I've regularly listened to KFI-AM 640's John and Ken Show for nearly a a decade now, not so much because I agree with most of the views of host John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou (although you'd be surprised) but because they make great radio–the faux outrage, the scorched-earth campaigning, the whining and the amusing vitriol. So when I say that Kobylt is increasingly becoming more and more bigoted, I say it as someone who has heard his devolution for a long time (Chiampou seems to be softening with the years). And Kobyalt went lunatic yesterday with SanTana.
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The two were railing about an Orange County Register story detailing how local cities are failing in providing bilingual services to residents. Kobylt, in particular, zeroed in on a 2008 American Community Survey that found 80 percent of SanTana's residents speak a language other than English at home, a hell of a misleading stat (that doesn't mean all of those 80 percent are English-free).
“If 80 percent are not English speaking at home, that is no longer America,” Kobylt fumed.
“We ceded it some years ago, didn't we?” Chiampou wondered.
“We should take it back,” Kobylt snapped.
Chiampou went on to express his surprise that they have SanTana listeners. “Imagine what they're dealing with every day,” Kobylt responded. “We're their only lifeline to the real world.”
You hear that, Floral Park?
He went on to describe a visit a year or so ago to SanTana, where he claimed to drive through the city's “business district” (downtown SanTana) and drove around a couple of blocks. “Every single business, the sign was in Spanish,” he claimed. “I knew [the city] was mostly Mexican, but seeing it drives you crazy.”
Okay, okay, okay: I call bullshit on his trip. As someone who has worked in the city for nearly a decade, where exactly is this all-Spanish-sign district? Even in deepest, darkest Fourth Street, most of those bridal shops say, you know “Bridal Shop.” Down Broadway are many lawyer offices; up Main are such Mexican words on businesses as “CVS Pharmacy,” “Teriyaki,” “UC Irvine,” and “Orange Chicken.” But why let facts get in the ways of bigotry?
“I know at one time Santa Ana was part of America,” Kobylt concluded, before proclaiming that “Santa Ana was still part of America in 1973,” a funny statement considering people were saying SanTana was already gone from civilization by the 1960s–but again, why let facts get in the way of stupidity?
Oh, and if you need any more indication of Kobyalt's level of fact-loving, there was a brief discussion of the use of Hmong in public schools. He guessed at first correctly that the language is spoken primarily in Laos, but then decided it was Cambodia. Idiot, but hey: he'd be at home with some of SanTana's Brave New Urbanists…
