Radio Can Kill the Death Star

A recent ruling by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has done more to undermine the rightwing stranglehold on media than anything since Limbaugh got called out on his slut comments. The ruling got rid of thousands of repeater station applications that have allowed the national wingnut media conglomerate a cheap way to spread their daily helpings of rightwing hate and misinfo without the bother of doing anything local, like actually reflecting the political and moral leanings of the community.

This ruling clears the way for President Obama's Local Community Radio Act signed in 2011that will allow local communities to set up low power FM radio stations without interference from the giant media conglomerates and their uniform messages of hate and wingnuttery. Imagine! Local people broadcasting local information for local people. The same old tired corporate playlists will vanish. Local artists will be heard.

But, most importantly, the beginnings of a local post oil network will be formed. The one thing about radio is its simplicity. Low power radio is decidedly low tech, relatively speaking. If you've ever built a crystal radio as a kid, you know what I mean. This is practically at the level of finding the right rock and a bit of wire and hooray! you have a radio. Of course, broadcasting will take a bit more technology, but the good news is that it lasts. Once set up, and if it is cared for, that radio equipment will last for decades.

What does that mean? In a resource constrained world, local people can get market information, weather warnings, local news about local events, and a sense of community. It also means that we will benefit by ridding the local community of the terribly divisive noise we get from the national fascist media. No longer will people from outside the community go unchallenged.

Every town and neighborhood in the country needs to set up a rudimentary low-power broadcast station, preferably powered by solar panels and batteries or even a windmill or waterwheel. With that distributed network of local stations, the centralized powers that currently choke the airwaves with garbage designed to keep the people uninformed and hooked on wingnut insanity will no longer have that power. This network will help prevent regionalism and tribalism from fracturing the country too quickly when the oil emergency comes.

Get busy! Find out how to apply for a low-power radio license. Apply. Do it.

Sitting on the Porch

One of the most pleasing activities I've ever enjoyed is sitting on the porch, wine glass in hand, tunes squawking from the tiny iPod amplifier, and simply watching the fire in the chiminea. It seems to be a bit old fashioned, but it is relaxing. And, depending on your age, this activity may seem anachronistic to the point of laughter, but many of the people I know, the artists, the writers, the musicians who are shaping local communities with local ideas are being seen more and more on each other's porches, playing music, talking softly about their day and all mostly under the age of forty and many in their thirties and twenties. Ironically, the ones who seem to see this as stodgy are in fact the older generations of the nineteen sixties and seventies.

Yes, the vast majority of Americans shift from theme bar to theme bar, ever seeking the best pre-packaged experience that money can buy, eyeing the fifty flat screens filled with generic sports, cheering for cheering's sake, going to movies showing the retread techno-triumphilist de jour, and then home to the local weather guy and his corny hand-off to the anchor team.

But that is going to change with the upcoming energy shortage. I have a feeling that the country will quickly become a nation of porch sitters. We will grudgingly leave the dark caves of our homes, the info-packed flickering screens forgotten as we find ourselves forging new relationships with our neighbors in light of fewer jobs, less money, more time on our hands, and an oppressive, cable/internet bill.

Hot summer days will be mitigated in the porch's shade and breeze because running the A/C will be far too expensive. Maybe the cooling unit will be turned on for the occasional party, an expensive treat for one's guests, or ran as a single window unit in the highly insulated bedroom during the sweltering nights. Maybe the sleeping porch will come back into fashion.

Perhaps the neighbors will stop by with baskets of eggs, pickles, tomatoes, jerked rabbit meat, or some of their famous blackberry jam, seeking a trade for your time, expertise, tools, leather scraps, or singing skills. As a node in the informal economy, the porch may prove extremely useful.

Security will also be part of the porch's domain. Every pair of eyes on the street means fewer strangers able to get into mischief. With a sinking economy, crime is likely to rise. People who can no longer fulfill their fake dreams of plastic riches through a growing economy, may try to keep the dream alive through ransacking their neighbors homes. As relationships and trust grow in the neighborhood, so will the sense of possibility. Fear will decrease as people come to believe that their neighbors have their best interests in mind. And, with that trust, a sense of an extended world will emerge, the sense that your land does not end at your property line but is connected by air, wind, and water, meaning that your pollution will not be spilled onto your neighbors' land or your own land, not because you, he, or she owns it and want to keep it pristine, but because any insult to a particular part of the land will be an insult to all of the land. The land is indivisible.

In this blog, I intend to talk about many things, but I wish above all to convey the sense that despite all that is coming down the pike, right smack at us, that localism must feel like the answer. We know it is the answer. We must feel it is the answer.