In The Air and On The Radio -

I apologize for abandoning readers in the middle of what appeared to be an obituary, but I've been very busy today and still have some unavoidable tasks to take care of.

I think it was very tacky of The Miami Herald to publish such a downbeat article on what should be the joyous holiday of Christmas. Doesn't anyone in management there have any mature, adult judgement anymore? Well, it wasn't demonstrated this Christmas.

The passing of NYC Radio Talk Show Host Lynn Samuels marks the passing of an era. As the tributes pour in, I think her radio colleague Jay Diamond put it best when he said:

"I hope Lynn haunts me."

Lol, Jay, you are priceless!

Lynn had a special significance for me, because we were chronological contemporaries. Lynn was also a member of the War Baby Generation. There are relatively very few of us; thus, they often call us a "sliver" generation.

What played a role in the educational theories that helped to shape us was the reaction of Americans - especially German-Americans - to what the Nazis did to German children during the Third Reich. Educational leaders wanted to indoctrinate us in such a way as to make American children resistant to such efforts. Lynn's mother was a teacher.

It became one of the existential responsibilities of our generation to carry out that task and to encourage people to "think for yourself."

What was Lynn like on the radio? She sounded a bit like the woman who plays the voice of the mother in the cartoon TV series The Simpsons. Lynn was born and grew up in NYC and she never divested herself of her New Yawk accent.

She also never forgot that one of her responsibilities on the radio was to entertain listeners. She performed, more or less, in the Free Form radio format. Sometimes she did some monologue and sometimes she interacted with telephone callers. And you never knew what might happen on her show.

Her passing marks another, much sadder, signpost on the road: some people could not resist making bitchy remarks about her in public. This shows how much the public discourse in America has coarsened over the last generation, which is not a welcome development.

I will try to post some links to tributes later when I have more time. Meanwhile, if you care to slog through them, there are many reactions already posted on the New York Radio Message Board.

:: wikipedia :: Lynn Samuels ::

:: New York Radio Message Board ::

...