In the wake of the mass-shooting of six and seven year old children in Newtown, Connecticut, I believe it is time to highlight a few corporate ties to the National Rifle Association so those who do not wish to support that organization in any way can make a more informed choice on certain travel services.  However, before I do that, I need to make the usual disclaimer.

I strongly support the Second Amendment and the interpretation that it allows all citizens to own and use firearms.  I believe in this in the name of hunting, collecting, target shooting, just plain fun, and self defense.  I put extra emphasis on the last category as the United States is still filled with areas that are too rural to have nearby police assistance and we have cities where the police are so busy that taking matters into one’s own hands could easily be necessary.

However, I am also a strong supporter of common sense.  Hunting nor self-defense require military-style automatic weapons nor massive ammunition clips.  As for collecting, many special collections of other types need to be specially licensed and firearms designed for nothing but killing humans is logically one of them.  The only people that could possibly believe otherwise are living an absolute nut-job fantasy that citizens should be arming themselves in order to take on the U.S. Government.  The rest that claim such a thing are looking for nothing but to make money on a highly misinformed section of the public.

Of course, the leader in making impossible even the most sensible laws and enforcement regarding firearms has been the National Rifle Association (NRA).  Ever since turning away from being a benign organization that promoted hunting along with gun safety and education and morphing into one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the United States, they have done nothing but continue the illusion that America would be better off turning back into the Wild West where everybody carried a gun and issued justice on the spot.

If there is one good thing at all that will come out of the massacre in Newtown, it will be that a large portion of Americans — especially voting mothers — have woken up enough that the NRA can no longer hide the blood on its hands for spending so much time and money in blocking sensible firearms law enforcement.  Even the NRA was embarrassed enough to temporarily suspend its Facebook page, not use its Twitter account for a week, and not make any public statements of any other kind until a Friday “garbage day” as it’s called in the news business (because fewer people pay attention to the news as the weekend approaches).

The temporary showing of a little bit of conscience by the NRA has already passed.  While there is still a chance they might not succeed in preventing new federal and state legislation to put some sense back in the country’s gun laws, it is my belief that both the NRA and any of its enablers need to be punished for what they have done to this country for far too long.

While strongly in the mainstream media’s spotlight, it was brought to the nation’s attention that the NRA advertises several business affiliations on its website.  These businesses offer discounts to NRA members for various goods and services.  Through this whole week while even some of the most conservative of public figures and organizations have stated they would accept some new gun legislation along with badly-needed assistance for those needing mental health services (a big portion of the problem which should not be overlooked even though not the focus of this post), not a single one of these corporations has come forward to address the general public on their continued association with the NRA.

As I said back in my post listing the consumer brands controlled by the Koch Brothers, I believe that the NRA and its supporters are perverting our country and the common sense type of democratic republic that our Founding Fathers wished to be handed down to their descendant citizens.  Just as I do not allow perverts into my home in the form of the Koch Brothers’ paper and building products, I do not wish to spend the night in a pervert’s motel room or drive in a pervert’s car.  Therefore, just as is done on many government websites where perverts are listed so people can stay away from them if they wish, I offer this list along with pictures of these other types of perverts so they can also be identified and avoided.

This one sort of hurts because Best Western is generally my favorite motel chain although usually a bit more expensive than others I frequent.  However, it is quite clear that they are still offering a discount to NRA members as they are given a code to provide upon making a reservation that is then verified by showing one’s NRA membership card upon registration.

Wyndham Worldwide Corporation is a complicated one because it includes a lot of brands, many of which were independent for so long it does not always register in the public’s mind that they are now under one owner (especially since there is no similarity in each brand’s signage).  However, each of Wyndham’s brands lists a “Benefits ID” number on the NRA website. This is also not an easy one to avoid because the included brands are ones that include names that are reliable for either comfort or low prices along with being ones to which many Americans have fond attachment. Still, they have now been irrefutably sullied.

It is not just these two motel giants that must now be given the spotlight. More importantly might be the car rental companies which consolidated to such a point in 2012 that there are really now only three of them…and they are all helping to support the NRA.

The company that owned Avis acquired Budget in 2006. Both brands list a special number on the NRA website that allows its members to receive a discount.

While this might seem strange since many think of all three of these as being discount brands, Enterprise gobbled up both National and Alamo in 2007. All three offer a special discount code to NRA members with the one for Enterprise actually beginning with “NRA.”

Hertz is the Johnny-come-lately to the multi-brand scene. Late in 2012, they announced their intention to buy the already joined Dollar and Thrifty brands. This is Hertz’s second attempt at a buyout of Dollar-Thrifty. At this time, only Hertz is offering NRA members a discount code. Obviously, if the merger does not go through, Dollar-Thrifty would be exempt from this list.

Now it’s time to talk about alternatives.

Especially if Hertz is successful in taking over Dollar-Thrifty, other choices for car rental in the United States will be difficult to find. There are still a handful of independent companies but their market saturation is very limited…and even more so if one wants to pick up a car in one city and drop it off in another. It very well might end up that this will be an evil that cannot be avoided. However, depending upon one’s travel plans, at least give a look to companies such as ACE Rent A Car, Fox Rent A Car, Payless Car Rental, Rent-A-Wreck, and U-Save.

As for motels, the other choices are too numerous to even begin to list.  While I did admit my previous use of both motel chains listed above, my preference is to try to use the great resources of the World Wide Web to find independent, locally-owned motels or, at the very least, a smaller chain.  Since that is often not a viable option, one easy way to go to get a lot of choices in one place between number, style, and comfort level is, appropriately enough, Choice Hotels International which includes many well-known brands in its stable.  I have over 60 American hotel chains saved in my browser’s Bookmarks so being able to avoid Best Western and the Wyndham Group should almost never be a problem.

Boycotts are never easy.  These particular ones will be quite tough especially for business travelers.  However, the tragedy in Newtown seems to be the event that made enough Americans come to their senses and realize it is time to stop allowing the NRA to run roughshod over the country.  The NRA has certainly been The Man in how it has grabbed undue influence with its 4.3 million members to steamroll the other 310.7 million American citizens.  It is well past time that we not only stick it directly to The Man on this issue but also to all that are enabling him to live in extra comfort.

Sometime in early 2013 will mark a terrible but understandable loss for over-the-air radio broadcasting.  As reported by the great Radio Insight website, WMVY of Tisbury, Massachusetts on Martha’s Vinyard will become yet another NPR drone.  The 92.7 MHz FM signal will become a retransmission of WBUR in Boston and “mvyradio” will, if it receives enough donations, become an online-only enterprise.

Unlike some of the similar recent changes I have railed against, WMVY is much more understandable.  It is and always has been a commercial outlet.  Even with all of the buzz, good reviews, and a huge amount of listeners from around the world via its Internet stream, the station continued to lose money.  In this specific case, it is better that WMVY’s fate be to become a rebroadcast of a distant city’s NPR station than yet another station churning out K-LOVE or some other mindless Bible-babble that never has any local content.

Still, it is sad to see one of the pioneers of the “adult album alternative” format to be thrown into the sea with thousands of other online broadcasters.  That’s an even tougher way to survive even without the overhead of a transmitter and its huge electric bill.  Despite having an already known brand (at least in some circles), it is difficult to get attention in a world where all too many people mindlessly go to nothing but Pandora or, my favorite of that type, Slacker, without ever thinking about trying to find something fresh where the true glory of radio — the full element of surprise — can be experienced.

At this time, I am not sure if I will transition myvradio’s listing to one of the few Web-only stations I keep on my Radio page.  My thinking at the moment is first to see if it actually receives enough donations to live on and then, if it does, to see if it retains a large portion of its live talent or becomes just another glorified mp3 playlist.

I am sure of one thing.  I continue to encourage everybody to outwardly support any remaining good, independent over-the-air radio outlet left in their lives whether it is local or not.  Our voices, our numbers, and our dollars are the only thing standing between retaining anything good out of a service that truly should not be dying like it is and losing it all to the likes of the radio conglomerates where even the choices of the folks at NPR have to be questioned.

As for NPR and my love/hate relationship with it…no, maybe love/suspicion is best for now…I will get to that another day…hopefully soon as it appears I am ready to rise again from another period of slumber during the long, inglorious history of KoHoSo.us.

Even as I have narrowed down the English-speaking world’s tens of thousands of radio stations into only approximately 175 good ones on my Radio page, it is difficult for me to always keep up on any changes that have occurred until I happen to go back and listen to that station.  This is especially true since most of the stations I list are independent and, thus, not usually considered by the mainstream media that covers radio (what little there is remaining of it) to be newsworthy.  Because of that, this news might be old to some.  However, it still bears reporting because it will be news to those that only follow this type of stuff though KoHoSo.us.  In addition, both are good examples of how the government of the United States is acting in the name of its citizens while, instead, doing nothing but protecting corporate interests.

To put it plainly, I have had to delete the pirate/variety stations Free Radio Olympia and Free Radio Santa Cruz from my Radio page.

Free Radio Olympia preemptively shut down in June to avoid an upcoming raid by the Federal Communications Commission.  Sadly, they have not been able to keep up their web presence so not even an online stream is available as was promised when they shut down their transmitter.  With no trace of them at this time and no “tweets” from their Twitter account since 2010, I doubt this station will return anytime soon (if at all) since the FCC had really been turning up the heat on pirate stations in the Pacific Northwest (why they have focused on that particular region is still a mystery).

Free Radio Olympia was not the greatest station there ever was.  However, they stood for something that most people don’t want to bother fighting for anymore — that the airwaves belong to the people (as originally ordained by the U.S. Congress), that said airwaves should be a forum for full freedom of expression, and those that do not care for the programming have the freedom to turn the dial to another station.  In my view, stranger still on the FCC going after Free Radio Olympia as opposed to any other pirate station is that they were not interfering with the signal of any other station in any significant way nor were they by any means the only pirate outlet broadcasting content that would earn a licensed broadcaster a huge fine (mainly, any song containing one of George Carlin‘s “Seven dirty words“).

At least Olympia still has the great KAOS (a college station I have recommended on various websites I have had going back to 1998) plus the struggling but full of potential KOWA.  It would be my hope that those behind Radio Free Olympia along with all of the volunteer hosts would put their energies behind the legally-licensed KOWA and bite the bullet for a while on being able to say, “Fuck,” over the air.  KOWA could really be something if it got more support in an area that is surely open to non-commercial radio and probably tiring like many others of the deteriorating quality of NPR programming being shoved down the throats of the area over the transmitters controlled by the University of Washington (a long story that I might cover in some other post especially if “U-Dub” does something else with its radio stations that pisses me off again).

As for the other station, Free Radio Santa Cruz (FRSC) is still alive and kicking over the air.  However, they state on their website that SoundExchange, the organization that collects song royalties from radio stations, has forced FRSC to remove its live stream because they refuse to pay.  This seems rather strange to me but, then again, Santa Cruz is definitely a capital city of strange.  After all, FRSC is a pirate station so why would they bother listening to what SoundExchange had to say…assuming SoundExchange actually contacted them at all?  After all, the big violation here is that FRSC is broadcasting without a license, has been doing so since 1995, and was shut down once already in 2004 by federal marshals with assault rifles drawn (after which FRSC was back on the air within a month, thus showing how effective that expenditure of tax money was).  In addition, there are plenty of other pirate stations the USA streaming away while playing artists signed to big record labels with not one peep about SoundExchange giving them any grief.

Whatever is going on with FRSC and whether or not the threat from SoundExchange is real or just a ruse to gain attention for some reason, the fact is that it no longer streams on the Internet.  Therefore, it has to be removed from my Radio page.

While the SoundExchange threat may or may not be real in the case of FRSC, it is real when it comes to many other small-time outlets whether they are traditional over-the-air radio stations or Internet broadcasters.  The royalty fees have become so high even for non-commercial broadcasters and the enforcement so heavy-handed that it is forcing many off of the playing field.  That only serves to decrease competition and put more power into the hands of Clear Channel, Cumulus, CBS, Entercom, Saga, and all the rest of the radio conglomerates.  Worse yet, the recording industry still hasn’t changed it’s actual business model – ripping off artists for every dime they can out of their royalties.  Any artists that came out in favor of the current SoundExchange system – including beloved Bob Weir and Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead — need to take another strong look at how this is working and admit that they got suckered and sure as hell hasn’t helped the new up-and-coming artists they claimed it would.

In case anybody is wondering…yes, there is one pirate station still left on my Radio page.  Radio Free Canton out of Ohio is still going strong after 12 years on the air illegally.  I hope it stays on the air for many more years to come if only to keep sticking it to The Man who has stolen most of our radio stations right in front of our faces while hardly anybody has said one peep about it.