"Persecuted"? Can't tell by listening to Shortwave....

[BiggJawn]

I've had enough of NPR for one day, it's the "Bears Pregame Show" (4 hours before kick-off?) on my other station...

So I crank the knob into the Shortwave bands, and what do I hear?

Let's see, here's Radio Marti, getting jammed by Castro... A few stations, down in the mud, can't make out which languauge they're in, but it doesn't sound like English or German....

And about 10 stations all broadcasting some variation on a theme of "And GAWD said...."

Oh, here's Radio Austria...Let's catch the news at the top of the hour...Oops, they're closing on this frequency, no announcement of where they went....

19 Meter band...nope, more of the same...That guy who sounds like the Reverend Lovejoy droning on...

17 Meter band...

Hmmm....this sounds like it's in Hebrew. I recognize the pattern, the glottal accents, oh, he just said "Shalom"...

More droning...

Ah, music...No, it's in a Minor key, that's a sure tip-off that it's "Contempory Christian Music"....

Oh, here's either Radio France or the French service of R. Canada...Hey! they're covering yesterday's protests!

Gee. Sure is a LACK of English language Faerie Tale programming on shortwave...

Nothing to hear that I can understand but Atheist Indoctrination....:sarcasm:

[onager]

1. Like all those Sunday atheist shows on TV...

I may tune in a couple of the ranters later. Have to be careful with D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, though. His little documentaries about gays and atheists might cause me to do massive damage to my TV.

Right now I'm wasting time on the Internets and listening to the local, commercial-free college FM station. They do several hours of bluegrass on Sunday mornings. I grew up with that stuff and like it.

Sure beats the hell out of the mindless "Contemporary Country" crap from lame-ass posers like Toby Keith.

[charlie]

2. Lol

I'm hardly surprised. After all, fundies were radio pioneers, from Father McCoughlin to the megawatt stations that blanketed the US (and much of the world) from Mexico, safely outside the FCC's oversight. If you're of the right age (or as Emo Phillips put it, born a comfortable distance from the Apocalypse), you'll remember country tunes and calls to Jesus, mixed with ads for curative goat glands and autographed shrouds of the Christ. The only surprise to me is that a micro-niche market like shortwave would be considered worth the trouble, but I guess the fundie control freaks are nothing if not thorough.

[trotsky]

3. They have tax-free money coming out the wazoo.

They'll try to dominate every communications arena possible. And of course since mastery of the public airwaves just isn't enough, they have to use government resources to broadcast prayers at sporting events or put up nativity scenes or decalogues on public property.

Reminds me of a great Ben Franklin quote:

"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."