Radio Daze

On my drive back from Baltimore, I-95 was a 300 mile long demolition derby. One of my unscheduled stops found me at the exact mid-point of the Millard Tydings bridge over the Susquehanna river at the top of Chesapeake Bay, dead stop, for an hour. It was rather festive, actually. The people got out of their vehicles to take photographs of the magnificent view, smoke cigarettes (the rate of smoking among people driving on the interstate seems to be considerably higher than that of the general population), empty bottles of urine, and otherwise enjoy themselves.

The bad news, other than whatever horrific injuries and/or deaths had occurred ahead of us, was the available radio frequency electromagnetic radiation. We were beyond the signal of the NPR station in Baltimore and had yet to pick up WHYY in Philadelphia. The FM featured 5 different Christian stations with various blowhards explaining the meaning of the Bible and how we were doomed to the fate of Sodom, one Christian music station, and one station playing really crappy country music.

So I checked out the AM. Get this: Rush Limbaugh was on six different stations. Really. Simultaneously. How do they compete with each other for listeners? And is the vulgar pigboy on 24 hours a day, or what? Another station featured a different right wing extremist, there was a sports talk station, and another station playing really crappy country music. And that was it.

So if the good people of Havre de Grace want to listen to the radio, these appear to be their options. Is it like this in much of the country?