"Foreign Correspondent" slot is increasingly a forum for lunatics
National Radio, 9:50 a.m., Thursday 12 April 2012
Who chooses the guests for this 9:50 slot? Many of them (Jack Hitt and Ray Moynihan, for instance) are excellent, but listeners have also had to suffer through such substandard and toxically biased commentators as Irris Makler, Jason Morrison, and Kate Adie.
Kathryn Ryan’s guest this morning is…uh, oh…. the notoriously unbalanced (in every sense) Dame Ann Leslie.
Dame Ann rants dyspeptically about the five Islamic men about to be sent to the United States on terrorism charges—she calls one of them, Abu Hamza, “Captain Hook”. Ryan giggles at that, and giggles continuously throughout Dame Ann’s unhinged ranting against the International Criminal Court, but never challenges her or asks her to explain herself. Then she moves it onto another topic…
RYAN: The teachers’ unions have been in the news, Dame Ann–
DAME ANN LESLIE: Arrrrgggh.
RYAN: He he he he!
DAME ANN: Every year we have to listen to the militant rabble rousingof the teacher unions!
RYAN: What are their concerns?
DAME ANN LESLIE: They never agree to any method of reforming our LOUSY education system. They need a full SIX WEEKS in the summer,… The unions have opposed EVERY EFFORT to improve the education system. All attempts to improve these schools are stifled. We are absolutely FED UP with them.
The spluttering and snarling continues for several more minutes, punctuated occasionally by Kathryn Ryan’s giggles.
