Last week, news editor Daniel Wattenburger issued the newsroom bloggers a challenge. Write about something we would like to disappear from the world, he said.

Hmmmm.

A list of things leapt immediately to mind – mosquitoes, global warming, forest fires, cancer, greed, negativity, materialistic people, snobs, Brussels sprouts.

I immediately rejected several.

Mosquitoes, despite their tendency to whine around your ears and suck blood, also nourish numerous creatures such as birds, bats and trout.

Brussels sprout, well, plenty of folks actually like them.

Global warming is the direct result of man’s poor choices – should we be allowed to get away with that without changing our ways?

Forest fires clean out accumulated underbrush and provide forage for wildlife.

A few I would ax in a second – cancer, negativity, greed, snobs. All are contenders.

None, however, are that fun to write about unless I zoom close into some sort of microcosm.

Here’s one – shock jock radio. Several seconds of Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, Don Imus or any other incendiary blowhard who has his own radio show sets my blood pumping dangerously.

I try to avoid Limbaugh and his ilk, but occasionally run across them as I drive on long trips. I’ve actually sought it out at times when I was perilously close to falling asleep at the wheel. Incensed and disgusted is better than dead.

Anyway, since Pollyanna is my hero (see previous Blog), obviously anyone who is caustic and ultra-negative is akin to an anti-hero, Pollyanna’s evil nemesis.

Their political bent doesn’t seem to matter. The common denominator is a rude, pompous, my-way-or-the-highway stance that allows for not an iota of difference in opinion.

Not surprisingly, their big mouths often get them into trouble.

Limbaugh recently drew fire after he said of Pres. Obama, “…I want him to fail…”

Another time he called professional football player Donovan McNabb consistently overrated because the media wanted a black quarter back to succeed.

Last month, he tactlessly blathered that Sen. Ted Kennedy would be dead by the time his health care legislation passed.

“Before it’s all over, it’ll be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill,” Limbaugh said.

Sometimes an acerbic, un-PC comments elicits enough backlash to boot a host off the air, but it doesn’t seem to last.

In 2007, shock jock Don Imus lost his cable TV and radio simulcast deal after he called the Rutgers University women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos.” He apologized and left the air.

Now, he is back, some say with an even-wider audience, after negotiating a multi-million-dollar deal with WABC Radio, home of Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

Howard Stern last year auctioned off a 22-year-old California woman’s virginity on his show. The woman hoped to use the money to pay her tuition at Sacramento State.

Singer Dolly Parton cried foul after Stern electronically manipulated her speaking voice to create “racist and sexually vulgar statements.” She threatened a lawsuit.

Go get him, Dolly. I feel your pain, at least vicariously.

Why do thousands of people listen to these guys? I’m mystified. Someone tell me.