In case any of you live in the Huntington, West Virginia area, be advised that I’ll be interviewed on the Tom Roten Show, on WVHU, AM 800, on Thursday, January 20, 8:35 a.m. The subject, of course, will be West Oversea.

What follows, I’m afraid, is pretty Twin Cities Inside Radio-Ball. But an era is semi-passing for local conservatism, and I want to mark it with a post.

The talk radio station I generally listen to is WWTC, AM 1280, “The Patriot,” a fine station affiliated with the Salem Broadcasting Network. It doesn’t have much of a signal, but for urban dwellers like me it fills a need.

We also have some pretty good bloggers in these parts. Among them are Power Line (famous for helping to blow Dan Rather out of the water over the forged George W. Bush National Guard documents), Fraters Libertas, and Shot In the Dark. Salem talk show host Hugh Hewitt started referring to them as The Northern Alliance of Blogs (a play on the name of the coalition of Afghan militias helping America at the time), and it was his idea for them to do a weekly show on WWTC.

That was about six years ago. The glory has attenuated since, but for a while we had local Saturday talk in these parts which (I daresay) compared to anything in the country. There were other good local shows too—for a while the whole morning and most of the afternoon were filled by intelligent, stimulating conversation. Over the years, however, the other shows have been gradually replaced by Christian talk of the in-your-face, my-way-or-the-broad-road-that-leadeth-to-destruction variety. But still the Northern Alliance guys persisted, in a block of two two-hour broadcasts from 11:00 to to 3:00.

The 11:00 show was called The First Team, and featured Brian “St. Paul” Ward of Fraters Libertas and John Hinderaker (yes, it’s a Norwegian name. In fact there were Hinderakers who were neighbors to my family on Karmøy Island. I don’t, however, know John) of Power Line. Then followed The Headliners show, with Mitch Berg of Shot In the Dark, and Ed Morrissey of Hot Air.

I have a wonderful memory of a winter day several years back, when one of the shows had Mike Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (a former Minnesota resident) as a guest, and who calls in but James Lileks?

Yeah, they interviewed other significant people, like Richard John Neuhaus, Ralph Peters, and Stephen Hunter, but Mike Nelson and Lileks—that’s entertainment.

Anyway, WWTC has canceled The First Team, as of last week (I missed their last broadcast, due to my family gathering). Word is they’re replacing it with an infomercial.

There’s still The Headliners, anyway. For now. I suppose it’ll eventually be replaced too, by something like The Old-Fashioned Gospel Chiropractic Hour.