[Editor's note: I wrote this essay in Summer 2003. Since its writing, my knish supplier has gone belly up, and it is sorely missed.]

Midnights present a different paradigm. The contrast to daytime is vivid for a reformed morning person.

Six-a.m. mornings were my norm. Taking a copy editor’s job meant a 180-degree shift. I have worked the Star-Banner’s night copy desk for just over four months – long enough to adapt to the schedule. Now, I wake up to a world that day people create beginning right after my head hit the pillow that morning.

When I hunger for breakfast, the morning stable of knishes has usually fled my local bagel shop. Favorite morning NPR programs cannot broadcast into dreams. Television slips in importance: There’s simply not a soap opera or daytime talk show worth attention. Reading grows more vital in the hours before I work at 5 p.m., and finally there’s time to tackle The Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time since my teens.

After work, my commute home winds through empty streets – eyes open to a quiet, unassuming city. Late-night hunger is a sad tale, a doughnut or fast food taco being the best options outside of the ubiquitous Waffle House. The 2 a.m. recast of Washington Week and a video rental membership offer the best after work entertainment.

Then, when the credits wind down the screen, it’s time to relax into the futon, and dream of hot knishes with mustard.

I listen to a lot of conservative talk radio. ClearChannel, which owns most, if not all, of the stations here (and in many areas) thinks it’s important.

Most often, I listen to WSKY and their line-up of the usual right-wing suspects: Limbaugh, Savage, O’Reilly and Boortz. The station also has its selection of local Rushlings, who do their own programming.

I consider myself a non-traditional listener. That is, I doubt I’m their typical patron.

As a self-proclaimed outside judge, I’ve noticed the craft with which they frame their mindshare of the national discussion. For example, consider references to Sen. John Kerry. Listeners expect these hosts to slam Kerry. They do.

But, it’s also more subtle than that. The phraseology they use specifically aims to paint Kerry as unstable and, appealing to the isolationists, European. For example, Rush today was discussing a Kerry get-together at his Colorado mountain home. It’s not a “lodge,” or a “vacation home.” It’s a Swiss-style chalet. One of the hosts I’ve listened to regularly refers to the Democratic candidate as the “vaguely French-looking John Kerry.”

Just what is “vaguely French-looking” supposed to mean? As far as I can tell, it’s intent is solely to bristle listeners by using “French,” a currently unpopular concept, in the same sentence as “Kerry.”

Information consumers should take care to get their facts from a variety of sources to counterbalance this limitation of modern media. Go ahead, listen to talk radio. But check out CNN, MSNBC, NPR, etc., in addition to the Web’s news sites, and the blogsphere. Honest straight-forward dialogue, and American discourse, depends on it.