What a Week!

My, it's been a while since I typed in this thing...

Well, this was one historic week. Tuesday night, our first Black president, Barack Obama, was elected.

While I am a politics junkie, and love keeping track of polls and stuff in elections, this election drained me. It dragged on for two years, and by October, I was just itching for it to be over. After long days of waiting, Tuesday, November 4th, Election Day, came. By then, I was no longer running on fumes, I was just plain coasting. I pretty much drifted through the day and then got home, still coasting, and glued myself to CNN and MSNBC for election returns. I was praying and had my fingers crossed. At about 9 or 10 PM (can't remember the exact time), the breaking news came on: Barack Obama Elected President!

My word, it was a change. After days of running on fumes, being listless and tired, I became like a recharged battery. I jumped up from my chair and danced and shouted (so did my grandmother); my friend Josh, whom I was in voice chat with, heard it all. I proceeded to run outside and dance along the street, and go to my great-aunt's house across the street to do a dance in her living room.

A few minutes of that redrained my energy and I returned to my chair here, continuing to watch TV for a little while more to watch reactions on TV.

This election not only showed that the American people were ready for a change from the last eight years of disastrous policies courtesy of Bush and Congressional Republicans (as opposed to more of the McSame), but also made history--only a few decades separated from the era of separate but equal, a Black president was elected--not just by an eked-out majority, but by a landslide. He captured all the Kerry states, but also added Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Indiana (!), Virginia (!), and Iowa, all Bush states in '04 and some (like Indiana) formerly blood red states.

Read more about Election 2008 at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United States presidential election, 2008

I spent Wednesday happy and on Cloud 9, and even gathered a couple newspapers with the headline just to keep them for memories.

Soon, though, my cruddy life brought me back down again, and now I am more depressed than ever...

Marcus's Model of High School Social Classes

As I type today in computer class, I watch as the other students chat and hang around before the tardy bell; I think a bit about my life and how much I long to be accepted socially into one of the many "groups" that form the school's student body...

As announced in the previous week and yesterday, us seniors needn't have gone to school before 11:30 AM. I took advantage of that to sleep in and listen to Stephanie Miller live. While on the bus ride here to Paschal, I continued thinking about my social life, and actually hatched a theory.

I have noticed over the years, since the first day of walking into kindergarten, that there are distinct "classes" of students. Only today, however, did I realize that there are pretty much five main, distinct ones:

* Class A - The Elite Minority
* Class B - The Semi-Elites
* Class C - The Middle Grounders
* Class D - The ER Class
* Class E - The Silent Minority

Before I continue, I shall provide short summaries for you.

Class A, The Elite Minority, is the very top rung of the social ladder, consisting of the top jocks, cheerleaders, and their close friends. They are, in general, either rich or upper middle-class, but there are a lot of instances of lower economic classes being included here. They generally do not even have the word "loneliness" in their vocabulary, since they are always going to parties, going all around their respective regions (the entire Metroplex in this case) and generally being very busy socially and having fun.

Class B is the Under-Elite Class. This class consists of the students that have very healthy social lives, but do not quite fit in with Class A. These students also have no idea what loneliness is, since they, like the Elites, have their social calendars booked up. This tends to be the class of the rest of the jocks and cheerleaders.

Class C, The Middle Grounders, is the biggest group, consisting of the students that, while not being 'popular', have their groups to hang with and do not really have social acceptance struggles. The name comes from them being in the "middle" of the class scale. These students sometimes spend more time alone than the top two classes, but still have friends at school and, most of the time, in their neighborhoods. This is the class I really desire to be in, though it's not very likely, despite my efforts.

Class D is named the ER Class for one reason - people in this class, which includes me, have "social lives", but they are in the emergency room on life support. We generally have a few "talk to" friends at school, and maybe even a consistent group to eat lunch with (most of the time, we do not fit in with them anyway, we're just straggling), but we fail to really fit in with the group in which we try to fit. Our home lives tend to be lonelier, though a lot of us take advantage of the internet for friendship (I have developed great friendships on the net myself).

Class E, The Silent Minority, is the very bottom rung of the ladder. These students have no friends at all, except maybe for a few internet ones, and tend to be very lonely people.

Immeadiately after developing this theory, I found I am pretty much in Class D. I have a few "talk to at school only" friends, but outside of school I have no social life here in Fort Worth (thank God for my awesome Internet friends!) and even at school, I find myself lonely at lunch a lot of the time, and my classes tend to be lonely for me too.

People always say that you should talk to people and open up and all that jazz, but what they do not realize is that many of us Class D'ers do that, and it just does not work. I have been trying for years to achieve my dream of having a little group of true friends (here in person, that is--I have awesome net friends) to stick around, but so far, it has worked about as well as trying to herd cats, or maybe trying to pee on a high rise fire to put it out.

I talk to people in my classes, talk during lunch, and more. It has helped me make a few of the "at school" variety, but I have had no luck at all with making friends to hang around with out of school and finding a little "crew" to stick in. Currently, I am approaching a few of my "at school" friends and trying to enlist their help; I'll see where that leads me.

Now don't get me wrong, I have some great internet friends, and they are awesome people, and will probably stay my best friends forever. I am not trying to make them seem less valuable, nor am I diminishing them in any other way, but it would be nice to meet a little "crew" of friends to hang out with here in Fort Worth - people to play console games with, ride bikes, and just plain hang out. I do have a consistent group I eat lunch with, but they're kind of sporadic and some of them don't give a flying rat's ass about me--I'm willing to bet a couple of them are not even aware of my existence! I have been trying my best, but it seems my best won't do...

If You Wanted to Know My Political Preference...

...here you go. :)

You are a Social Moderate (50% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (26% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Portable, Widespread Internet Radio: New Opportunities and Voices (and more music, of course)

The thing we know as "radio" started in the late 1800s. AM and shortwave became mainstream in the 1920s, with FM making its big debut in the 1950s. The radio scene stayed pretty much the same through the early 1990s.

Then 1993 came. One move that would start a revolution. A revolution that has built up the biggest tool for democracy and ideas in history.

Internet radio.

It started with Carl Malamud, who started Internet Talk Radio in 1993. The number of Internet radio stations increased slowly but steadily through the last part of the 1990s. Conventional AM/FM stations started streaming, and many Net-only stations appeared.

Internet radio exploded in popularity around 2001, and now there are an estimated 100,000+ internet-only stations. That does not even include the AM/FM stations streaming.

More radio revolutions arrived with satellite radio around 2000 and podcasting around 2003.

I, personally, am a huge internet radio fan. I listen to the vast majority of my talk radio over the internet, both internet-only and AM/FM station streams. I also give a listen to internet music stations from time to time. Internet radio, along with podcasting, are great mediums for alternative media. Anyone with a few pieces of equipment and an internet connection can start their own internet radio show or internet radio station. It is really awesome.

One big hindrance, however, to this great medium is the fact that internet radio, unlike AM and FM radio, is not very portable. Cities with city-wide Wi-Fi are few and far between, and in order to stream e-radio one must be connected to a Wi-Fi access point. I, personally, use the wireless signal from my router to listen to internet radio on my PSP around the house and yard, but I cannot strap it to my belt and go for a bike ride listening to my favorite internet streams, though.
There is a solution.

There is long-range Wi-Fi called WiMAX. The gov't should set up WiMAX towers (which have about the same range as cell towers) around the nation, and make it free-to-use. Then, companies will start making WiMAX-capable products at a fast(er) rate, including internet radios, which would come as car stereos, Internet radio "Walkmans", tabletop radios, etc. That would give internet radio that "shot in the arm" that it needs to become a more widespread, versatile, broadcasting medium.

Shortwave Radio: Making it Mainstream Again

Pretty much everyone has at least one AM/FM radio around, maybe more (over a dozen in my case). They are in cars, on shelves, and in home stereos. Most people spend at least some time listening to the radio, whether it be some NPR or music on the FM side or talk radio on the AM side. In recent years, internet radio has surged in popularity, and has become a great tool for free speech and has expanded the market place of ideas. Most conventional radio stations have one or more online streams. A fair number of cell phones can tune into internet streams on the go, and there are even Wi-Fi internet radios (and devices that have that function). I personally use my PSP to tune into some of my favorite streams. Many radio and TV shows have podcast feeds where you can download shows after the fact and listen to/watch them on a portable audio player anywhere, anytime. TV is very prevalent also, obviously, though portability is not as pervasive as in the audio field.

HOWEVER, there is one media platform that has been neglected and is fading in popularity: shortwave. Now, a lot of people at this point are thinking "what the heck is shortwave?"

Shortwave radio has been around almost since the beginning of radio. The shortwave band ranges from about 2000 kHz (2 MHz) to 27000 kHz (27 MHz), however, most activity is concentrated from 5 MHz to 22 MHz. Shortwave is possibly the best means of worldwide broadcasting; 50,000watts on a good frequency from a station in, say, Dallas, Texas has the potential to reach both of the Americas and the Pacific islands. There is an issue with audio quality a lot of the time but, a station with a good transmitter and equipment, along with listeners with good radios, can sound like a regular AM station. In its heyday (1910 or so through the 1990s) shortwave was an eclectic mix of music, talk, and entertainment. Countries would broadcast to the world via shortwave stations (many still do, most notably the USA with Voice of America and Radio Havana Cuba). People would start shortwave stations and have some great music and entertainment. Now, the band, at least in the United States and Canada, is a wasteland of right-wing fundie claptrap. There are a few oases, like broadcasts from foreign countries' governments, along with the rare non-fundie station such as WBCQ.

Why is this great band being allowed to atrophy? Shortwave still holds potential to be a voice for free speech, and even more so if the U.S. gov't helps deploy Digital Radio Mondiale, which would make the shortwave band sound like FM and give the satellite radio companies a run for their money. Shortwave holds lots of potential; in fact, I hold the belief that there should be at least 3 analog/digital hybrid shortwave stations carrying a progressive (a.k.a liberal) talk format, so that everyone in the USA would have access to some good progressive talk on their radios, since progressive talk has many, many holes in signal coverage around the nation (conservative talk is on so many AM/FM signals, they effectively cover the US anyway).

In order to make shortwave viable again, this needs to be done:

* Enough people need to be educated about shortwave, preferably by the US government and private organizations, through TV, AM/FM radio, and the Internet, so demand goes up, making more companies manufacture shortwave-capable radios, preferably with both analog and DRM capabilities. One BIG leap would be shortwave-capable (analog and DRM) car stereos.

* Digitizing the shortwave band, so that audio quality improves drastically and people want to hear music and talk on the SW bands

* Getting some good stations on the SW band, of course. Some good progressive talk, comedy, hot talk, music, etc.

Also, we could blanket the US with free to use (or very cheap) WiMax (long range Wi-Fi) and get some good WiMax receievers out there capable of streaming internet radio, podcasts, media playback, etc. In fact, it would be awesome if cars had 'super-receivers' that could get AM, FM, internet radio, podcasts, shortwave, and weather band (NOAA weather radio, another service that all radios should have), along with playing media like MP3s. Even better, home and portable receivers like that too. Maybe that is too much wishful thinking there. Carrying two receivers would still be good, one portable radio and an internet media receiver/player.

The Start of Musings of Marcus and Other Observations

Hey everyone, I am Marcus and this is my simple blog. I will be posting here my opinions of current events, daily observations, along with other miscellaneous stuff.