Why Is News Irritating?

I'm not sure which came first, advertising or the news, but in our modern times, I know advertising comes first way too often. News is a tease to get you reading or watching long enough to suffer the advertisements. The different varieties of news, including investigative reporting, magazine articles, TV documentaries, and weather forecasts, all indulge in exaggeration and hide-the-ball for the purpose of advertising.

It starts with the headline. Often it's a question. A question as a headline? "Nixon, Clinton, Trump, Why Is Impeachment More Common?" (USA Today, 12/7/19). "Does the world need any more large zoos?" (BBC News 12/6/19) Questions are safe. A statement might take a position that might dissuade someone from following the trail of ads.

Then there are the headlines that cater to the publication's reader base. My favorite culprit is Huffpost where partisan hyperbole is the business model. "Maddow Nails Hypocrisy of GOP." "Ex-Ethics Chief Roasts Trump-Defending Republicans With A List Of Future Quotes [sic]." Like, whatever Maddow or an Ex-Ethics Chief says will "nail" or "roast" anything for the GOP leadership?

I could quote and endless number of hyperbolic headlines from Fox Noise, but I cannot stomach that nonsense long enough to even skim its headlines. Tabloid Fox Noise, by far and away, is the most financially successful exploiter of any news base. It thrives on ignorance.

The effect of exaggeration is to mislead. News should not mislead.

Then there is the all too familiar clickbait. I first encountered the term only recently; maybe a couple of years ago. Clickbait is all over Facebook and, if you read news online, there are "sponsored" links all over the pages. If one clicks on the link, one enters the rabbit hole of hide the ball, if I may mix two metaphors. The clickbait headline is a tease that leads a person through an existential journey through a maze of endless advertisements to read another tease and search for the link to the next page where another tease is embedded in another maze of advertisements — often ads for other clickbait sites. If there is a point to a clickbait article, assuming you have the fortitude to find it, I can assure you it is a huge letdown. Exaggeration.

Granted, clickbait sites are not traditional news sites. But they operate similarly all too much: suck in the readers long enough to blast them with advertisements.

Which leads me to my major frustration: well written and substantive articles on interesting subjects where I have to find the ball.

I often wish I had taken a journalism class at (Theodore) Roosevelt High School (and drama, but that's another post). So I am no expert on how good investigative news articles should be written. But I know how I like to read any information: tell me what you are going to tell me; tell me; then tell me what you told me. The writer should be knowledgeable enough to summarize.

Ah, but to summarize is to make a statement that might dissuade someone from wandering through a forest of anecdotes followed by a trail of no doubt relevant details before getting to the point. I hate articles that begin with a touchy-feely anecdote, or any other anecdote for that matter. Start with the point and let me decide whether I want more information. Oh, but then I won't get to see the advertisements.

Now it is quite possible that there are people out there who enjoy reading investigative reporting, or eagerly suffer through Big Pharma advertisements to get to the weather forecast for the following day. They work like novels. The opening is a tease in the form of an anecdote, then curiosity and patience lead the reader to savor the verbal trail of carefully assembled information to, hopefully, a satisfying climax. Ah, minutes later the reader is educated and can conclude that fifty years ago Big Oil had its own scientific evidence that burning fossil fuels causes climate change, which evidence they promptly buried. Or, in the world of History Channel documentaries and their ilk, why  dinosaurs went extinct, or Atlantis sunk, or what was discovered in Caribbean waters. Or the chance of rain tomorrow.

I don't have the patience for exaggeration or hide the ball.

Polyglot

Warning. This is a rant about how mean we can be. But  when out Hair Product in Chief incites a crowd to chant, "Send Them Back", I get angry at our own stupidity and meanness.

I've mentioned before. This country doesn't even have its own name, but that doesn't stop some people from waving flags and taking it out on others.

Yeah, it's the United States of America. But then there is the United States of Brazil, and also the United Mexican States, but at least they have their own unique name. There's nothing unique about "America", but we throw the label around as if Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America aren't in the Americas.

It's arrogant. That's an epithet the USA'ns earned a long time ago. The Ugly American.

Now we have crowds happily chanting, "Make America Great Again" and "Send Them Back". That's disgusting.

You are uncomfortable with dark colored skin? Deal with it. You bristle at not understanding someone talking in a foreign language. Deal with it. You don't like people wearing ethnic clothes, whether a head scarf or baggy shorts hanging off someone's butt? Deal with it. Because the problem is you, not them.

You want to blame others for your problems? Stifle the urge because you are either a hypocrite or a conspiracy theorist; probably both. Go join a religion. They cater to such weak minds.

I'm angry at the intentional ignorance and ugliness in this country. People are actually proud of being nasty, vicious, even violent. I am angry at Fox Noise for making money by inciting the meanness in people. I am angry at a Republican party that shamelessly incites and exploits its nasty, vicious and mean base. Hypocrisy doesn't begin to describe such low-lifes.

But mostly I am angry at people who vote for such low-lifes. Or don't bother to vote. It's not like any of this is news. But hatred, even if contrived, is powerful.

The world is getting smaller. Cultures, languages, and skin color are getting a lot less isolated. Deal with it. "French", "English" and "Italian" are getting new meanings. Yes, it's shaking up our cultural identities. Deal with it. Maybe it's karma: just deserts for centuries of imperial and religious exploitation. And you complain?

And who is leading the free world in this orgy of hatred against "others"? Why, one of the most polyglot societies of them all. The political collective that shamelessly cleansed a half a continent of its inhabitants, and imported slaves and the poor in order to exploit and exhaust its natural resources, a political collective that doesn't even have its own name.

We have to deal with this. We have to do better. The alternative is too ugly to imagine.

Fox Noise Propaganda

If you get your information from Fox Noise, you are a sucker. If you vote based upon information from Fox Noise, then necessarily you have difficulty with accepting reality. Welcome Big Brother.

There should be rules about news broadcasts. Like, no advertising fifteen minutes before, during, or fifteen minutes after a news broadcast. For Murdoch & Company, news is tabloid and there is one born every minute. About 20% of the voting population, actually. I say dry up Fox Propaganda by drying up the profit motive.

We try to discourage government officials from accepting bribes. What about news networks that sell lies for profit?

Government of Profiteers and Wahhabists

Any more, GOP really stands for Government of Profiteers. Admittedly, politicians who are bought and paid for are a bane that curses Democrats, Republicans and political parties of all colors since time immemorial. But having elected Trump, American Exceptionalism acquires a new meaning.

Today's GOP and Trump are in power because the profiteers have allied themselves with an evangelical religion that we may as well label GOP Wahhabism because it has nothing to do with traditional Christianity. And we are accomplices.

I am not really qualified by education, study, debate and reflection to offer an elegant, scholarly analysis of the problem (which is human nature), but I am not stupid, either. And I need to rant.

The Saudis, a family of bandit Bedouin chiefs from a wretchedly backward region of the Arabian Peninsula, were promoted into power by profiteers. After WW1, the British promoted a Saudi to become King of Arabia in order to protect British oil interests. To maintain their power on the peninsula, the Saudi family partnered with a fundamentalist brand of Sunni religion (Wahhabism) that originated in their native Saudi area.

You know the Wahhabists? These are the folks that veil women and prohibit them from driving or going in public without a male relative. They despise music and Western culture, rigidly control the media, and force their practices on any foreigner visiting their country.

The Trump era and the appeasing Republican leadership brings us the all too historically familiar collusion between profiteers and authoritarian religious leaders, just like the Saudis. Throw in fear-mongering nationalism (xenophobia) and we have apt comparisons with Nazi Germany and Putin's Russia. Both are examples of dictators coddling conservative, organized religions and successfully enlisting their support. Leave aside Nazis and Putin. I prefer the comparison to the Saudis because the Trumps practice nepotism and glorify obscenely gaudy displays of wealth, and the "religion" that supports Trump is so extreme, so judgmental, so authoritarian, and so hypocritical that, like Wahhabism, it really is not a religion at all.

The profiteer part is the entrenched wealthy with an insatiable greed for more wealth and power and an immoral indifference to the suffering of others. Such people we always have and such people always use their money and power to influence government to their own ends. But when they have such extreme control over society as in the Trump era, history books devote separate chapters to the phenomenon.

We have propaganda, the indispensable tool for all political exploitation. GOP Wahhabism, wrapped in the American flag like all demagogue scoundrels, is fanned by Fox Noise. How else to explain the relentless hypocrisy and the crazy, paranoid, fear-based dogmas of a patriotism that vilifies imagined opposition, that sanctifies a gun culture, that harps on a make-believe "war" on Christmas (as if today's retail orgy has anything to do with Jesus) and a make-believe "persecution" of Christians and whites? It is relentless propaganda: fear-mongering, angry, divisive, rabble-rousing, fact-adverse, conspiracy theory driven propaganda.

You know the GOP Wahhabists? These are the folks that despise uppity women, prohibit them from practicing birth control, and blame them when they get raped. They despise Western culture (West Coast hippies and East Coast liberals, Spiro Agnew's "nattering nabobs of negativism"), advocate stripping the "fake news" media of its licenses, and force their religious practices (e.g., Christmas and "Biblical" values) on fellow citizens from other traditions.

Mohammed and Jesus inspired people to open their hearts and minds and respect and serve one another, particularly the needy. The organized religions founded after them are political. Even so, more than enough inspiration remained to nurture mystics, saints, beliefs, practices and communities that have enriched the lives of the devout and the not-so-devout, even non-believers, for centuries.

The fundamentalist ilk that breed within these religions and usurp their names have nothing to do with promoting the material or spiritual development of anyone. These religious demagogues use the labels "Christianity" and "Islam" to obscure their real intent: their own ego, anger and lust for power. The scary part is that most of these self-professed religious leaders have egos that match their charisma. They actually believe themselves.

In the U.S., the politically powerful adopt Ayn Rand as their patron saint. (You know Ayn Rand? She's the one who went on the dole when she couldn't pay her bills.) Permitting the unfettered pursuit of profit is the solution for all social problems. Education, prisons and health care are for-profit businesses. The premise that public utilities — water, sewage, electricity, and communications — require regulation is criticized as inefficient and unnecessary. Anger against the government is fanned by the NRA, home builders associations, real estate developers, manufacturers, and CEO's who despise regulations that protect safety in work places, homes, medicines, and even the water we drink and the air we breathe.

GOP Wahhabists actually believe it is morally wrong for society (when a society organizes, we call it "government") to help the poor and the sick. The destitute have no one to blame but themselves.

We reward executives in private and public sectors, whether publicly traded corporations, financial market brokers, hospital administrators, or university deans and coaches, with compensation ridiculously disproportionate to the average worker who actually produces something useful.

Watch. The GOP will privatize National Parks and make them profit centers, including slapping corporate trade names on them like bowl games and sports stadiums. (My favorite is the Arizona Cardinals' "University of Phoenix Stadium." The University of Phoenix, a for-profit university, of course, has no sports program whatsoever.) Or, as Trump is now doing, the GOP will simply sell off ("privatize" is the euphamism) public property.

Science and our own self-interest take a back seat to GOP Wahhabism. We teach little science in schools in favor of promoting "Intelligent Design". We deny the human contribution to climate change, or even to environmental degradation. We believe in "alternative" facts for the purpose of protecting the vested profits of tobacco, oil, and coal.

The entire GOP notion that government is bad is demented. Instead of using business tools to make government efficient, we make government so weak it becomes a business tool.

How can this happen? It is the human ego, the profiteers and corrupt Pharisees of our times, the same hypocritical bane that Mohammed and Jesus railed against. "Ego" reads a little antiseptic. Think "greed," "fear," "anger," "hatred," and "narcissism." Ego is every selfish, ignorant, self-destructing human weakness and ignorance that all we share in varying degrees.

What drives Rupert Murdoch to shamelessly pursue profit from fake news? 32% of the electorate is enough of a tail to wag the election dog. That is the percentage of the electorate that still thinks Trump is doing a good job. That minority is enough to determine and intimidate the outcome of Republican primary elections. In the long run (hopefully), it should not be enough to sustain control over the nation's government. The pundits say even now the percentage is shrinking. But what does Murdoch care? A 32% market share is more than enough to ensure top ratings and mega-profits for Fox Noise. Murdoch, described by those who know him as willing to sell his own mother for profit, has his roots in the tabloid business. If people get news and form opinions based upon Fox Noise, it is the equivalent of reading the National Enquirer or the Daily Mirror. As one columnist recently wrote, how can a 15-minute sermon once a week compete with hours and hours of glossy Fox Noise television distortions and lies.

I have not touched upon racism. This is the argument that Trump is a backlash to eight years of a black man in the White House, and the idiotic notion that African Americans have it easy.

We enable all this. We are accomplices. That is the tragedy.

We vote carelessly and ignorantly. That is what fundamentalists and the GOP promote: ignorance. Mohammed and Jesus taught people to think for themselves. Religious leaders and GOP Wahhabists teach people to not think for fear of divine punishment. Wahhabist leaders do your thinking for you. With enough propaganda, people do not think they react. It is called mob psychology.

In this country, we promote ignorance. We have underpaid school teachers who use their own money to buy supplies for their students. We have broken teachers unions because — well, educated people tend to vote Democrat. We have people who believe a two thousand plus year old book is authoritative on matters of science. Heck, not even the Catholic church teaches that. We believe that a president is patriotic even though he fawns upon the dictator who meddled in our elections. We have not learned from religion, history or even from the experiences of other countries. The political troubles that confront us are no different from what other societies have struggled with for millennia: human nature. The modern world faces the same challenges, only compounded by technology and social isolation.

News and information today are a for-profit business that is primarily entertainment and advertising. What few professional news organizations remain are labeled as "fake news" by Fox Noise, the tabloid that is the epitome of fake news propaganda. "Jail Hillary", but the Russian-Trump investigation is a witch hunt. We have an internet with algorithms that give us information from Google, Facebook and their ilk that is paid advertising: a feedback loop that reflects back our own greed and prejudices.

A vote is so valuable that the GOP is legislating obstacles to prevent or dilute voting by those who are indisposed towards them. The GOP promotes paranoia over voting fraud when there is no evidence of it — other than by Putin. In a concerted effort over decades, the GOP has successfully gerrymandered legislative districts to ensure that a minority of voters elect a majority of our Representatives. Now the GOP is changing the rules so that religions (read, the already mobilized GOP Wahhabists) may use tax-exempt money to actively participate in politics. That is how important votes are.

Much, much worse than ignorance is indifference. We do not bother to vote, or we throw them away on the Ralph Naders and the Jill Steins of the world. People complain about how bad things are and that there is no real difference between the two parties. Guess what. People who do not vote are the problem. You are enabling the very system that turns you off.

Such a small thing, to vote, yet so powerful.

Gadgets

How many ways can we surf the net? Let me count.

We just bought two Droids, one for Shari and another for me, so that's two.

We each have our front line laptops, Shari's MacBook and Tom's new HP, so that makes four.

Then we have three tablets: two that we use each morning to wake up and play solitaire, and to keep us occupied while we have the telly on in the evening. Plus there's the virtually free Verizon tablet that we got with our new Droids. It was a package deal we could not refuse. So that makes seven.

Then I have a bad habit of hanging onto laptops that still serve a function. My old Toshiba that runs Windows 2000 (I bought it at Costco with Windows 97) and operates the old scanner that scans slides.

Does anyone remember slides? You know, film that used to thread through a camera that when processed was a positive, as opposed to a negative. The images on the roll were individually cut and framed in cardboard or, if the film processor was upscale, in plastic. Never mind. the nice young man who sold us the Droids had no idea what I was talking about either.

That's eight, although since Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 2000, I don't use it to access the web. It was also my computer of choice to create websites, but Microsoft decided not to support its own Expressions, the web design program I use. But it is a working laptop, so it counts as number eight.

Then there is my full sized Mac G something or another. It's so big it sits on the floor. It's so old it's pre-Intel processors. Just try to find anything that runs on a pre-Intel Mac. I bought this machine over a decade ago when I was editing video and burning DVD's from our 2004 tour in Eastern Turkey. The behemoth still edits video nicely, and I have no great desire to buy a current version of Final Cut. (I have Express. Apple long since has
pulled the plug on that application.) Anyway, the behemoth makes nine.

And of course, counting as we do in a decimal system, there has to be a tenth. That's the MacBook I just retired. A few years old, it fried itself because -- gasp -- I would leave it plugged in. The battery overheated, expanded, and rendered the "Superdrive" inoperable pretty much within the first year, then proceeded to damage the touchpad, hard drive and motherboard. It didn't work. So in a fit of unbridled loyalty to Apple, and considering the outrageous prices Apple charges for its products, I got it fixed. All the parts I have identified had to be replaced. Machine worked okay. Then I made the mistake of upgrading to OS El Capitan. Ask me about Apple. Go ahead, ask me.

So my MacBook is retired and I'm trying to figure out whether I can make it work running music on my stereo system.

Anyone remember stereo systems? You know, receiver, amplifier, CD player, turntable, and big speakers, all connected with stereo cables? No, I didn't think so. But I still have stuff connected to my thirty year old Bose speakers.

Now my music system originates in an iPod Touch that Apple and time have passed by. That is, it can't take the current iOS or whatever operating system runs the little beast. That means current "apps" (short for applications) can't run on my iPod Touch. Apple is the leading technology business when it comes to planned obsolescence.  They are masters at it. But the iPod Touch, only about six years old, does connect to the internet. That's eleven.

I won't count another four iPods rarely used, two of which no longer work. So the number is at eleven. If you know a little about numerology, eleven is a master number. Trouble is, when it comes to all these devices, I feel more like a slave.

Oh, there's a twelfth device. Surely twelve is the number of completion. The Sumerians thoughts so. The twelfth gadget is my work laptop, the one I use to earn money so I can afford the other eleven.

My favorite new gadget? A hand-crank ice crusher. To make a good martini, the ice should be crushed.

Autumn and Halloween

Some time about a fortnight ago it became autumn. Overnight, the monsoon heat left and we were wearing long sleeves in the morning.

Cliff and I talked about it last week and again yesterday. Cliff comes weekly to our backyard to maintain the clear water in our cement pond. We both complained about suddenly cool weather and unfamiliar sleeves.

The pool water temperature was down to eighty. That's too cool for Shari so she signed up to swim in the indoor, heated pool at the local Hollywood Fitness gym -- no, Planet LA, or Bodies R Us, or whatever. (Planet of the Apes? Gymnasiums go against my religion.) The point of this paragraph is that we took the pool cover off yesterday.

We'll sweep and dry it off, fold it up and hide it until maybe March. It's like what we do with Christmas decorations, except that we don't have any and, unlike the Holiday Season, Pool Time lasts over half of the year.

So do the five seasons pass in the Sonoran Desert. Halloween is almost upon us.

I know it's Halloween because of the fright I got last night watching just a few minutes of the Republican (and CNBC) Buffoon Show. Those guys are really scary. You think they are pretending? It is the trick-or-treat season. Or maybe they actually believe what they mean? Either way, it was Halloween horrible.

Despite the jack-o-lanterns in the big box stores, Halloween comes and goes in a trice compared to Presidential elections. If we granted Iowa access easements to the oceans, could we have it secede so we don't have to deal with its early primary?

When it takes a year and a half to complete any cyclical season, you know it's out of touch with reality. Heck, even Greece can hold national elections within a week.

Dr. Ben and Politicians

Last night, Shari and I watched some of Charlie Rose's interview of Ben Carson. We often tune in to Charlie to check out who is on his show. My impression was that Charlie was pretty disgusted with Dr. Ben, but Charlie is an experienced and professional interviewer. He didn't reveal too much in his facial expressions, and nothing in the tone of his questions.

What got my goat, aside from Dr. Ben's glib attitude, was towards the end of the segment when Charlie asked what Dr. Ben thought distinguished him from the other presidential candidates. The answer? "I'm not a politician."

Okay. What do you call someone who has entered an election race for office? An electrician?

Dr. Ben's distinction is that he is a politician without any experience whatsoever. So when is inexperience a qualification for a profession? But, among some of our less critical thinking electorate, inexperience is the ultimate qualification for the highest office in the land.

Which makes Dr. Ben and Donald Trump similarly "qualified". In the world of demagoguery, "inexperience" means "qualified", and up is really down. The two leading Republican candidates for president are similarly inexperienced. So when Dr. Ben answered that not being a politician was his distinction, he also endorsed Trump's qualifications. Some distinction.

But there is an additional quality that Benny, Dumpy, and too many of the other Republican candidates share: intolerance. Among too many of the Republican base, the idea of compromise is heresy. Ask John Boehner. These people live in a world of black and white where facts, understanding, representing other views, and an exchange of ideas all disqualify a person for office. In a world where up is down, the quintessential qualities of a politician in a democracy — representation of others and compromise — are loathed as weaknesses.

Others, notably comedians, have already observed that the same egotistical demagoguery and simplistic intolerance of Trump are the qualities of dictators, not statesmen. I suggest that Dr. Ben is also better suited to serve as a dictator rather than a politician.

It's ironic that Dr. Ben interprets the Nazi holocaust in the light of gun control. Benny may be a highly educated brain surgeon, but he is a complete knee biter when it comes to social studies. Benny, the National Socialists obtained power in Germany during the Great Depression because they were popular. Enough people responded to simplistic demagoguery to form a base for the National Socialist party. Like Trump and Carson, the self-absorbed leader of that inter-war movement didn't care a whit for compromise or people with differing views. Enough people wanted a leader, and the leader thrived on simplistic solutions and scapegoats.

If Dr. Ben wants to draw a lesson from Nazi Germany for the voters in United States today, it's not the dangers of gun control. It's mistaking intolerance for leadership.

In Profit We Trust

The size, power and influence of multi-national corporations rival that of most countries. Wealth is increasingly concentrated among a few who wield disproportionately large influence among our politicians. Makes me think of ancient Rome where generals and the wealthy vied for control over their republican government. Poor plebs. Then there were the medieval kings who struggled with their barons and dukes for resources to raise bigger armies. Poor serfs.

Historical examples are many because the struggle for power hasn’t changed much. Today we have corporations that control the food supply, the financial system, oil, military hardware, health care, pharmaceuticals, and news media, not to mention gangster cartels. They all lobby and effectively control what is supposed to be our democratically elected politicians.

Our government is prohibited from competing. Health care, drug, and insurance companies are all for profit and their profits are protected by statute — or the lack of them. Patents on life forms are protected by statute. Public services (you know, electricity, water, communications, and other monopoly-utilities) are run for profit. We have private prisons run for profit. Education, the great democratic equalizer, is farmed out to subsidized for-profit businesses. College grads are in debt-servitude to banks.

I say we adopt a new national motto, one that better reflects our national values. Our original motto, E Pluribus Unum ("Out of Many, One"), was adopted in 1782. Clearly, it's a passé sentiment. Why, it's downright socialist! Congress replaced it with "In God We Trust" in 1956. But it's not God we trust in, it's the profit incentive.

I suggest a new national motto, one Ayn Rand and any respectable Ferengi from the Star Trek series would approve: "In Profit We Trust." We should emulate Donald Trump who used his wealthy pedigree, arrogant greed, government tax breaks, and even the bankruptcy code to accumulate billions, denigrate the needy, and run for president.

We should recognize that the purpose of life is to accumulate personal power, and anything that regulates that pursuit is bad for us. I'm not exactly sure why it's bad for us, but it's supposed to be bad, very evil, and very un-American.

The Kaleidoscope of Technology

We used to call it planned obsolescence. Now it's called an upgrade. Version decimals, security patches, new (and "improved") user interfaces, Office ribbons, hidden files, incompatible apps, viruses, spam & worms, and a language that seems like English but is nothing of the sort —it's all a continuing kaleidoscope that refuses to stay still.

I have an iPod Touch 3rd generation. I've had it maybe six years. Its current operating system is IOS 5.1.1 that's been out only four years. I use it a lot to play internet radio, but then the app started to hang up so I thought I'd delete and reinstall. That's when I learned the hard way that Apple no longer supports its 3rd generation and my iTouch can't upgrade. Worse, Apple's app store doesn't have anything that's compatible with 5.1.1. Apple wants me to buy a new iPod.

I have a collection of iPod docks that don't charge newer iPods. How complicated can it be to ensure that the same wire is used to conduct electricity? But at $40 a dock, Apple has an incentive to play connection roulette.

I never could follow Apple's zoological nomenclature: tigers, snow leopards and lions. Had they used wombat, armadillo or giraffe, I might have been able to distinguish among them, but they stuck to cats. Now they are into weird geography. But Apple still dotes on its decimals. If you check "About this Mac", your Apple doesn't disclose the animal or geographic name of its operating system, only its decimal. The names serve only advertising and they add another layer of confusion.

We tried to upgrade Shari's OS and her MacBook locked up. We took it to the tech-doctor who announced that the upgrade was too traumatic for the hard drive. It had to be replaced. Hello? The hard drive was over-worked so it crashed?

I upgraded my OS and plugged in my external hard drive that I'd used for years on my existing OS. The new OS couldn't read the files. I could have lived with that. I have other computers that could have read it. But the new OS went in and affirmatively mangled my files so no one, not even the tech-doctor, could read it. Why would anyone design an operating system to mangle files it can't read?

Then there is the Microsoft Office ribbon. I got pretty fast using the old Office Word menus. Now that I have been made to upgrade, it's a whole new learning curve. Features I used to access with a hot key or a couple of key strokes are now attainable only through a couple of menus and three or four key strokes. It's way more complicated. I'm slowly peeling off the ribbon layers and replacing them with simple commands.

It's like the annual Detroit model design. What's the point except expense?

I still run Windows XP. It's only eight years old. It runs on a laptop that's over a decade old. I use it to run a high resolution scanner that isn't supported by anything newer. I really don't care to buy something new when the old one works very well. It also runs my Photoshop 6 which is fourteen years old, and PageMaker which worked perfectly well to lay out and publish a half a dozen books, and still works. But it won't run on anything that's made nowadays.

My Windows XP also runs my web design software, Expressions Web, which is five years old. I have a couple of websites; one with over three hundred pages.

Now I find that Microsoft server software on my website host no longer supports Expressions. I have to buy a new web design program that's compatible. I know the features I want, but the descriptions never mention anything relevant: like whether it imports existing pages without mauling them into something unrecognizable; or whether it includes an html editor. From what I can tell, web design programs are either ridiculously complicated or template-based simpletons. I tried a couple. They confronted me with multiple screens, dialogue boxes, and goofy gizmos. They may as well have been cuneiform impressions on clay tablets. Looks pretty, but I can't get it to do anything. Dumb as a rock.

The computer kaleidoscope now effects even the telephone. For work I have what I call my batphone. It operates through the internet and is tied in with the office servers. For some weeks, my batphone got phantom phone calls. Scores of them, day and night.  Pick up the phone; nothing. The office tech guys realized hackers were getting through because the firewall wasn't set up.

Now I am getting calls from "anonymous". That's an odd name for caller ID, particularly when the call is from some echoing, concrete room in India and the thick Indian accent announces that he works for Microsoft and is calling about …. He jabbered off some impressive sounding techie words. I had no idea what he was talking about, except that it had to be some scam. But has the kaleidoscope of computer gibberish turned so mainstream that scam artists assume tech-talk is understood by regular people?

I'm getting too old. I remember standing on the train platform at Wynyard looking at the billboards across the tracks. One was advertising a musical then playing in Sydney: Stop the World. I want to Get Off.

It Still Takes a CenturyLink

I wonder about old Ma Bell.  You know. The old telephone company? I think CenturyLink is still using Bell Telephone's billing system. Or maybe when they broke up Bell Telephone (anyone remember the anti-trust laws?), the phone companies took it so seriously that they adopted the left-hand-doesn't-know-what-the-right-hand-is-doing style of management.

The last time I wrote about It-Takes-A-CenturyLink, it was with the hope of getting higher speed internet connections. They advertise 20 Mbytes/sec but they don't let you know the upload speed. That's 0.8 Mbytes/sec … on a good day. Our weekly garbage pick-up is faster than that. Things got intolerable when I couldn't send out emails of 1 Mbyte or more. Servers timed out waiting for my connection. From about nine in the morning to late afternoon, couldn't send out emails.

I thought it was a problem with my new computer, but the tech guys who support our office network blamed CenturyLink and suggested that I switch to Comcast, a/k/a Xfinity. I tried using my old computers to see if I could send out emails faster. Nothing doing. I did ping tests and telephoned the tech guys at CenturyLink. Two or three different guys (I've learned not to trust any one person) assured me that 0.8 Mbytes/sec was the operational "max" for upload speeds.

Meanwhile, I had to run up to the neighborhood Starbucks to send out loan documents for a closing. Twice. In my frustration and panic to get a rush closing done, I left my mouse at home. There I was sitting in Starbucks with no mouse. Okay. I figured I could use the blithering MacBook touch pad. Oh no I couldn't. It was inoperable. (Still doesn't work. Neither does the disk drive. It has also become mind-bogglingly slow. My next rant will be directed against Apple.) I had to drive home, pick up the mouse, return to Starbucks, buy one of their wretched cups of bitter, scalding hot coffee, then send out loan documents to escrow. Meanwhile, I was surrounded by chatty, happy kids from the nearby high school. I figured Brave New World.

Okay. Comcast 5 Mbytes/sec upload speed sounded better and better. Leave aside the trauma of Comcast. We have two neighbor friends who relentlessly complain about their poor Comcast service. Leave aside the trauma of unbundling our DirectTV because we don't want cable TV. Leave aside the idea of a cable company providing me with phone service. (Comcast needs to bundle its internet service with something.) I am too old fashioned. I like telephone companies providing me with telephone service. And not wireless either. I like those skinny little telephone wires because they don't need electricity to operate. Comcast's cables do.

Even with all that, I was still anxious because I had no idea whether the old Comcast cable from the previous owners was still good.  I had torn off the orange cable that went up the side of the house and lay in coils on the roof. I feared I had torn too much out. I had images of having to dig up the asphalt driveway plus dig a ditch several hundred yards long through desert landscaping. The alternative was the visual blight of Comcast's orange cable draped over my agaves.

I took up a few paver bricks and unearthed the stub of the old Comcast cable. The Comcast guy came out, tested the connection to the Comcast box in the street, and it was still good.

Shari and I decided to make the switch, even though we had a sickening feeling that we were trading Godzilla for Gargantuan.

It turns out they use black cable now, not orange. We "ported" (that's the telephone-lingo) our existing telephone number from It-Takes-a-CenturyLink to Comcast/Xfinity, and my upload problems vanished. Emails disappeared into the worldwide web with astonishing speed.

All we had left to do was unbundle and get our final bill from It-Takes-a-CenturyLink. Which is the subject of this post.

We made several phone calls to It-Takes-a-CenturyLink to make sure DirectTV and our clamshell phone with Verizon were being unbundled and paid. Twice I was told matter-of-factly that I would have to return It-Takes-a-CenturyLink's modem. Twice I explained that I had already returned their modem the year before, on the same day I got it.

If you've read my previous It-Takes-a-CenturyLink post, you may remember they couldn't upgrade my internet service without sending me a modem to rent. I complained that I already had purchased the identical modem from Best Buy, but to no avail. They had to send me one to rent. But no problem.  I could send it back and there would be no monthly rental fee.

So I shared this bizarre It-Takes-a-CenturyLink modem-mailing story, but it was a waste of time. Sure enough, about the same time we got our final bill, we also got a letter with instructions how to return It-Takes-a-CenturyLink's "high-speed" VDSL modem.

I had to make more telephone calls to India and/or the Philippines. Exasperated, I learned that It-Takes-a-CenturyLink had been billing me a lease fee of  $6.99 a month.

Have you ever read your It-Takes-a-CenturyLink invoice? It's completely undecipherable, like Chinese characters to a click-speaking Bantu. I just counted the number of line entries on our typical CenturyLink monthly invoice. Ninety-four.

Thank God Shari is fastidious about record-keeping. We found the UPS receipt that I got when I returned CenturyLink's hi-speed modem on August 1, 2014. We went over a year's worth of CenturyLink invoices. Sure enough, no lease fee in August or September of last year. No wonder we were lulled into complacency. Then in October, a $6.99 monthly lease charge appeared. The charges continued each month. By February, they'd increased the lease fee to $7.99 a month. (I guess the price of modems went up, kinda like pork-belly futures.)

Armed with my UPS receipt and our $58.06 calculation for the overcharge, I began the cheery task of telephoning, listening to CenturyLink advertising of high speed internet interspersed with announcements of the estimated wait times (irony unintended), and sharing the last four digits of my Social Security Number with half the population of Boise, Manila and Bangalore. At one time, I was so excited when a human voice finally answered, I accidentally disconnected myself.

I had to complain that CenturyLink was stealing because (a) I returned their miserable modem the day I got it, and (b) they've made me pay rent for a modem I own. I told my story and provided the relevant UPS shipping number. The fellow checked the UPS number and confirmed receipt. Then I was transferred to another department where I had to start all over again.

Left-hand-doesn't-know-what-the-right-hand-is-doing.

My third go around was with Finance. I admit I was pretty testy when I repeated my story about corporate theft. Then the lady told me she had to put me on hold. I'd been disconnected often enough and feared having to start all over again. Several minutes passed. Finally she came on the line and brusquely but pleasantly said, "You have a $106.09 credit on your account." I was shocked. I immediately became the most compliant and grateful customer she could have imagined.

Of course, I didn't mention that by our calculation, the overcharge was only $58.06.

"So the records are corrected and you don't need me to mail you a modem?"

"Yes, sir.  That's all taken care of."

"Should we pay the $6.93 balance now or wait for a corrected final bill?"  She assured me it would better to wait for a corrected bill.

Okay. Today Shari returned from the post office with a delinquent payment notice from CenturyLink. We owed $113.02. No credit.

I cannot explain how the original $113.22 final bill lost twenty cents, but then I can't explain the $106.09 credit amount either. And, as I have suggested, I doubt if anyone alive can explain a CenturyLink invoice. Ninety-four line items.

I made a direct phone call to Finance armed with my confirmation number for the credit. Those direct numbers you get are precious. Although you still get the oprime el nueve recordings and have to recite the last four digits, the wait times are less and the people you reach are more knowledgeable. My question was simple. I'm supposed to get a corrected final bill showing a $106.09 credit. Why do I get a delinquent payment notice dunning me for $113.02?

"Our records show the $106.09 credit and only $6.93 is due."  Why the wrong bill? "Our records show the $106.09 credit and only $6.93 is due. Just send a check for $6.93." My complaints that I should get a written invoice for the correct amount fell on deaf ears. "This is Finance. That's a Billing problem. I'll forward you to Billing."

Left-hand-doesn't-know-what-the-right-hand-is-doing.

The fellow in Billing told me, "Our records show the $106.09 credit and only $6.93 is due. Just send a check for $6.93." I complained.  I should be able to get a corrected invoice for the correct amount. We went around and around, but all I could get out of him is that the accounting/billing system that It-Takes-A-CenturyLink uses is incapable of printing out a bill that shows the credit.

I hung up before he asked the inevitable question, "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

I called the telephone number on the back of the delinquent payment notice. After navigating through the computer-generated obstacle course, the pleasant computer-generated voice said that the amount owing was $6.93. Somewhat assured ("Third time is a charm.") I wrote out a check for that amount with the hope that it would be the end of it.

I made the mistake of going online to see what It-Takes-a-CenturyLink says is owing on my old account, the one under the telephone number that was "ported" to Comcast. When the phone number moved, I was assigned a new number for the purposes of CenturyLink's final billing. I found my old number on the CenturyLink website. They showed about a hundred and twenty dollars were past due.

Which is why I think CenturyLink is still using Bell Telephone's billing system.

Actually, that's a slight on Bell Telephone. I have very fond memories of the regulated phone company, its pleasingly short invoices, less than $20 a month for phone service, and a black phone so weighty that you could use the hand-set to knock out a giraffe.

It-Takes-A-CenturyLink, or Para Continuar en Español, Oprime el Nueve

Time Toilet

Recently, Bill Maher did a thing on "New Rules" about being afraid less of "Big Government" and more of big business. The jokes were inspired by a customer's hellish experience trying to cancel a Comcast service. See, for example, the NPR article.  Although Comcast backpedalled by claiming that was not its corporate culture, it is. Which was the point of Maher's jokes and social commentary.

My nemesis is CenturyLink, so named because of the time it takes to get something done.

Last year I asked customer service to drop the first house line and make the second line our sole phone number. You have no idea how confusing that was to the phone company.  Three times I spent a half a day calling, being cut-off, calling, being given another number, assurances, conflicting information, providing my phone number (repeatedly in the same call) and listening to "Para Español, oprime el nueve." It doesn't help that each time you get a different rep, so what one guy tells you becomes irrelevant as soon as you hang up. Of course, that's by design. It-Takes-a-CenturyLink has a random rotation system.

It took two months to drop a house line. I'm not making this stuff up.

I recently got a form letter from CenturyLink explaining that I can upgrade my internet speed. I'm skeptical. Last year and again this year I called the good folks at It-Takes-a-CenturyLink asking whether I could get higher speed.  "No. In your area [no optic cable line] 1.5 Mps is the max." Mind you, I called customer service and technical support to get the same answer: not available on my street. So the letter surprised me.

What the heck, I'll call again. Identify my phone number (which I had already punched in for the computer voice, "Para Español, oprime el nueve.") mailing address, last 4-digits of my SSN, a number where I could be reached [?! Don't they have caller ID?] -- one goes through this routine with each new rep, regardless -- and customer service says I can get 20 Mps and technical support tells me I can get 40 Mps.

"How? What's changed?"

"You need a VDSL modem/router."

"Is this new technology?" The tech support guy was speechless. Turns out VDSL has been out for years and years.  It's old technology.

I sign up for 20 Mps.  I bought my VDSL modem/router at Best Buy so I wouldn't have to wait. After all, CenturyLink has to only flip a switch.  I bought the identical modem/router -- identical down to the logos -- that CenturyLink will sell or lease to me, but at least someone else gets some markup out of it. Plus I don't have to wait. But I am up against Big Business.

I have to wait for It-Takes-a-CenturyLink to UPS me a modem/router. "I already have one. It's the same modem/router."

"No, we have to send you one."

"Can you check with your supervisor?"

"I just did. There's no way in the system to turn it off.  Just send it back to us."

Yeah, with institutional incompetence like CenturyLink, I can trust that I won't have to call again to take the charge off my bill.

"Since I already have the required modem/router, when can higher speed be switched on my line?" In eight days, was the answer.  It was scheduled for the end of the business day on Friday. There was nothing I could do. The system assumes you are waiting for a UPS delivery, so it makes you wait for no reason. Plus by scheduling it just before the weekend, the customer is assured of a nice conversation with India.

Then there was the rep in India (I couldn't make out which Indian language was chattering in the background, but the lunchroom conversation was so loud that I could barely make out the rep's voice) who couldn't -- actually, wouldn't -- help me set up my new router because I had an order pending. "Yes, but this modem/router is good for lower speeds, isn't it?" The Indian rep agreed, but hung up.

What the heck, I'll call again. Identify my telephone number which I had already punched in for the computer voice, ("Thank you for calling CenturyLink. Para continuer en Español, oprime el nueve.") mailing address, last 4-digits of my SSN, a telephone number where I could be reached -- one goes through this routine with each new rep one has to talk with, and there are lots of them -- and the third Indian rep helps me set up the modem/router.

You know, we pay these guys over $200 a month. The only competition it has is Cox (doesn't serve our street), Comcast (bad reviews), and Dish (horrible reviews). Oddly enough, they are all priced pretty much the same, if you can get beyond the "bundles" and five-page itemization that not even the company's billing folks can explain.

This is the private enterprise, free market system that Republican hacks, tea-baggers and Ayn Rand worship. I say we need a lot more regulation and a lot more anti-trust litigation.

Well, I'm supposed to get 20 Mps after five this evening. Be still my heart.

Post Script — Nothing Doing

Of course, it didn't happen. No VDSL double circuits available was the explanation. So CenturyLink is behind the times (again that time metaphor), selling stuff it doesn't have, and its left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. But their reps, generally very nice people, are trained to give happy answers that mean nothing.

Post Script 2 — India, Boise & the "Held Order" Dept.

Over the weekend, the reps in India and the one tech-support rep I managed to talk with all suggested I call on Monday during business hours. I'm getting better at calling. No point sitting holding the phone; I make breakfast and eat it as I wait.  Para continuer en Español, oprime el nueve.

At first, the nice rep (in Boise?) tells me that the order can't be completed because I don't have the correct modem. That's a new one. I assure her that I do and encourage her to keep checking.

It takes about a quarter of an hour as I listen to It-Takes-A-CenturyLink recordings encouraging me to upgrade to 40Mbs and assuring me that my phone call is important. A couple of times the nice rep interrupts the recordings to assure me that she was still working on it. "Hello. Mr. P___, are you still there?" Well, yes. (What did she think, or is it typical that callers give up and hang up, or was she hoping?)

Finally a new voice comes on. It's a lot less cheery, but a lot more informative. She's obviously not in sales. She is one of those people who actually knows, actually does the work, and you hardly ever get to talk to. My order is in the "Held Order" department. She confirms that what is missing is a double VDSL circuit in the phone company box that's across the street from San Simeon, by the Mormon graveyard. A work order has been placed, but it might take a month.

Well, that's better news than what I was told last year and earlier this year when the blame was put on the lack of a fiber-optic line in the street.

Milagro de milagros, my phone company bill drops when I get more expensive service. Makes no sense, but then, have you ever tried to understand a phone company bill? So I think to myself, why don't I call customer service and get a bill reduction now.

This is where it gets funny. The nice man tells me that my order is completed. (This is what's fun about calling It-Takes-A-CentutyLink: every time a new person and a new story.)

I say he doesn't know what he is talking about. The order is not completed. He gets a little defensive. When I tell him I already have a modem, and I've already had to return one It-Takes-A-CenturyLink sent me by UPS, he says the rep who told me It-Takes-A-CenturyLink had to send me a modem didn't know what he was taking about. You tell me. Is this funny or what?

He says I can put in a new order and it would be completed on the 13th at the latest. Okay. I bite. Now I have two orders. What could possibly go wrong?

Post Script 3 — the 13th; Is it Christmas Yet?

What can go wrong is reality. Despite some feint hope in my psyche, the 13th came and passed without the higher speed upgrade. It's like the promises of Advent unfulfilled at Christmas. [A tip o' the hat to Randy whose new blog has inspired me this morning.]

It-Takes-A-CenturyLink trains reps to say things to make the customer feel good and the company look good. Calls are recorded to make sure reps authoritatively maintain appearances.

The "Held Order" department is much closer to the people who actually do the work. Its telephone number is a precious resource because the folks there actually have a pretty good idea of what's going on locally.

For fun, I call the general support numbers to needle and waste the reps' time. It can provide lots of amusement because you always get a nice new rep who is eager to help and authoritatively tells you a novel story. "Is there anything else I can help you with?" they obligatorily and cheerily ask after they have been unable to help with anything.

For reality, I call the "Held Order" number where I'm told maybe by this month-end some tech will be sent out to the phone company box down the block to install a VDSL double circuit. The information is not much more satisfying, but it is closer to reality. When It-Takes-A-CenturyLink advertises the availability of higher speed DSL, the job of installing the necessary circuits is less important. Appearances matter, not reality.

Megacorporation X also promotes
what's not now -- like,
"your check is in the mail ® "

Yesterday we saw a phone company truck parked by the subject, under-equipped phone company box. Shucks. The truck had Xfinity painted all over it. (Where do these corporations get their names? Why do they pay money to get them? Why do they keep changing them? How do you pronounce "Xfinity"? Not like I care.) Xfinity, if I understand advertise-speak correctly, is Comcast, which is another mega-corporation determined to rule whatever ("X") is everything (infinity).

Not the promised truck. So much for a few seconds of feint faith.

You think I should give the It-Takes-A-CenturyLink reps the phone number for the "Held Order" department? Nah. That would ruin the fun.

Post Script 4 — Monsoon & Mid-September

A couple of weeks ago Shari fielded a call from CenturyLink to advise that the additional VDSL circuits will be installed mid-September. By now, I'm not waiting so eagerly, but I also suspect that it will be done.


By now, it's Shari's turn to get livid with the phone company. Monday's monsoon rain caused our phone line and that of at least one neighbor to go dead. That night, the lines were restored. Tuesday morning, ours was down. I was in Vegas until Wednesday (another story) so Shari had to call to schedule a repair guy to come out. Thursday was the earliest, which schedule evoked Shari's anger and threats to switch to another phone company. (Which one? There's little choice between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.) Thursday morning before 12:30 it was.

She was going through internet withdrawal. It didn't help that the rep said that on the phone company end, the line appeared to be working. If the number was dialed, the caller got a ring. If the problem was in the house, we get to pay for the repair.

I got home around noon on Wednesday and my fears proved founded. Shari hadn't picked up the phone, and that was because it was down. My experiences, as chronicled and suggested in this expanding post, and going back over a year, in fact, allowed me to be a bit philosophical. I allowed Shari to pick up the irate-customer baton.

No one showed up in the morning. At 12:30, Shari used our clamshell cell phone to call customer service. As I listened sympathetically, she waded through the para continuar en Español, oprime el nueve and similar digital recordings before reaching a rep who paged the guy who actually does the work. New ETA: 2:30. They are busy. Around 3:15 and almost fit to be tied, Shari calls again. This time the rep is in Manila. That's in the Philippines.

While she is struggling to get the Manila rep to page the repairman, the land-line phone rang. I picked up the phone. It was the repairman. Line is fixed. For the previous couple of hours he'd been working on the box down the street. He noted that the box was scheduled for the VDSL upgrade next week, but he replaced the to-be-upgraded part — with some difficulty, he explained.

So that's why I have some confidence that we might get high speed internet, as advertised and promised in late July.

But, to be honest, I am finding that I have more sympathy for the phone company. Monday's rain caused a lot of outages and I'm grateful they fixed our line as quickly as they did. I enjoyed and took advantage of my time without phone and internet. I'm also relieved that it's fixed.

Post Script 5 — High Speed & Scottish Vote

Well, yesterday, Thursday September 18, 2014, was a big day. Not only did the Scots vote to remain within the U.K. and continue the confusion among "British", "English" and "United Kingdomonians", but we got our high speed DSL connection. Laughing with glee and amazement, we watched web pages flash into existence. Our Roku box downloaded programs with a previously mythical four-out-of-four dot quality. Our previous high was three dots, but usually we received at two-dot quality.

Uploading is still a bit slow, but hey, it's not a perfect world.