Moovz.com: Yet another gay site that excludes many rural gays

Yet another gay site that elides the fact that 18% of the population of the US resides in rural areas. Go through their city list for Georgia and you'll find NOTHING in rural northeast Georgia.

Having lived in large cities - Atlanta, NYC, Munich, Seoul, Houston, Portland - much of my life, I know that they're magnets for gays from the most remote of areas who often want to connect with the people they love back home: Their friends who also use the same site. But, sites like Moovz don't seem to wish to have those people participate, or if they do, they have to choose a random city an hour or more away, and often have to choose between random cities, none of which make any sort of geographic sense because of the distance, and therefore get lost to their friends and acquaintances who give up looking for them online.

I'm sure the folks behind these sites would say that they reach some high percentage of the population, but think about this for a moment: The ones left out in the cold because of this behavior are the ones ALWAYS left out in the cold. They're the same people, over and over, who basically get a hand held up indicating to them that they don't matter on these sites.

I've heard from some that I've written to about it - one being one of the Top 3 gay sites...you know, the one with the orange themed background - whose responses are so hilariously off-topic that even a cursory glance shows that they didn't bother to read your request. Or, like that same orange-themed site, will have some bizarro geographics (check out Georgia's geographic breakout on it when you need a good laugh - overlapping areas using terms created by a state tourism department which NO ONE actually uses. One city will be in one named area, and the next over will be in a different one, but then the one past that city will be in the same area as the first city..?!?!)

Occasionally you'll get a response from other users like, "Well move then!", but they completely fail to grasp that your career is often tied to the area you live in. There aren't many farms in the middle of cities. There are no mines in the middle of cities in the US that I know of. Timber isn't cut for lumber or fiber in many cities. So, the very people who bring you your food, your mined minerals (to create things like the gadgets this very technology operate on), and the building materials that built the buildings you reside in are wholly forgotten. Again. And again. And again. Ad nauseum.

OK, if you launch with a non-inclusive list, that's fixable. That orange-themed site added a few towns...after years of requesting them, although they have one town in Georgia - Fitzgerald - listed as being in the Atlanta metro area when in reality it's 175 miles away, so they're listening, just not very well. And they're clearly too distracted to simply google it.

On almost any gay site, there is a gulf of philosophical difference between rural and urban gays, and without a doubt, the majority of that can be laid right in the laps of our urban-residing brethren. It would be nice to have a fabric of unity that stretches from coast to coast, but you can't achieve that if you have giant holes of exclusion in the very areas where the products that sustain you come from. True, there is animosity going both directions, but I remember a time when rural gays looked for support from their urban peers, and got nothing, despite the fact that rural gays showed up at Prides all across the republic - and yes, I'm aware that Prides are usually civic ventures. But the support comes from the community, as far out as it reaches. Now though, with our online lives becoming increasingly important to us, the support that rural gays showed is not only not reciprocated, it's shunned by virtue of exclusion from participating in any community-oriented - and I mean the rural communities in which we live - sort of way. If I don't have the tool to round up a group of my local gays readily available, then it will be difficult to get them together at all.

The old Gay.com used to do a stellar job of giving everyone - urban, suburban, exurban, or rural - a chance, a place, and a tool that might act as...pardon the Tolkienism..."One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them".

Every time I hear of a new gay site launch, I hope it will give us that chance. It seems like Moovz isn't that site, but I won't rule it out. Yet.

When Does Real Broadband Come To Rural America? The Answer Better Include The Word 'Soon'

This post is in response to an excellent Wired article found here being discussed on Google+ right now.

The internet has passed from being a luxury to being a necessity. We use it to shop, pay bills, keep in touch, for entertainment, for learning, and to see the world. In those regards, it's no different than our highway or postal systems, both of which we regard as necessities.

Imagine if you had to travel overland between cities. Imagine how your produce would look if it came to you spoiled because of the time it took to get it to you because of a broken highway system.

If 30% of the US was without electricity or running water, we'd call it unacceptable, yet 70% with "broadband"* is considered acceptable because half of those without are in rural areas (The 2010 census shows 15% of Americans living in towns of 2500 or less or in no community at all).

I'm very familiar with this dichotomy. I live in extremely rural Georgia. Windstream is my telco ISP; no cable ISP or any other copper or fiber options. None. That leaves wireless, and as the article shows, stream one HD movie and you're done for the month. You would have to pay a couple thousand dollars per month in many cases to purchase the overage data allowance you would need to do things on a daily basis that most Americans never think about.

Satellite is no better than wireless as it again caps you at such a low level - 2GB - that  you'd only get through half of one HD movie and you'd be done for the entire month.

It's ridiculous, yet these companies are allowed to call these plans "broadband". The only plan Windstream offers in my area is 3Mbps down, 1Mbps up, and they almost never deliver that. Add to that that their 'packet loss' and 'jitter' are among the highest of any telco ISP and you can't even use a VOIP phone, play online games, watch online movies, or do anything that requires a rock-solid connection.

I've taken the matter up with my US Congressman, but despite being a Democrat, he's one of the handful of Blue Dogs left who take the side of Big Business over that of his constituents. 

The 'white space' ISP concept seems promising, but we're likely years away from seeing that...if it ever happens at all.

Imagine this scenario and see if you think it would be acceptable:  Having gotten tired of being unable to access the same services and products that urban- and suburban-dwellers can, farmers, wood-products producers, mined-minerals producers, energy producers all went on strike. Or maybe not a strike, just a slowdown. 

You go to the grocery, but there's no fresh locally-grown produce at all. Oh, your grocer bought some from abroad....at 40 times the price you'd been paying for the local stuff. Unacceptable?

You go to put gas in your car. Fortunately, you noticed the price per gallon before you started pumping. It went from about $4/gallon...to $160/gallon. Unacceptable?

You decide that driving isn't going to work, so you decide to upgrade your phone. You go to your wireless provider and pick out a phone, then find out that it's gone from $200 with a plan...to $8000...with a plan. Unacceptable?

If those things are unacceptable, how is it acceptable that those of us who bring you your food, your lumber, the rare-earth metals and other products that go into your phone, and your fuel have to do without the necessity that true high-speed internet is?

Unacceptable! But you can bet your ass it's coming, because rural Americans are pissed off!

*Broadband is a term the FCC allows to cover much more than what most of us would include in the word. My current Windstream "broadband" is 3Mbps down, 1 up. But I average half that. Wireless and satellite both advertise higher speeds, but give you an unrealistic data cap that averages half an HD movie. That's not broadband, that's an insult.

Heere Bee Dragons!

I have so much respect for my fellow veterans, but after a recent comment forum exchange, I realize that many of them are as duped by Christo-Fascism as non-veterans. 

When did this country become so partisan? Personally, I lay much of the blame on country music artists. People like Hank Williams, Jr. sought not to broaden horizons for those they entertained but to narrowly focus them - using the most insidious way they could: entertainment - on how different they were from "city folk". 

I know it's not all one-sided, either. Let me start by saying that in my 54 years, I've lived about equally between some of the world's largest cities, and some pretty rural areas. Still, I know people who think that if you live in a rural area, you deserve not to have high-speed internet, cable TV, or any of the other luxuries afforded to urban dwellers. However, if you point out that, using the same logic, they don't deserve food, fresh water, or building resources including wood and metals, they come back that living in rural areas is a choice. That's true, it is. But does that mean that we shouldn't expect to enjoy modernity? Really?

The difference that I've found is this:  The city dwellers tend to focus on a single individual. Yeah, they might make fun of yokels, but hey, even we ruralistas make fun of them. But the country folk tend to paint with a much broader brush. I don't know many city dwellers who haven't traveled and visited rural areas. OK, I don't know ANY who haven't. But I know TONS of rural folk who have never done anything more than pass quickly through a city, or have made a flying trip into one, such as Atlanta, and got out as quickly as possible. How does that qualify someone to make sweeping generalizations about city dwellers? Well, it doesn't.

Back in the Age of Disco, people like Hank Williams, Jr. made a living by rousing the rabble. He made it sound like any country dweller could be thrown into the wild and thrive, when the reality is that most of them wouldn't make it any longer than a city dweller would; Winn Dixie isn't legal game.

Add to that that the GOP had an epiphany concerning connecting itself to the rising, mainly rural, religious fundamentalism movement and which noticed entertainers like Williams in the mix, and it was the perfect storm. Fueling that was the end of the millennium approaching which signaled to some the return of Jesus Christ and it wound up being a maelstrom that swept the hickest, bubba-est, beer-drinking-est, church-going-est idiots into the limelight, and eventually even the White House.

The GOP knew that, despite what they preached on Sundays, love doesn't sell, but hate would fill their coffers, their churches, and their desired elected offices.

And here we are. Today, we all seem to fall in one of these three camps: Normal, Left-leaning, or Heere Bee Dragons!

Cell phone service everywhere, at least for 911

Response to the CNET article, "After nine dropped cell phone calls for help, couple dies" by  Chris Matyszczyk  May 12, 2012 8:52 AM PDT found here.

Cell phone coverage should be coast-to-coast and Mexico-to-Canada, in the US (plus all of Alaska, Hawaii, and US Territories). In south Georgia, where my mother lives, it's pretty rural, yet Verizon has ONE tower which serves the area, and does it pretty well. It's a tall son-of-a-gun, too, the better to carry cellular's line-of-sight signal to those who live on the flat coastal plain, I suppose. I don't know what the range of the tower is, but it's got to be substantial since it covers her house with a decent signal and is located about 12 miles away; and yes, I asked a Verizon technician about it - he's the one who told me where the tower is located.

My point is that there must be some way of covering more places than we currently do. I own my own business, so I'm aware of how business works (just to preclude the fora trolls looking to make snide comments about cost analysis or rate-of-return). But there's a point where people must come before profitability, even if we must subsidize a portion of the cost of providing service. A buck could be added to the average cell phone bill, for example, in order to offset the cost of remote coverage. Since 4G LTE seems to be the coming universal system for cellular in the US, I'm certain that there's a way, if it doesn't exist already, of allowing any handset sold in the future to place, at minimum, emergency 911 calls, allowing various providers to share the signal of those remote towers for 911 calls only, say.

When you live in the city, as I have most of my life, you tend to forget how much of what you use comes from those remote and rural locations; raw materials, food, fiber, forest products, etc. People live in those places in order, often, to be closer to the work they do. Those who provide the food and materials for our shelter, clothing, and transportation shouldn't have to live as second-class citizens, nor fear that they might lose life or limb because they can't reach emergency services. I know there are people who will read this and carp about having to subsidize this or that, but they might consider the things rural citizens sometimes go without in order that city dwellers can have what they WANT, beyond basic needs. There's also the fact that some of us just like living in the country.

My friend Dwight, a fourth-generation farmer, would say, "Don't want to run cable to my house? OK. I can get satellite and do without cable. But when I and my fellow farmers start to demand higher and higher prices for the FOOD that YOU eat, don't talk with your mouth full". He might also add that while Walmart or Kroger can source cheaper meat from, say, Venezuela, don't be surprised when the farmers there raise their prices, too. Or when someone gets pissed with the US and dumps insecticide on it.

Sure, there will be a few places that are simply too remote for anything but satphone, but the people who go to those places generally know that, and have one. It's not too much to ask that everyone have access to basic emergency services communications equipment like cellular phones.