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.

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.

Everybody that knows me is well aware that I love college football.  Even though I am from the Commonwealth of Kentucky where college basketball is king and I am as happy as any other Wildcats fan that they won their eighth NCAA Men’s National Championship earlier this year, it’s really college football that I love much more.  It started when I was a very young boy simply being completely enthralled by all of the colors, logos, nicknames, and places where so many games were taking place.  I have never ceased to be fascinated with it.

Yes, I am well aware of the many levels of corruption involved in college sports big and small.  Still, I cannot help but be compelled to watch it as the players and crowds never fail to shed all of that baggage and simply find themselves awash in the pure joy of competition and companionship.

As most everybody knows know even outside of North America, the hammer came down yesterday on Penn State, obliterating once and for all the legacy of the late head coach Joe Paterno who many felt was just about the last honest man in any sport.  According to some college football writers, it might not be until at least 2020 until the Nittany Lions can even begin to try and field a competitive team again considering how many scholarships they lost in addition to the unprecedented fines they will pay over the next four years.

Before I continue, don’t get me wrong.  All of this is well deserved for the completely conscious choice that Paterno and others in the Penn State administration made to protect the school’s image instead of exposing the child rapist assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky.  In the grand scheme of things as well as on a day-to-day basis, it should never be forgotten that the real damage done was to the young boys that Sandusky raped both literally and mentally.  Still, I feel that this also deserves to be looked at from another perspective that I believe will end up being hurtful to all of America.

Joe Paterno was probably the last of his kind.  He was the coach at Penn State when I first started watching college football as a boy (and I just turned 47).  Nobody ever stays at one school that long these days and probably never will again as the sport has changed so much since the late 1960s when Paterno took control of the Nittany Lions.  In those early years of my football fandom, I never really liked Penn State or “JoePa” as I always saw them as the “Yankee” school that always played easy schedules to try to get to a major bowl game and sneak their way into a national championship.

However, my view started changing in the 1980s.  As schools like the University of Miami rose in prominence with their “outlaw” attitude (and actions), I started to become more appreciative of what Paterno was doing at Penn State.  While he did not have the most exciting teams, they did find ways to win (especially with the Sandusky-coached defense), did so with class, and all while graduating a large number of his players.  Paterno’s press conferences also helped him rise in esteem in my eyes as he seemed to be the only person that could combine Brooklyn sensibilities with a more southern-style “aww shucks” attitude.

For up to three decades once everybody agreed that Paterno was an “institution,” he and Penn State could always be pointed to as the good guys that did things right.  While all the others faltered at one time or another — Miami, Ohio State, Southern California, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Washington, Colorado, Alabama, even sainted Notre Dame — JoePa stood untouched in integrity.  While rivals even within the Big Ten Conference might never have rooted for the Nittany Lions, they did have their respect.  And…when Paterno did speak out on a serious issue, people listened.  More often than not, Joe seemed most concerned about the integrity of the sport and especially the academics…something certainly never mentioned by most of his contemporaries.

Thus, in his own way, Joe Paterno became the Walter Cronkite or Johnny Carson of his world — the most trusted man in college football.  Now, in the span of about a year, he is probably one of the most reviled (at least outside of Happy Valley) and would be second only to Sandusky.  Seriously…right now, an Auburn fan would rather name his kid after Alabama coach Nick Saban than say something good about a man that willingly covered up for a child rapist.

Of course, we all know that humans are imperfect.  We all make terrible decisions and, at one time or another, do horrible things to a certain extent.  We always run the risk of being disappointed when deciding to look to somebody with admiration much less hero worship.

Still, the case of Joe Paterno concerns me due to the timing.  Here in America, there doesn’t seem to be one issue political or otherwise that isn’t divisive or trying to be made devisve by various special interests.  Now we are faced with a media avalanche where one of the most upstanding men in the country — successful coach, education advocate, family man, and regular church attendee — sold out young rape victims in order to protect his reputation.

It leaves a lot of people wondering who else is left to trust.  It makes even more people just throw up their hands and give up.  Those things fall right into the hands of the people that want us to give up and leave them in peace to run things for us, all to their benefit.  You know…The Man.

Even though I’m no lover of Ronald Reagan, he said some very wise things.  One of them was in regard to the power held by the old Soviet Union as he negotiated for reductions in nuclear weapons — trust but verify.

We should never give up trusting people as that is the only way we can have a functioning and, most importantly, free society.  However, for those that are given power whether it be a politician, a corporate executive, a top media pundit, or a college football coach, we the people need to demand checks and balances on their power so there is less temptation for them to fall into the terrible mess that has befallen Penn State and the Paterno legacy…or that allowed our major banks to fleece the entire nation…or a President to get away with lies whether they be about healthcare or a war that didn’t need to be fought or a blowjob.

The only problem in this case is that I only see the USA becoming more cynical.  If 9/11 couldn’t bring everybody to their senses to start talking more reasonably about how to deal with the country’s problems, I have to wonder what it will take.  It certainly won’t be Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky as the discussion is already turning to who will get the Nittany Lions’ freed players and how that will affect the various conference races.  It certainly won’t be what just happened in Aurora, Colorado as the look of the alleged perpetrator has already made him a farce and more of a curiosity than being seen as a reason to reconsider gun and mental health issues.  It certainly won’t be global climate change even though we’re in yet another big drought and haven’t had a below-average temperature year since 1976.  And, it certainly won’t be this year’s presidential race where I have yet to hear one single serious, solid policy out of either candidate.

So…how big of an incident will it have to be before we remember that checks and balances along with respect for reg’lar folks will be the only way we can every regain trust of our American institutions?  An 8.7 earthquake on the New Madrid Fault in Missouri that flattens Saint Louis and Memphis while causing damage throughout the eastern two-thirds of the country and bankrupts every single American insurance company?  An extended drought that make the price of hamburger go up to $9.98 a pound?  A bigger 9/11, maybe this time with a nuke?

Whatever it will finally take to get people to truly stand up to power on both sides that is only interested in its self-preservation, just remember…in the meantime, The Man is laughing at you as you do nothing but worry about any number of issues he has put out there for us to fight over and remain distracted because, unlike Jerry Sandusky, The Man is fucking everybody up the ass.