Rome has recently gotten its own NPR station; we now have clear reception compared to the static-laden broadcasts from Atlanta and Chattanooga. I don't consider it a big gain (no surprise there, eh?), but I do occasionally listen while I'm in my car.

I just happened to be listening last weekend and caught a few minutes of "Fresh Air." Host Terry Gross was interviewing Geoff Nunberg about his book Talking Right. His thesis is that Republicans have twisted the meaning of words like values and colorblind. Ho-hum, hardly a novel thesis; perhaps even correct (though no more so than lefty language distortions like calling Social Security taxes "contributions"). Then Nunberg let loose a big groaner:

"... and, most notably, it is what the right has done with freedom in expanding the word in the hope that people would see in the right not to have to pay a minimum wage or the right not to have to provide healthcare would be seen as the same kind of freedom that Washington's soldiers struggled for at Valley Forge."

Yeah, right--the American Revolution was all about a "living wage" and single-payer health care. And the colonists probably didn't think the taxes imposed by George III were high enough. What foolishness.

Listen to the program here; my transcribed quote of Nunberg begins at about 3:45.