Savage Language, Cont’d
Now we’ve got the New York Times weighing in on radio host Michael Savage’s savage language about “bratty” autistic kids. As About.com notes, Savage is “successfully sucking time, money and energy” from the autism community (and sucking in ratings, I would think). All I can say again is, ’nuff said!
And, we have found the actual parasite.
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POSTED IN: Media, Stereotypes
30 opinions for Savage Language, Cont’d
Regan
Jul 21, 2008 at 5:17 pm
I disagree with Lisa Jo Rudy’s opinion of “let’s just ignore the bad man”. If these kinds of expressions are not the exactly the kind of thing that everyone should try to stomp out and counter quickly, then I don’t know what is a community issue.
As Catherine Lord states in the NYT article,
“Any tendency to blame the children or to think they’re just being bratty if they misbehave perpetuates the myth that autism isn’t a learning disability,”
The number of stories of exclusion and related comments about children and families highlight that those feelings already exist. Broadcast hate-speak further promoting it should not be ignored. Michael Savage may not be taken off the air or even muzzled, but to not publicly register our reaction and make an effort, I believe, would indicate apathy or acting as apologist.
C. S. Wyatt
Jul 21, 2008 at 5:34 pm
According to Arbitron, Savage Nation has 8.25 million “unique” listeners per week, for a strong third place currently (2008, Q2 ratings). By comparison, Rush pulls in 14 million unique this year, down about 1 million from his highest numbers in the mid-1990s.
In other words… Savage sells.
Only Ed Schultz, with 3 million, cracks the top ten from the left side, but only barely. Then again, that’s several times the audience for MSNBC in a week (avg: 117,000 viewers)… but horrible for radio.
I follow the media fairly well, since it’s part of what I teach in relation to science writing and reporting. You would be surprised at which outlets waste the most time on junk science.
Great book: “Not Necessarily So” — I used it to discuss junk science in the media. Someone like Savage really can shape public memory, even among his critics. The “attribution” mistakes that occur over time do matter. The brain tends to forget where things were heard or learned, but we retain the information.
Savage deals in hate, fear, and a nostalgia for a time that never was.
Emily
Jul 21, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I think it is GREAT that the NYT just paid attention to autism in this way and quoted an actual expert (yes, at the end of the piece, but still there) stating effectively that autism is no different from any other condition and that we shouldn’t blame a child with autism for specific behaviors any more than we should blame a child with a heart condition for not exercising. Savage just looks like an ass to anyone except those who thought the way he did in the first place, but a high-profile response to him countering his statements is a step forward, in my opinion.
Rudy hopes that no one takes the time to respond, etc. and suggests instead taking whatever the time and energy that would have involved and lavishing it on one’s child with autism. (Exclamation point). I’m with Regan. I disagree with that opinion.
Sure, he’s getting what he wants. Sure, he’s “baiting” people. Why can’t we use him the same way? He’s bringing publicity to the reality of autism, getting even the Grey Lady to turn to a rational expert for a useful quote. And I doubt seriously there’s any real time tradeoff between spending whatever minutes it takes to respond to Savage and spending time with one’s autistic child.
Savage is so extreme in his rhetoric that, as I said, anyone who doesn’t think just like he does already may come out of the woodwork and pay attention, including people who might not have done so before. Thanks, Savage. It is, after all, the extremists who leave the rest of us meeting in the middle, the extremists who make some of us wake up and take notice, even if we’re not total nutjobs like they are.
Plus, maybe all of this will help the poor man work out his daddy issues.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jul 21, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Glad he’s getting the chance to!
All right then. Savage’s rhetoric about autism reinforces one thing in particular to me: that the notion/myth/misbelief that autism has anything to do with “bad parenting” is not quite as dead as it’s said to be.
C. S. Wyatt
Jul 21, 2008 at 6:31 pm
@Prof. Chew…
btw… I sit for my orals in Classical Rhetoric (Greek and Roman pedagogy) this December. Isocrates is a favorite of the professor.
I can only imagine what lessons I could teach students using Savage, Kirby, and a handful of others. They are the best examples of pathos gone astray I can imagine.
Do you have any more rhetorical thoughts on these fools? What makes Savage so effective / popular with millions of listeners? Or, do they know at some level he’s a scam artist?
Tara
Jul 21, 2008 at 6:44 pm
@C. S. Wyatt,
IMO, the sort of “entertainment” that Savage and similar guys are providing today is replacement for Roman gladiator games, good ole English bear-biting and public executions in numerous societies…
I would love to think that his listeners know that he is a scam artist, but I am not convinced that humanity as a whole evolved that far…
Leila
Jul 21, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Mr. Savage’s and other programs of that ilk are the worst aspect of the American society. I wish they’d just go away, but they won’t unless we show American people the kind of scum they are.
And Mr. Savage, being a petite woman I bet I can personally kick your behind and send you home screaming, I doubt you can even compare yourself to the incredible, REAL MEN that raise autistic sons and daughters with love and pride despite all the difficulties that come with it.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jul 21, 2008 at 8:03 pm
From Newsday—-”Autism not only medical condition to draw insults—as if the latest thing is to insult people with medical conditions…….
@CS Wyatt,
Isocrates—-very good. I’m very glad to continue to parse the rhetoric of the likes of Savage and Kirby; will see what I can do—
Club 166
Jul 21, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Savage likes to stir up “controversy” because it helps ratings. Just ranting at him only serves to put the spotlight more on him, and increases his ratings.
But the flip side is that if the protests are organized and big enough to influence sponsors, then it hurts them where it hurts the most. Forget complaining to the stations. Find the sponsors, complain to them. Get everyone to complain to them.
Joe
Justthisguy
Jul 21, 2008 at 8:45 pm
I’m listening to him right now. He’s being sweet and reasonable, had some people like Dr. Camaratta on. He described himself as lining up stuff when a kid, being socially awkward, etc. I think the boy’s an aspie and don’t know it. I think he thinks that unless one is an absoluted non-speaking headbanger, he’s a faker, or just needs to suck it up and take boxing lessons, or something.
He does not believe in the “epidemic”, or the quacks and con men. I’m afraid he sometimes gets into obnoxious NYJ mode, and let’s it flow. He’s trying to be nice, tonight. He spoke about his brother who never spoke, and who died in a snakepit mental institution.
I agree with him about the soi-disant “progressives.”
Justthisguy
Jul 21, 2008 at 8:48 pm
P.s. Sorry about lack of proofreading, above. Was in a hurry to post.
P.p.s. Somebody should suggest to him that autism comes in degrees, methinks.
Emily
Jul 21, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Justhisguy, a friend of mine called and reported exactly what you described. And I thought, wow, all those people who listen to him–and they are Legion–are now hearing decent information from experts. See? Savage did something “good.”
Kristina–It’s my primary take-home message from this, that he’s simply saying exactly what all those nasty commenters on news stories about Alex Barton et al. have said and thought all this time. Hey, let’s get it out in the open instead of through those sneaky little anonymous comments and then smash it down with reason in an equally open forum. Or at least, let’s try.
xtiluv
Jul 21, 2008 at 9:11 pm
The most effective tactic would be a boycott of all of the advertisers on his show, but I cannot bring myself to listen to his bile, even if it is in order to bring him down. If there are no sponsors, there is no show. Any brave souls out there got a list?
Emily
Jul 21, 2008 at 9:12 pm
BTW, he’s got a “clarification” on his Website that makes almost zero sense in the context of what he was quoted as saying before. They really couldn’t be any more disconnected. He’s claiming that his comments were targeted at anyone whose child is “misdiagnosed” with autism, evidently the result of malice aforethought on the part of a cabal of MDs and Big Pharma to get your money. The thing is, I thought autism was actually difficult to get as a diagnosis and that the party line is that there are no Big Pharm meds to “treat” it.
xtiluv
Jul 21, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Oh. Guess I’m switching to Aflac insurance. ;)
Regan
Jul 21, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Play the pharma card. Play the I know your pain card. Play the I’m just trying help the victim card. Play the I lost my head in my passion card.
I call BS and I don’t buy it. This is not an exceptional circumstance. This is the man’s professional bread and butter and well known broadcast style.
From the original broadcast,
In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. … They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. … Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’ “
That he’s chastened by the response and potential impact on sponsorship, I have no doubt. That this is a sincere apology or rethinking of his statements, I have considerable.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jul 21, 2008 at 9:35 pm
@Emily, thinking the same — nothing unfamiliar about his remarks, except that a name was clearly attached to them—-and it’s a little too fitting he is Mr Savage.
Justthisguy
Jul 21, 2008 at 9:52 pm
He said he’d talk about it again on his show again tomorrow. Today he had some anti-vax person, to whom he was trying to be polite, but I think he didn’t believe her. Somebody who’s good on the telephone (not I!) should call him up tomorrow and remind him of exactly why the 1 in 160 number is fraudulent; that is, Autism Speaks is counting all the aspies like me and, yes, Michael Savage, and then turning around and saying no you guys aren’t really autistic.
Hello!? It comes in degrees!
If we’d just take people as individuals, as they come… Nah, never happen, not with Pwogs running things
liquid zeolite
Jul 21, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Savage is the typical Isreal first neocon talk show host who makes a living scaring right wing wacko’s with the “muslims are coming” mantra. He makes me sick as most don’t have a clue about him and his true agenda. His hate isn’t just for muslims, it’s for anyone who can’t contribute to society. The new world order agenda is a nazi agenda of population control and weeking out the “worthless feeders”. It’s very much part of his world view. Yes, he’s sneaky concerning how he indoctrinates his lemmings into believing this type of BS. Nevertheless, it’s a great opportunity to expose this charlatan for what he is, a confused scum bag.
Justthisguy
Jul 21, 2008 at 10:26 pm
I wonder if he’s gotten in trouble with the literary estate of whomever wrote those “Doc Savage - Man of Bronze” pulp novels. Couldn’t stand to read more than a coupla pages of that, m’self; my taste ran more to E. E. Smith (PBUH) and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jul 21, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Based on Savage’s “clarification,” he’s managing some of his own undoing.
M
Jul 21, 2008 at 10:37 pm
If Savage makes salient points, he’ll lose his audience. His career is built on monosyllabic hate. It sells, unfortunately. Maybe you’ve referenced this, but I remember he lost his talk show on MSNBC after telling a caller to “get AIDS and die”.
Michael Savage fun fact: The name “Savage” is obviously a pseudonym. His real last name: Weiner.
Seriously.
Justthisguy
Jul 21, 2008 at 10:40 pm
I hold no ruth for neocons; I call them Neo-Jacobins, as does Jerry Pournelle. Insofar as Doc Savage is a neocon, I don’t approve of that. I don’t like his style, which is redolent of where he came from.
I also think he doth protest too much from a guilty conscience of having hung out with Ginsberg the gay poet and that ilk, back in his hippy period.
All that said, I think the frothing-at-the-mouth irrational verbal venom he’s getting from the left, as evidenced by a comment just above my last one, seems to show that the people he yells at mostly have it coming
M
Jul 21, 2008 at 10:46 pm
“I think the frothing-at-the-mouth…as evidenced by a comment just above my last one”
That’s toothpaste, actually. I just finished brushing my teeth. Sorry.
I tell you, Savage has an interesting Wikipedia entry. PhD in nutritional ethnomedicine. Author of the book ‘Weiner’s Herbal: The Guide to Herbal Medicine’. Very conflicted guy, seems like.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jul 21, 2008 at 10:47 pm
“Weiner”……. pronounced one way, also rather apt.
Justthisguy
Jul 21, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Yeah, I thought it was “Wiener” for the longest time. I used to annoy people by saying I listened to the “Savage Wiener.” Vicious hot dog, y’know.
Savage “Weiner”, now, lessee…
Wotthehell, as Mehitabel said, I’ll continue to listen to him, sometimes saying amen, sometimes yelling at the radio, and never ever buying anything advertised in the commercials.
I have that policy with all my favorite radio programs. I’m such a parasite! Snork!
Justthisguy
Jul 21, 2008 at 11:11 pm
P.s. Really, I might buy from advertisers on my favorite radio programs if any of them ever advertised anything I actually needed and wanted, but that mostly never seems to happen.
theasman
Jul 22, 2008 at 10:28 am
Lisa Jo Rudy is no friend to the autistic community. She pooh poohs autistic pride day.
And not for nothing She is not on the spectrum What right does she have to be the editor on Autism/ Are white people the editors on black issues? Are men editors of women’s issues? Are heterosexuals editors of homosexual issues???
And as for him sucking up time and money from the so called autism community I say BRAVO!!! Less money and energry for research and a cure and spreading ignorance in the name of awareness.
Marla
Jul 22, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Sigh. I hate to think of people listening to that garbage.
The R Word
Jul 23, 2008 at 1:26 am
[…] was going to be yet another post about “Michael Savage’s savagery” with a nice elliptical reference to the […]
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