Thomas Toscano (and Fate above)  called me around 9:30 a.m. to tell me he had this sudden idea. A guest on his morning show had to cancel because of a snowstorm raging outside both of our windows.

Thomas asked me if I might agree to talk on his station WBTNAM, the home of “Talking To Animals,” for an hour. He apologized for calling so late.

I had a lot of work to do, and was disinclined to do it, but Thomas, who is clever, said he knew I was a media critic at one point – I wrote about the media for Wired, New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, the Freedom Forum and others for some years.

When I came upstate to write about dogs and animals, I left that behind and rarely mention it or write about it much. Thomas had an hour of air time to fill and he thought it would be great to talk about modern media with him.

I looked out the window again – it was almost a white-out – and said sure, but I had to be in the studio, I don’t like doing interviews on the phone. He said it was risky driving in the snow, but I wanted to do it, I tossed Fate in the car – she loves to come along on rides and headed out to Bennington.

The ride was hairy at times, but overall, not awful. I made it to the station in less than an  hour, and Thomas even had a pot of herbal  tea waiting for me. Fate and Thomas are a perfect match, they fell in love with one another.

And we had a nice hour. Some people tried to call, but I think Thomas had the phone lines turned off, I managed to get a blog post off before I left,  and I did get some  e-mail about our hour later.

We talked openly and easily with one another. I talked about modern media, the Internet, the impact of corporatism on journalism, the impact of cable news on politics.

We had such a good time we are talking about doing a weekly public-affairs/media round up on Fridays. It seems I have a lot of ideas and feelings about media and it would be satisfying to talk about it on the radio. We would of course take calls. More later.

It was a good trip. Fate was wonderful, she visited us regularly for a pat, but otherwise settled down to chew on her rawhide. She’s a great ride-a-long dog, and a media whore like  Red.

She and Thomas are cut from the same cloth. And we found no trace of  weasels although Thomas insists they are nice. I’m glad he asked me.

My regular broadcast, “Talking To Animals” will be broadcast next Wednesday, one to three. Golden Leash supporters are welcome, for $25 you can support an hour of Talking To Animals in the name of any person or pet you wish.

We will mention you and the cause or living thing you want us to mention.

You can send $25 to WBTN, 407 Harwood Hill, Bennington, Vt., 05201, or send the $25 via Paypal here.