Here's an e-mail I wrote to AirAmerica today. I get the trend for news reporters to blandify their pronunciation of ethnicly sounding words into American vernacular, but AirAmerica dials up their european-huggy leaning a notch by Eurofying even the most Arabic of words. That's some hard core keepin it real.
Hi, News team,
I listen to Air America driving to work every day here in Colorado more for the entertainment content than the news content, so when I heard the top of the hour "news" segment before Morning Sedition, I got my entertainment.
Your news reader said that there was an explosion in front of a mosque in "carabella," which sounded like a beautiful idyllic place somewhere in Italy.
I've been to Karbala (cahr buh LAH) and, while the city (and particularly the mosques) possess a unique sort of beauty, it's a bit hectic these days and definately not in Italy.
With that, the light turned green and my gaiety quota for the day was met, with my faith renewed in your station's urgent but misguided empathy.
Hopefully, you guys'll work out your kinks and get back to humor that's based more in ideals (a la Gola Wolf Richards) rather than in mispronunciation.
Keep on "now more than ever"-ing!
H
Like Sadr's occupation of Najaf and the killing of Margaret Hassan, assaults on a very prominant Shi'i sites and pro-Iraqis have the sloppy fingerprints of anti-Iraqi national unification sympathizers (Zarqawi, Ba'athist & their allies, etc.) trying to shake up stability in Iraq via the “civil war” route. It's something that the Cooalition can't handle and is the political hot potato for Allawi. It really is more fun to snipe AirAmerica than reflect upon how human nature eats itself.