In this phase of my Randi Rhodes grieving process

[byronius]

I began to collect all the old shows I could find, and listen to them. 2008 is amazing to hear. She called everything right, all the time.

When I first heard her, she grated. Hard politics, sometimes rude, she seemed to bristle with the electricity of solid fact. After awhile, I began to realize I was learning a great deal, that her insight was profound and positive -- that she had It, The Mind, The Sight. She adhered to a rigorous and painfully honest intellectual process informed by living, by working for minimum wage, by being a mechanic and a trucker and raising her dead sister's child.

I was amazed at the things she was saying out loud, vibrating in the air. I came of age in Arizona in the seventies, and actually saying that stuff would have been utterly dangerous then, probably still is, I don't know, I escaped to California.

I began to think that, as long as Randi Rhodes was on the air, we would eventually be all right somehow. That the best part of the world was still alive, that we could turn this horrible corner quickly, and without the standard mass-death-and-chaos cycle the conservative subroutine continually drives the human race through. Pipe dream, hey?

I grieved morosely, silently, for months after she stopped broadcasting. Something like the loss of a close friend. Like a bright light had gone out, and the world dimmed down some. It's been hard.

In the last few weeks, I started listening to my collection of her shows. I have less than a hundred, mostly 2004, 2008, and the last few months of the show. With each old show I hear, I'm growing to realize the value of them. It's history and news analysis, but it's also timeless wisdom. The woman is wise. Wise beyond me, and she's been my teacher. It's why I love her. Most true information junkies do fall in love with her, from either side of the aisle. Information is the currency of the realm, as she used to say, and her shows are order-of-magnitude platinum rich. Sharp, that human.

I need more. I've been looking -- White Rose took down their collection, so has the old Randi Rhodes archive site, apparently for unstated legal reasons.

Someone has them all, somewhere. Someone on the Democratic Underground probably knows that person. If you do, please PM me and tell me where to go, what to do. I need this particular fix like I need blood and higher brain function. Help me. That voice that used to make me flinch is now my primary comfort addiction.

That person, who has every show? Richest human being alive. The Walter White of Truth.

I miss her.