the facts relayed in the story.

He told his listeners that the Harvard program provided money so poor students could go to the prom, though the story never mentions the word "prom" and Harvard would doubtlessly find it hilarious that Vicevich thinks they hold proms there. In fact, the story says that funds are availableto pay for such things as "admission to dorm dances, tutoring, winter coats, even plane tickets home."

The story also notes:

It can be difficult to discern the neediest students. There's no support group or club for them - many students prefer not to reveal their socioeconomic standing. The university keeps a list of them, available only to Harvard financial aid officials, to try to meet their needs throughout their undergraduate years, be it emergency money for a root canal or a loan for test-prep courses, an interview suit, or travel while studying abroad.

One might guess that a self-professed Christian like Jim would appreciate the concept of assisting a needy student through some difficult, and embarassing times.

But, no. Vicevich wailed about the way in which Harvard was preparing the student (actually two students are featured in the story, and Vicevich continued to conflate the facts of the two students' situations) for the "nanny state."

Has anyone ever asked Vicevich if it was the "nanny state" that helped him avoid creditors in his own bankruptcy?

He bellowed about "the state" paying for tuxedoes. Not sure what "state" Harvard is, but it's probably better off financially than most of the other 50.

But the worst manipulation of the fact is that Vicevich said again and again, that Miguel Garcia was complaining about his situation (Vicevich offered a histrionic imitation of Garcia, wailing like a baby with a dirty diaper). Vicevich claimed that Garcia was getting $50,000 a year in scholarship, and that should be enough, so Garcia should button up.

The story makes clear that Garcia felt intimidated and disconnected, but Garcia himself acknowledges the subleties of getting a paid-in-full first-class education, and needing to worry about his parent's car payments. The story also indicates that Garcia had found coping mechinisms, and that complaining was not one of them.

While it's puzzling that Vicevich could find so much powder for his indoor fireworks, all you need to do is read the comments following the Boston Globe story to see the kind of company the talk show host keeps.

The dark and thorny vines of envy, ignorance, prejudice, racism and anti-intellectualism wind their way through the comments on the radio, and in the newspaper.

It's clear that those who perceive themselves stuck in the middle hold an abiding hatred for those considered below, and those considered above them.

Vicevich is a shameful liar who is using his three hours of vitriol to stoke the fires of hatred. He has, and will claim it isn't so. But a man who is smart enough to know what generates ratings, is not stupid enough to believe what comes out of his own mouth.

BTW, in his online commentary, which appeared after his on-air rant, Vicevich tries to ameliorate some of the false on-air claims he made about Garcia. Vicevich "writes" in a sentence that goes on forever attempting to find a point:

Because Miguel worked his way into Harvard on his own merritt and not on the back of a “rich alumni Daddy” or because he came from some famous family … the odds are all of those folks that make him uncomfortable, will be working FOR Miguel some day, because Miguel is the premiere example of personal freedom, and individual achievement, a life to be celebrated and not pitied. But then, that’s just my take.

And I guess working "his way on his own merritt," means he took the parkway through Connecticut on his way to school.

Not a friend of Angelo Mozilo, "or whatever his name is"

Senator Chris Dodd is attempting to face down his demons today, appearing twice on a local AM radio station, without conceding a single document about his mortgages received from Countrywide Financial as part of the controversial "friend of Angelo (Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo)" program.

Dodd has proclaimed his innocence, but for an experienced Senator who has run the Senate Banking Committee, it's a bit hard to accept that level of naiveté. If in fact he knows so little about his personal mortgage, I'm not sure I want him at the head of a legislative committee which controls and regulates those banks and mortgage companies.

What strikes me odd, in the "the lady doth protest too much, methinks" category, is a verbal cue I've heard Dodd use more than once when addressing his problems. He goes on and on about not being informed about the favoritism of the mortgage program he used, claims he only used mortgage brokers, explains that mortgages were at an all-time low and that refinancing was natural, then he says: "And I never dealt with Angelo Mozilo, or whatever his name is."

That "or whatever his name is" strikes me as disingenous. It's something a teenager might say if accused of hanging out with the wrong crowd of teenagers. He said it last week when confronted by reporters, and he said it this morning on WTIC-AM in an interview (he didn't say it later in the day in an interview with the same radio station on the Colin McEnroe show) with hosts who didn't seem inclined to question the preposterous premise that Dodd might not show preference for someone who "saved" him tens of thousands of dollars over the life of his mortgage.

Maybe it's just the schtick of a seasoned politician who thinks he's got a winning rhetorical device to demonstrate his innocence. Instead, he's perfected a verbal tic, polished it, and delivers it like a stage actor reading a bad script.

The Hartford Courant, a bad haircut

I heard Courant managing editor, Barbara Roessner on the radio this morning, and as she recited the reasons why the Courant has redesigned it's print edition (the world is changing, competition for breaking news with the internet, readers with less time), she seemed a little jaded, maybe even bored - as if she'd recited this list several times over the past couple of weeks, and didn't quite believe it herself anymore. (She didn't mention Sam Zell once.)

Roessner, who in managing the redesign, has responded dutifully to a hopeless and thankless task. But she used the words "taut" and "dense" to describe the redesigned daily.

I think the words I would use are "garish" and "shallow."

I still can't understand why a newspaper would redesign itself so that people like me, longtime subscribers, who like to read a substantial paper, would feel disappointed and alienated. At the same time, the Courant seems to be appealing more to a younger, internet reader who will never approach an honor box, a newstand, or god forbid, fill in a subscription application. Maybe I should simply go each day where the print edition seems to point me - to the internet version of the paper.

The new Courant seems to be designed for people who don't like to read newspapers. Maybe who don't like to read at all. If the New York Times is a newspaper, the "new" Courant is a bad PowerPoint presentation - outlines, tidbits, photos, graphs, illustrations, sub-heads, call-outs, all crammed onto some very busy, very jammed pages.

I was really interested in reading the front-page story about Chris Dodd, but I found it strangely difficult to make my way through. Do I really want some sub-head writer telling me every three paragraphs what I'm about to read?

As for the front page illustration of Dodd (there he is in all his impressionistic triple-chinned glory), I can't imagine it will sell many papers. If it's front-page, magazine appeal, the Courant is going to have to go with someone like Hillary Duff, and forget the senior Senator from our state. And Lord help us then.

I've said in a previous post that the Reader Speak headlines seem to pander to the kind of online readership which consists of lurkers, looking to spew some anonymously vile epithet. A thoughtful reader comment, will not necessarily be expressed as a single-sentence reflection. So what we'll get is neither the ugly insult, nor the considered opinion, but something in between - a short, tedious, pedestrian, anonymous blurb like "His character was in contrast to the selfishness that is so common today, and which has cause our economic situation." So, who the hell cares, except the person being quoted.

As for news, or lack thereof, it's already obvious that there will be less of it all way round. Less international, less national, less local. And what we do get will be condensed, digested and served in an easy-to-read fashion. I spent 20 minutes with the Sunday Courant. Less time with today's. I've got time on my hands that I'll spend at HuffingtonPost, nytimes.com and Salon.

While there's precious little in the way of story on the front page (3 by my count), page 2 and 3 actually begin to look like a newspaper worth reading. But from pages 4-9, where, based on a four-column model, there appears to be 480 column inches, there are, in fact, about 72 inches of news copy, and a whopping 408 inches of advertisements. That should make the ad department very happy, if the surfeit of ads doesn't drive circulation down.

Oddly, the copy-heavy ad for the Amish no-flue fireplace mantle, in Sunday's Courant, was almost as interesting a read as any of the stories in that section (and greater in depth).

The rest of the paper is just as distressing - the lack of distinguishable state and town section, the appearance of classifieds on page 2 of the CTLIVING section, the constant reference to things not in the paper but on the web (does anyone really believe that someone moves easily from a printed reference, to an internet site?), an editorial page diminished by half, and a lot of news written by non-state residents.

Coincidentally, my subscriber invoice arrived in the mail the day before the "new" Courant hit my doorstep. Before I mail it in, I want to be sure that these first few days are not an indication where the paper will end up.

Maybe, like a bad haircut, it will grow out.

Here's my suggestion. All Courant writers and editors, grab your clippings and leave your desks now. Rendez-vous at the Red Rock. Write a declaration of independence in the form of a business plan. Put up a couple grand apiece and start a new Connecticut online news site. Beat the new Courant at its own game. There are stories to be written. Ads to be sold. Pocket the money that's going to Zell.

The slippery slope to the center

I was listening to WTIC's Colin McEnroe on the way home yesterday, as he spoke about the Presidential campaign, and in particular, Barack Obama's obvious sidestep toward the center as he moves into the general campaign. McEnroe, eager as I am to have Obama win (McEnroe says he wants to "pop a cork" in November), claims he understands, and agrees with Obama's tactics, including changing his stance on FISA.

McEnroe scolded a caller who was unhappy with Obama's FISA switch. McEnroe indicated that if the left wants Obama elected, they have to tolerate his move toward the center, even if he is abandoning some of his left-leaning stands. He continued by saying that if you want to make FISA an issue, the people on the left have to talk about it in a way the general voting populace will understand. "That's how the Republicans have won," McEnroe claimed. "They talk about issues in a way people understand."

First of all, let me say how lucky we are in Connecticut to have McEnroe's intelligent daily commentary on issues. He's generally liberal, smart, funny, insightful, fair (in my mind, maybe too fair), and he's got the quickest hair-trigger synapses in the region. And he's somehow successful on an AM radio station that is thick with right-wing liars, chickenhawks and hatemongers.

But on this issue, FISA, I can't agree.

While the Bush administration, most of Congress, and apparently the press, would like the public to view FISA as a highly-complex, highly technical issue that really won't affect most of us in any meaningful way. They'd like you to believe that it's an issue on which the left is aggravated beyond reason. They want you to think that it's an issue that most people don't care, or want to care about. They want you to think that its all about "getting the terrorists."

In fact, it is an important issue, on which Constitutional principles rest. And in that regard, I guess I have to be resigned to the fact that most Americans truly don't care, because we don't care about the Constitution unless we're talking about guns.

FISA is complex and technical, but not beyond comprehension. The newly revised FISA will affect us all because it strips us or constitutional protections against willful and arbitrary invasion of our privacy by the government. The left is concerned, but listen to what Chris Dodd has to say (which is approximately what Barack Obama used to say), about FISA. I don't consider Dodd a lefty, a socialist, or a conspiracy theorist. In fact, it's a issue that lots of sane, decent, smart centrist people care about.

In fact, a discussion group on the Obama campaign blog has recruited 15,000 members (and growing) in a week because they're so concerned. And FISA, the original FISA, was about getting the terrorists. That law had everything the government needed to spy on the bad guys, but it also had checks and balances so that one branch of the government couldn't spy with impunity on anyone they damned well pleased to spy on.

The new FISA allows the executive branch just such a power. It limits judicial oversight. And it protects huge corporations - corporations with many lawyers, corporations which understand the law (in fact one such telecom corporation refused to transgress regulations) - and these corporations knowingly broke the law because the president asked them to (as my mother used to ask me, "Would you jump off a bridge if your friends asked you to?). And it protects the president, and his assistants who asked them to break the law from ever being sued by anyone whose privacy was breached, and who was harmed by such a breach of privacy. And BTW, the opposition to the FISA revision is not so much fashioned by a bunch of shrieking lefties, as the support for it has been fashioned by a group of jackbooted, lockstep, right-wing Republican lawmakers who haven't compromised a whit, and who voted, as a block, for it.

So when Barack Obama says he's going to vote for the FISA revision, he's turning his back on civil liberties, he's advancing a power hungry executive branch, and he's protecting huge telecommunication companies who let the president, NSA, the FBI and the CIA, spy on folks like me and you for no good reason.

And when he says he's going to vote for the FISA revision, he's breaking a promise he made to support a filibuster against a nearly identical revision. He's abandoning a principle for the expedience of gaining a few votes from people who are too willfully stupid to try to understand what's going on. Where do you draw the line on how many principles you shed, how far you compromise, how untrue you become to yourself, so that you can move to the center and get a few more votes so we can all raise our glasses in November and hope our new President doesn't forget what justice really is?

And he's giving the press, and the right wing to use the dreaded "flipflop" label.

And now, because McEnroe requested it, here's my explanation of FISA, the way Republicans might talk about it if they were against it. The way "most people" can understand it:

The new FISA law is just like the spying laws they used to have in Communist Russia. The government could tap the phones, and check the computers of anyone they pleased. In Russia, they threw people in jail just for praying to a Christian god. What if a Muslim leader became president? With this law, he could do the same thing here, right? And FISA lets the President ask for any kind of information about you from any company. So every time you buy ammo, the government will know how many bullets you bought, and what kind of gun you own. And if you own the "wrong" kind of guns, a liberal president might throw you in jail for being a terrorist. And if that happens, watch out, because you don't even get to call your lawyer from a jail cell in Pakistan. And if you're a Republican and you order a porno flick from PayPerView, say something like, "Young Sluts in Uniform," they might leak that info to Drudge so you'll never get elected again - hey, never get a job again. Look what they did to poor Senator Larry "Wide Stance" Craig. You see, FISA is bad, bad, evil bad because it will raise taxes and the price of gas; it will allow the instruction of evolution in schools; it will encourage homosexual sex and heterosexual abortions, and it will inspire many new hip-hop songs and videos.

Ignorance is bliss

So, I guess right-wing WTIC talk show host Jim Vicevich is very happy.

Today he promised to link his website to Eliza Gilkyson's (which he consistently pronounces incorrectly gil-ick-son). Obviously Jim either doesn't listen carefully to her lyrics, or he doesn't understand them. Either is certainly possible. But it's the beauty of a great protest song, it gets into the heads of people who need to hear them, and who don't intially realize what they are listening to. Before long they're singing along to "Runaway Train," and "doh" they figure out what they're singing. Jim, take a listen to Eliza's song, "Man of God," on her last album.



Also, on the same topic, I heard Jim promise to attend a folk concert at Cheney Hall featuring Hugh Blumenfeld. Hope he makes good on his promise, and that Hugh plays "George III" and "America Redux."

Jeremiah, Jesus, racism and the "christian" right

I'm happy to see the backlash against the pious critics of Barack Obama and his former pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Yesterday, Colin McEnroe wrote a great blog, and spoke about the topic at length on his radio show.

In addition, the Courant re-printed a Washington Post story about Obama's congregation and how they are defending Wright, and their freedom to express outrage at the problems of our country.

I have to say that I'd love to attend a sermon by Wright. He's exciting, flamboyant, entertaining, inspiring and controversial - unlike most sermonizers I've ever heard.

In addition, WWUH aired a program about how Dr. Martin Luther King was spied upon by the FBI, and how his opponents questioned his patriotism, his love of country and actually accused him of sedition. A great reminder that a man who changed the course of history, who we celebrate with a Nation Holiday, was once seen as a threat to the status quo.

Meanwhile, the right wing blowhards keep up a relentless drumbeat questioning Wright's creds as a pastor and preacher and man of God (funny they never question George Bush's claims to be a man of god), and against Obama's patriotism (he doesn't wear a flag pin either!!!), his commitment to Jesus and his truthfulness.

And on this last point, the script is out there for the radio zealots. Here in Hartford WTIC's Jim Vicevich (don't try to leave a comment on his blog - the man is too frightened, and likely not confident in his own reporting, to allow comments) repeatedly implied, and sometimes said, that Obama's statement that he had never heard the most inflammatory of Wright's words couldn't be true. Without a shred of evidence to the contrary, he repeated the innuendo again and again. In the following radio slot, Rush Limbaugh did the same. And here's what they're saying on Fox News:



It all comes down to one thing: fear of a black president.

I can't help but point out the inconsistency

On my way back from a meeting, I was listening to Jim Vicevich (WTIC-AM), making fun of his radio colleague Colin McEnroe, because Colin was returning from a trip to San Francisco.

"That's Disneyland for people like him, isn't it?" Vicevich ranted. "You know, for liberals, San Francisco is like Disneyland. Do you know they actually make it easier for homeless people there. They have food, shelter, health care, ID cards. They only thing they don' t have is...(Jim chuckles)...jobs."

Then Vicevich makes a pitch to donate to the Salvation Army, because, "That's what we're put on earth for, to help other people."

Huh?

Guess he doesn't see the disconnect.

And I'm sure he doesn't understand why people are homeless. It's not because they don't want jobs. Many are dealing with mental illness. Many are the very veterans who Vicevich so often praises. Many are people who have, for whatever reason - divorce, loss of a job, health issues - found themselves outside of the safety net.

Vicevich is a lip service Christian of the worst kind. In one sentence, he denigrates those of us who feel that all people deserve shelter, food, and healthcare, and in the next sentence he says it's our duty as humans to do the things he has just denigrated.

Most hilariously, when a caller suggested that anyone could volunteer, for any length of time, to be a bellringer for the Salvation Army, Vicevich had the perfect response.

"Because I'd never ask my listeners do something I wouldn't do, I urge you all to volunteer to be a bell ringer. And I promise, that next year, I'm going to volunteer."

Right. We're all positive that you'll make good on that promise, Lieutenant Chickenhawk.

Bringing hate to Hartford

Of all the events that WTIC-AM could sponsor in Hartford, I guess it should come as no surprise that they are shilling an event for ultra-conservative hate-monger Sean Hannity on November 9 at the downtown Marriott.

Blue state that we are, the event will still draw the xenophobic right winged moths to Hannity's stinking garbage blaze. So it's an opportunity to do two things. Call WTIC (ask to speak to Jeannine Lee, program director for WTIC-AM, and be polite) and complain (and while you're at it, tell them that you think his show is not worth broadcasting). Call their sponsors and complain. Call the Marriott and complain.

I believe in Hannity's right to say whatever comes to his shriveled mind. It's America, and free-speech is almost a given (check with the Bush Administration to see when it's not), but I'd surely like to see Hannity stew a bit in his own fetid juices.

So think about turning up outside the Marriott that evening to let everyone know about the mis-informed, bigoted, hateful, jingoistic, loud-mouthed, divisive, unqualified, chickenhawk who will be speaking inside.

War is exhilarating

Ralph Peters, former Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army, told chickenhawk war apologist Jim Vicevich on WTIC today that morale among the troops is high, particularly those who engage in front line combat operations, which they find "exciting, exhilarating." Peters also claims his main occupation is writing novels, and that his reportage is "public service." In either case he seems to be writing fiction.

Peters has been to Iraq more than once, and undoubtedly has found troops with high morale, but there's a flaw in the logic.

First, when a conservative columnist goes to Iraq to gauge troop morale, he's like to find what he's looking for. In fact, the military is likely to point him toward service men and women who will support his hypothesis (Peters has been a well-known supporter of the invasion of Iraq since day one).

Second, service men and women are probably savvy enough not to complain to someone who has the potential to do them harm simply because they complain. What enlisted man or woman is going to risk his or her life, or career complaining about the war, the President, their mission or their commanders?

Third, statistically speaking, a dozen men and women do not represent the thoughts of an entire army, no matter which perspective you are trying to portray. So when Vicevich says he's going to hang out at a pig roast with a bunch of soldiers who all support the mission, it's likely he's found a group who like each other's company because they agree with each other. Just imagine what it would be like to be a veteran at that pig roast who stands up and and calls the President a liar and a fraud, suggests the war is immoral, and says that the mission is futile. That guy is probably not going to be at the pig roast, not even going to be invited, and if he is, he will probably keep his mouth shut.

Vicevich says he'll change his position when the soldiers change theirs. Time to encourage some enlisted people who hate the war in Iraq to call Jim and make him eat his words.

Keep the meter running

I listen to WTIC-AM in the morning on the way to work primarily to check on traffic. I usually need to switch off after a few minutes of right-wing banter from show host Ray Dunaway, and his ineffectual "balance" Diane Smith. Dunaway calls himself a libertarian, but bears all the earmarks of being a neandrathal-level conservative. He doesn't believe in global warming, thinks smoking in public is a god-given right, and uses funny voices whenever he talks about people with different viewpoints than his.

However, this morning Ray and Diane, or Roy and Debbie, as Colin McEnroe calls them, provided an important public service when they brought Hartford Courant George Gombossy and CL&P CEO Ray Necci into the same studio to discuss the accusations Gombossy has made in a series of columns about defective electric meters. You can read the series here, and listen to the debate here.

I'll let you draw your conclusions, but I have to wonder, when confronted with the facts, why a responsible corporate CEO would not simply apologize and pledge to make amends. Gombossy attempts to pin Necci to the wall, as Dunaway acts the apologist and lobs softballs.

Interesting listening, and another argument why local radio is essential.

My psychosis, his psychosis

Jim Vicevich has forced me to face a conflict about my love of music.

Vicevich is a bellicose, shallow, misinformed, Rush-worshipping, conservative water carrying, divisive, radio talk show host on WTIC-AM. He's a classic chickenhawk, and a basher of all things progressive, liberal and Democratic. And, he spews his venom while professing to be open-minded and fair.

You've heard it before, right.

But, he has great taste in music, and much of the music he likes is very progressive in its lyrical message to its audience. Listen to his favorites like Todd Snider, Will Kimbrough, Adrienne Young, Rodney Crowell, John Prine, and Chip Taylor, and you'll find artists who sing out against war, the Bush administration, greed, power, and many of the other things that Jim so obviously loves.

The only way to consider this extreme case of "love the artist, hate the art," is to think about my own love of gospel, spiritual, country and bluegrass, which all feature a healthy dose of loving a Jesus whom I consider more myth than fact.

What's more, he's hosting a summer music festival, which features some of these very artists, and benefits ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), and he's paying for upfront costs out of his own pocket.

So, who but a mean-spirited crank could not support it. And still...and still. Well, hell, maybe some of his listeners will hear a message in the music that changes the way they think. Maybe Jim will. As John Hiatt sings, "it hasn't happened yet." So I won't hold my breath.

Finally, after I heard Colin McEnroe encouraging listeners to attend what he calls "Budstock" (because he calls Vicevich "buddy"), I figured, I can do this. I can support musicians I love, and a good cause. I'm holding my nose, and asking you to attend.

And hell, maybe the music will bring us together. Just not too closely together.

Stanza loan

When Colin McEnroe heard that the Sunken Garden Poetry festival was sunk, he decided to take the matters in his own hands.

And in his inimitable manner, he created, in a matter of moments, the Lake Solhany Poetry Festival, which will take place in Farmington on the lawn outside of the broadcast studios of WTIC-AM. Lake Salhany, named sarcastically, after the General Manager at the station, is something of a holding pond poised on the edge of an industrial park.

Nonetheless, while the idea is presented with at least a touch of irony, the poetry will be offered, as poetry is, with touches of synecdoche and metonymy.

Here's instructions from Colin on how to reach the festival at the Off World Colony. Bring a bottle of zin, a dictionary and some bug spray.

A few thoughts on independence from tyrants

Colin McEnroe, the only bright spot in Hartford's vast AM radio wasteland, blogs eloquently about what makes a tyrant, and what makes us free from tyrants. Provocative. Give it a read.

Who you calling a redneck?

Conservative radio ranter Jim Vicevich at WTIC AM has made it a practice of chastising Northern Liberals of looking down at Southerners. In one of his typical straw man generalizations he has spouted that elite educated East Coast yankees see Southerners as stupid hicks.

Strange then, when at the end of his show yesterday, he was talking about the sentencing of Mary Winkler by Tennessee Judge Weber McGraw and he lapsed into a simpleton's Southern drawl when speaking in the "voices" of Winkler and McGraw. You see, Vicevich disagrees with the jury's conviction on voluntary manslaughter, and the judge's reduced sentence because, Winkler based her defense on spousal abuse.

I guess when Buddy Vicevich disagrees with Southerners, they're stupid Rednecks. How delightfully inconsistent.