'FM-types'

I was checking out the rather meager offerings on what passes for the web site of the Green Party of New York State. It ran an Associated Press article on a controversy in New Paltz, NY.

No, not THAT controversy.

Late last year, a New Paltz cinema owner refused to run Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11. He also took out a radio ad explaining why and claiming that Hollywood studios don't reflect "our values."

This is probably true. I don't recall a single major Hollywood film that featured gay marriage, something that was performed in New Paltz last year.

But since the cinema owner's decision was backed by Rush Limbaugh, I'm not sure that's what he meant.

Anyway, the decision not to show F9/11 provoked a boycott organized by the New Paltz Green Party (to my knowledge, New Paltz is the only town in the country that has both a Green mayor and a Green-controlled town council).

The New Paltz Greens chairman Steve Greenfield decided to use enlightened self interest to try to change the theater owner's mind and urged a boycott of the owner's three theaters. "We're not interested in patronizing a theater that is declaring its intent to try to limit our access that through the law of supply and demand, the marketplace here would otherwise be interested in seeing," Greenfield, a regular patron of the theaters in the past, told the Poughkeepsie Journal.

Personally, I think this is exactly how such decisions should be dealt with. Cinema owners are free to air whatever they want. Consumers should be free to patronize these places or refuse to. They should be free to praise such decisions or object to them. If the theater owner has the right to not air the film, consumers have an equal right to criticize the decision if they want. This is precisely how such controversies should play out.

But the thing that really intrigued me was Rush Limbaugh's defense of the theater owner.

Limbaugh speculated those taking part in the boycott would likely be "three or four long-haired, maggot-infested, dope-smoking FM-type protesters."

The other juvenile insults were predictable. But can anyone tell me what exactly is an 'FM-type' and why it's an insult?

Personally, I don't listen to any commercial radio anymore, because actual music now represents such a low percentage of the FM airwaves. But if someone accused me of being an FM-type, I'd take it as a high compliment that they thought I didn't listen to AM-radio.