The only real liberal on local commercial talk radio, David Goldstein, has been axed from his weekend-night shift on KIRO-AM. The station, which recently came under new/old management, has decided to fill more of its lower-rated hours with repeats and syndicated fare.

…as you may know. But I like sometime NPR contributor John Hockenberry’s account of how he never quite fit in at Dateline NBC. He alleges the show’s producers (1) wanted only stories with an “emotional center,” but only if those emotions were the ones the producers wanted to exploit, (2) didn’t get that the Internet age was irreversably fragmenting the former mass audience, and (3) were too caught up in corporate-culture nonsense that actively discouraged creative thinking.

The Seattle radio legend and “voice of KOMO Country” from 1967 to 1997 was a soothing aural balm for thousands of non-morning people, helping them survive thousands of way-too-early alarms and dark, rainy commutes. His was one of those talents that was so professional it seemed easy. He’s already missed.

• How not to fly: A 31-year-old doctor from Nashville missed his flight from Sea-Tac. His clever solution (as he’s admitted to authorities): He phoned in a phony bomb threat to get the plane back to the airport.
• Forget bears: The newest critters to fear are “hybrid wolves,” on the prowl for our delicious house pets.
• Comedian Stan Freberg once made a scathing comedy record, “Green Christma$,” attacking the holiday’s rampant commercialization. This year, the phrase takes on a new meaning as merchants hawk allegedly eco-friendly gifts.
• Downbeat news for all local popcult fans: Larry Nelson, KOMO Radio’s morning host for some 30 years, has stage four lung cancer. You can send him your well-wishes at larrybnelson.com, a Web site created by Nelson’s longtime colleague Stan Orchard.

…got hounded off the air due to a particularly dumb racist “joke,” some of us wondered if other hate talkers would get the spotlight shone on their own dubious antics. Sure enough, the king of haters himself, Mr. Limbaugh, is drawing attention for airing a Barack Obama minstrel song, performed by a white guy impersonating Al Sharpton.

…Thursday night on 710 KIRO was a breeze. Guest host David Goldstein kept me on for a segment beyond the initially-scheduled hour. Several callers shared their memories of Seattle gone by; one caller recalled the Last Resort Fire Department’s continuing efforts to restore and maintain old Seattle fire trucks. Thanks to all who called, listened, or had intended to listen.

Yr. o’b’d’t Web-columnist will take to the airwaves again this Thursday night. Listen in on 710 KIRO-AM at 10 p.m., when the lovely and talented David Goldstein and I chat about the Vanishing Seattle book and perhaps many other topics.

The amazing thing about him wasn’t that he became a “colorful local celebrity” as a lowly beer vendor in the old Kingdome. It was that he successfully capitalized on that fleeting celebrity. As a disc jockey on the old KXA-AM, he proved eminently capable of holding an audience’s attention with little screaming and no visible body language.

…the major record labels have been quietly pursuing their schemes to put Internet radio out of business via usurious royalty rates.

…on the station’s online program guide, but my lovely interview about the book Vanishing Seattle is supposed to be on sometime between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. on KUOW, 94.9 FM in Seattle and streaming on the Web.

I taped a lovely interview yesterday at KUOW, Seattle’s NPR affiliate. You’ll hear me plugging the book Vanishing Seattle when the interview airs, sometime next Thursday, 2/15. I’ll let you know the time when I know it.

AND NOW, THIS OTHER PROMOTIONAL ANNOUNCEMENT: My colleagues at Take Control Books are offering a limited-time offer on a bundle of five ebook guides to Mac software. You can learn how to get the most out of your Mac (and iPod to create, manipulate, and organize music, photos, and personal web pages. But hurry: this offer’s only good for a limited time.

Megatrends author John Naisbitt, quoted at Poynter Online (a great media-news site), repeats the old baby-boomer canard that them kids these days aren’t reading anything. To illustrate this, the Poynter editors used a stock photo of wristbands–all festooned with words.

I’ve said it before, and it’s worth repeating until the boomer bigots finally listen: People younger than you or me are not necessarily a subhuman species. Yes, they can read.

Indeed, words are more pervasive than ever. All these millions of blogs, MySpace sites, and online forums–they’re all about words. (They’re certainly not about the graphic design.) Text messaging, IRC chats, email–all about words. Talk radio, podcasts–all about spoken words.

What media companies have to ask themselves is whether the words they’re generating are worth reading.

…promoting two days of free Howard Stern. But it turns out that most of Sirius Satellite Radio’s free online, ending today. You’ve one more day to listen to all the Sirius music channels and most of the Sirius talk channels.

These include “Playboy Radio” (sex talk shows hosted by adult-video starlets who, counter to stereotype, are indeed capable of speaking in complete sentences), and “Sirius Left,” the liberal-talk channel Sirius assembled after Air America signed an exclusive contract with rival satellite-radio giant XM.

Sirius Left mainly comprises existing syndicated broadcast shows. These include the shows of Thom Hartmann and Stephanie Miller, both also heard locally on KPTK-AM 1090.)

It’s good that progressive talk has grown beyond one company into a growing, competitive genre, with legs to stand on and a clear future no matter what happens to Air America on the business side.

What satellite services can’t provide is local content. KPTK isn’t providing local content at this point either, but let’s hope they will soon.

…do on the air, if you’re a playoffs baseball announcer: #3. Hurl an ethnic slur at Lou Piniella.

…was so much fun, I think I’ll do it again:

• Right-wing hate radio: Now even more racist than ever?
• First preachers, now political operatives— just what is it about positions of authority and child abuse?
• One of my alma maters, Oregon State, is dumping its cheerleader squad. For once, no team-name puns here.
• Gene Pitney, one dead rock star who got to live a full life.
• Wal-Mart’s sales, profits sluggish— so much for the almighty juggernaut out to take over the world.
• Went to Drinking Liberally last nite; got to meet that week’s special guest star, Darcy “C.D.” Burner. She’s the highly touted Demo candidate in the 8th Congressional District (the Eastside). She’s smart, witty, and forward-thinking. She’s got a good chance of being a big part of taking back the House this fall.
• While there, one DL participant told me his little conspiracy theory about the U.S. government’s attempt to retain control of the Internet’s top-level domain names. This guy claims the Feds just might be preparing to use this power so they can crack down on lefty bloggers. I’m not so sure the Bushies are that smart. That conspiratorial perhaps, but not that smart.
• Tom Stewart, the former state GOP bigwig and medium-time sleaze, is “protesting” Washington’s estate tax by pulling his corporate offices to Arizona. I won’t miss his campaign-law violations or the ludicrously huge U.S. flag atop his Delridge office building. Now if we could only get the hipster and gay restaurants and bars in this town to stop feeding money to his Food Services of America….
• A longer version of my piece about the Capitol Hill shooting victims’ memorial is in today’s print version of the Capitol Hill Times, but not online, at least not yet.