Coping: Another Attack on AM Radio

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If you live in Texas, and if you enjoy Joe Paggs and all over at WOAI AM (1200) at night, please go to the WOAI website and sign the petition to protect regional AM stations that have large nighttime coverage areas.

The petition is here: http://woai.iheart.com/features/save-am-radio-1919/ 

We live in East Texas and depriving us of over-the-air listening to WOAI at night would prevent us from receiving timely news, information and in particular regional weather information.

As you should be aware, there are some streaming services that might represent they provide coverage out here in “fly-over” country, but this is simply not true. 

What REALLY happens is that the local telco carrier (in our case CenturyLink) puts in half-ass HDSL service and the proceeds to over-sell their service so that we are frequently victims of bandwidth exhaustion.  (We have complained to the Commission and the telco with no improvement in service.)  Welcome to responsive government.

Additionally, while we have a satellite system as well, in the Commissions “infinite wisdom” these are presently tariffed at extortionist rates that preclude casual streaming of iHeart or other services.  What you should also be aware of is that just when we need it most (as in bad weather) we find either the NOAA weather is down or the satellite is down due to precipitation wrecking the satellite shot. Power’s not perfect out in these parts, either.

So please, for God’s sake, don’t compound one act of stupidity with another and screw up a health AM broadcast band by freeing up additional channel space for marginal broadcasters and give the successful long-term regional AM operators have a chance against an increasingly competitive environment comprises of wannabes who don’t know the first thing about serving a region, let alone a community.  Narrowcasting with lots of small bad stations does not make up for genuine quality broadcasting by a good station.

Or, is that the point?  Is it that  because WOAI doesn’t carry the kind of politically-acceptable (liberal approved) content that the Commission promotes which is just sure as hell not in the public need, interest, and concern?  Economic Stimulus plan, maybe?  We seem to have the odor of politics in the air.

Or, as an alternative, tell the freaking telcos to put fiber out here to the woods so we can enjoy the public safety benefits of good broadcasters like WOAI.   Otherwise?  Mits off!

Thank you for your attention,
George & Elaine Ure (retied in East Texas)

I don’t give AM radio much of a chance in the long-term.  It’s just too useful.

Instead we will likely see it disassembled and then cobbled into local stations, none of which will have anywhere near the quality of coverage.  I counted the other night and already, nighttime AM radio here is not reflective of the region’s demographics.

We do long driving trips now and then and sometimes at night.  There’s nothing like a Noory or the latest weather from your destination to keep you awake.

Leave it to government to “fix” something else that ain’t broken.

Or, is there something else afoot?  With Agenda 21 and all, how about under-serving the rural areas even more?  Isolate and conquer is it?  And while telcos argue they need money for infrastructure out in the sticks (where the food and energy come from, remember?) when it comes down to investing in rural of sending dividends to shareholders, care to guess who wins?

Debate Fatigue

Please tell me last night was the last of it?  Not that I don’t mind watching the theater of people trying to “out republican one-another.” 

To my cynical eye, the only guy who talked an issue well was Dr. Ben Carson who didn’t get enough time to explain his healthcare ideas – and being a doc and all, I value Carson’s take.  He was also the most “presidential” in demeanor.

John Kasich gave a good impression, too, as someone who could roll up his sleeves and get something done.  As to the Trump remark that Ohio’s success in budgets was due to oil, Kasich had numbers to back up his claim that it was not a fracking festival going on although whose numbers to believe is like a choice between a pistol or shot of hemlock.

Ted Cruz, I think, did the right thing in terms of laying back one getting a few jabs in at Trump –who fended them off well.  But here’s the thing:  I thought Marco Rubio could have used an Adderall, or two because he was just way outside the kind of reserved, intelligent kind of discourse that would play well. 

And though lots of people think Trump won it, which is may have, I want him to start getting more into specifics and I got the impression that other than broad promises, he didn’t have a real (point by point) healthcare plan.

So at this point, even though it’s perhaps a “wasted vote” I will likely vote for Ben Carson because he’s likely the “smartest guy in the room.”  Trump will carry most of the states, maybe Cruz wins Texas, and Trump carries the convention.

But maybe a vote for Carson  isn’t wasted.  He’s thoughtful, smart, and knows how to “hit the books and learn” which is something I greatly admire.   Of all the candidates, I keep coming back to Trump-Caron as the best selection of brains and practical experience to fix what’s been broken by too many same-old-crats and same-old-cans.

If there’s one thing I learned from 40-years of news and business hard-ball:  Smart people count.  And while no one on the stage is a dummy, for me to comes down to doers and posers and Cruz’s lack of support from fellow republicans (*which Trump hammered on) does underscore the lack of team play.

Then again, that’s what this whole sordid mess has been:  No team play.  I heard the beginnings of a Carson plan with real meat on it.  Trump danced it, Rubio and Cruz had way too much testosterone going, although Kasich got across (true or not) that he is a roll ‘em up and let’s get ‘er done kind of guy.

Damn shame the democrats have been playing hide the sausage all this time.  I would love to see how Hillary would have fared in a real Shark Tank.

Payback for Holder, Et Alia

So now we see how to avoid freedom of information requests:  Hide the read name of the person do the official acts.

The story popped out in Vice on Thursday that former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder was outed for (we need to say allegedly)  using the email [fake name] Lew Alcindor – a fan’s adulation for Kareem Abdul=Jabbar whose birth name happens to be Lew Alcindor, right?

Well, hold the phone here:  Does this mean that Freedom of Information inquiries to the US Department of Just Us could have been done in such a manner that the low-level employees (who actually do all the work in Washington) weren’t apprised of the fake email handle?

And with Hillary Whatshername’s email mess, who’s to testify that anyone used their right/proper/email names, even when representing the U.S. government?

Holy smokes…no wonder discovery isn’t working.  We have people holding (or who held) office that seem to make a joke out of personal accountability to the public!.

Payback’s are  a itch, though.

Effective immediately, my alternate email address will be eric.holder@urbansurvival.com but if I respond in any kind of “offishul” capacity, I will send that from george@ure.net, unless there is a chance of state secrets, breach of process, or anything else.  Then it will come from my eric.holder@urbansurvival.com email./

Now, since my brother-in-law happens to think Norman Schwarzkopf is super cool (and we should have listened when he said “Take it to Baghdad” the first time, well Panama Bates’ new email is normal.schwarzkopf@urbansurvival.com.

And last, but not least, if you need to get hold of Elaine, try her new “let’s play it back” email which is hillary.clinton@urbansurvival.com.  I was thinking that I might set it up as hillary.clinton@state.us.urbansurvival.com, but no point trying to step on the tail of the beast with hobnail boots on.

In the event you’re a democrat, Elaine’s alternate email is lady.gaga@urbansurvival.com and mine is saul.alinsky@urbansurvival.com.  Did that one for our liberal demo readers…

It must be legal and perfectly ethical to do all this, of course…otherwise, would the former Attorney General have permitted it and did it himself?

So have fun with it and see you in court.  Or the camps.

Twitchy called it ‘Shady’: Report about Eric Holder’s DOJ email alias slam dunks admin’s ‘transparency’ legacy,” 

And we can’t disagree.

– – – – –

Seriously:  Everything happens for a reason.  And Cynicism pays bonuses all the time.  I mean besides never being surprised with how sleazy people can be:

As I was setting up all these (ahem…) not quite fraudulent but certainly misleading email addy’s  as part of Cynicism 101 this AM, I discovered that my mail server has eaten 6,250 emails at the george.ure@urbansurvival.com account (sheesh!)  And more at another account.  So care to do what I will be doing after breakfast today?

Thanks, Eric Holder for being my IT assistant advisor.  Who knew?

Off to the weekend…write when you break-even,

George   eric.holder@urbansurvival.com  member FDIC  (federal doofs in charge)

31 thoughts on “Coping: Another Attack on AM Radio”

  1. Years ago, my email address – though it was the ‘same’ was through another provider which was transferred to my current provider (which has also gone through ‘changes’ but much more professional). But that first ‘switch over’ was a killer. All the emails that I had saved in folders for various reasons – business, sentimental, whatever – were lost. The first company said that they were at fault, ‘nothing they could do’, and that they were so sorry.

    I felt like yelling, but I don’t do that on the phone – instead I resolved that if something is important, leaving it in email alone won’t do. A physical copy may be ‘old school’ – ‘belt and suspenders’ – and a waste of space – but that is how it is. Write down the information at least.

    • I’m still trying to find a PC app that will take a POP or IMAP feed and save all folders, with each email as a PDF. It shouldn’t be hard to do, but I have no time to write such a thing. I wonder if it exists. Ideally it would be a searchable database and each email would be is own pdf and findable with or without the database function.

      I have many thousands of emails that I want to keep in local offline storage.

    • Get an email program like Mozilla Thunderbird. You can set it up to receive mail from more than one email address. The key is, the emails are downloaded to your personal computer when you fire it up. From there on, you are responsible for backing up what you deem important. As far as office mail goes, the company you work for considers all that correspondence to belong to them. So you should be using a private email for everything personal in any case.

    • I use Thunderbird. Keep copies on my own computer with back ups. Seems simple enough. What am I missing? Why depend on a third party to store your stuff?

  2. You could always mirror former AGUS Holder and use the ‘Roger Murdock’ email handle. Murdock was the fictional co-pilot character from the Airplane movie played by Kareem (aka Lew Alcindor)

    Personally, I’m partial to Lloyd Bridges’ Steve McCroskey character: “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.”

  3. George, you are spot on when it comes to Carson. He would make a fine President…but, that won’t happen. But, and a big BUT, he would could fit right into a cabinet position…say Health and Human Services…?? Hum?

    • I think there’s an old Yiddish saying that fits well: “Your lips to God’s ears” – I think he would be a Great VP for someone like Trump

    • That would be mean. We don’t do mean. On the other hand, our forthcoming “One Clinton was Too Many” bumperstickers, well, THAT is demonstrably true…

  5. RE: 1200 WOAI

    Someday the folks in Washington, DC…(district of criminals), will realize that dollar-for-dollar, nothing beats the value delivered by our railroads and by AM Clear Channel radio. (And I’m not referring to the garbage and trash delivered these days by Clear Channel Radio Inc.)

    Someday soon, people will dig out their crusty Sony Transistor radio from the junk drawer (the one that managed to survive the EMP attack) and attempt to get survival information from stations like: 820 WBAP Ft. Worth, 890 WLS Chicago or 650 WSM Nashville.

    I agree George. As usual, our public servants in Washington are working overtime to stuff their pockets, waste Billions and make life miserable in the USA.

  6. George & Elaine Ure (retied in East Texas)

    Kinky, but I’m not quite sure that’s what you want to share with public officials.

    I’m glad that you two are getting along so well. Meanwhile, I’ll be writing to them myself from central NM. The local 770KKOB clear channel station has removed all their fun and useful programming since they were bought by Cumulus, and replaced it with pure trash and right wing mainstream puff. Glen Dreck was the last straw and now they don’t even have a button on my radio, but WOAI does, even though it’s 700 miles away. At least they have useful information instead of propaganda. There’s a similar local station, but they’re over the mountains and can’t be heard at all.

    • I live in Albuquerque and KKOB has been a constant disappointment since in the 1980s they preferred to play a baseball game out of Arizona rather than cover a local, damaging thunderstorm that roared through town. As they are the loudest radio station in town, there isn’t anything better (but the one classical music station). TV and the internet are my go-to for local news. So as I have broadband, I got an internet radio and among the stations I listen to now is KRLD out of Dallas, and particularly Texas Overnight with Charley Jones. His politics are just a little too right wing for me (though he is thoughtful usually), but everything else he and his occasional guests talk about is quite interesting. With internet radio, too, I can switch to programming from around the world (like one could do with shortwave, but better reception and now huge antenna) or home-made programs available only on the internet. As noted, though, this does depend on one having broadband.

  7. I strongly suspect Eric Holder is guilty of “Identity Fraud” and anyone who received his emails and knew who they were really from is likely guilty of “Conspiracy.”
    In a free country they would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Not here. Not now.

  8. I can’t for the life of me, understand why normal intelligent people think that Donald Trump is a viable candidate. He sounded like a buffoon last night…as he does every night. He is a contentious, bullying braggart that can dish it out, but certainly can’t take the criticism without sounding like a 12 year old child. He has no policies, no moral compass, horrible people skills, and contrary to popular belief, is a mediocre businessman at best. The man can promote…he can market…but he has no product. He is nothing but a spoiled brat son of a successful real estate tycoon, who lost daddy’s money more than a few times…He has screwed creditors through bankruptcy, conned potential entrepreneurs through his bogus Trump University, belittled his wives through countless affairs and rubbed shoulders with mob bosses. Please America…don’t be so stupid. The con is on and you are all the victims.

  11. I just wish the news media would focus on the useful ideas put forth by Kasich and Carson instead of replaying ad nauseum the very entertaining but not particularly useful show between Trump and Rubio. Since it’s not realistic to expect Kasich will get the nomination I would be pleased to see him as VP and Carson as Health and Human services or in charge of the VA. Personally I think Trump is a loose canon, like you said, no real specifics, just “I make great deals!” Great for who? He may be a political outsider but he is the personification of Big Business in my book.

  13. Mr. Ure you DO realize the GOP candidates would like to eliminate that social security check which is either arriving in your checking account or soon will be.
    The only candidate who wants to STRENGTHEN social security and medicare you didn’t even mention (and that’s Bernie Sanders). BTW he want’s to break up the big banks, tax Wall st. and do away with crony capitalism.
    Careful…don’t vote against your and Elaine’s best interests.

  17. RE: WOAI
    Freaking awesome… (not!)

    ‘Reminds me of WOWO. WOWO is the formerly clear channel station at 1190khz, broadcasting out of Fort Wayne, Indiana. WOWO was a “Group W, Westinghouse” station (like KDKA, WBZ, KYW {which became WABC}, and KEX.) Perambulatin’ around the country, I’d listen to WOWO from Grand Rapids to Atlanta, when I wasn’t listening to WLS, WLW, or WLAC. Heck, the very first time I ever heard Coast to Coast AM, Art Bell was doing a show on the Mothman, and I found the show on WOWO, just as I was rolling down US-35 onto the Silver Memorial Bridge between Gallipolis, OH and Point Pleasant, WV (actually Henderson — Henderson and Point Pleasant WV are two halves of a single settlement, separated by the Kanawha River. The “Mothman bridge,” the Silver Bridge which collapsed, connected US-35 with WV Route 62, about ¾ mile upriver from the current bridge) on a drive from Wright-Patterson to (south of) Charleston.

    Freaky, spooky, weird…

    …And not likely to happen again, since the FCC eviscerated WOWO’s nighttime capability, cutting their 50,000 watt daytime output to 9800 watts for broadcast from 1830-0630, devaluing WOWO from a Class A to Class B station in the process. The 9.8KW DOES keep WOWO from running over the pirate propaganda stations in Cuba and Quebec which take out everything from WRVA (1140KHz) to about 1250KHz, most nights from ~2200-0300, for those of us traveling between the Mississippi and the eastern mountains.

    That’s okay, though, we’ve still got WHO, KMOX, and KWKH, even though a person on the move is lucky to receive them from 40 miles out, now, and of course, we have WOAI, er, oh, wait a minute…

    Y’know, WOAI was one of the original petitioners for “superstation status” back in the 1940s, and a kick up to 750,000 watts? Shame. I hope WOAI’s owner, Clear Channel Communications (or iHeartMedia, as they’re now known) is sincere in that petition, and not just making lip-service to seem like they’re doing something. The superstation thing never happened, but there was a reason why the FCC even contemplated permitting a 750KW clear channel broadcast station in San Antonio, and it wasn’t so folks in Guadalajara could get the daily South Texas ag reports…

  19. Hi George, since the topic is radio, and mantipulating public thought….I was listen to the radio the other day, which is unusual for me…but in any case I was very distrubed by what I was hearing. This was a talk radio station and they were bashing the baby boomer generation for our economic situation. That this generation used up America by living the good life, and left nothing for future generations. It’s like “they” are laying the ground work for generation ‘warfare.’ I thought good god, some people would believe this BS, like we’ll all sitting on boards of directors of huge corporations selling America out. Have you heard of this, generation bashing, used America up? Thanks for all you do.

  20. Wasting a vote on Ben Carson? This is the guy who thinks Joseph built the Great Pyramids and used them for storing grain. Wow! He also brags about having been offered “a full scholarship to West Point”. Ummm . . . no. He has also opined that semi-automatic firearms should be banned in some areas, “It depends on where you live. I think if you live in the midst of a lot of people, and I’m afraid that that semi-automatic weapon is going to fall into the hands of a crazy person, I would rather you not have it.”

    IMO, “Dr” Carson seems like a textbook case of affirmative action run amok. Whisky Tango Foxtrot, George?

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