* RADIO RANT: Red Elk & George Noory

So I was listening to the "ooh-OOH" late night (er, early morning) radio show a week or two ago, Coast to Coast AM, and the guest was that New-Age-"shaman"-faker Red Elk. It was bad enough that there were lots of people out there falling for his crap (with the obligatory "send me money" about every five minutes), but the host George Noory actually started calling him "Red" for short after a while, thinking, apparently, that that was his first name, or nickname! And the poseur didn't even bother to correct him.

I'm also generally saddened by Coast-to-Coast's untoward change in tone when George replaced Art Bell a few years back. Sure, Art may have given some of his more wacko UFO-abductee guests a little more slack than they deserved, but he usually kept a good cynical head about him and, at last, one could discern an all-in-good-fun wink of the eye about the whole program. But Noory either believes almost all the drivel his guests spout, or he is--even worse--disingenuous in his "you-never-know" all-embracement of the supernatural. Worst of all, the Christian-theological undercurrent that Noory brings to bear is something Art must be biting his tongue hard about: in sum (and to paint with a broad brush), the show has devolved from aliens to angels, from entertainment to intellectual insult.