Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The Cable Company

Yesterday was a day of errands. Those mundane things that we all have to do to live, and if we don’t do them we regret it. Some of them I put off, like lots of other people I think, because we know that by the time it’s done I know that my blood pressure will be up and I’ll be in a foul mood for the rest of the day.

That’s one reason that my driver’s license has been broken into two pieces for almost a year. I haven’t been able to mentally gird up my loins to deal with DMV to go get another one.

Yesterday, though, I had to go to the cable company. That’s usually almost as good for getting the heart rate up.

It was a semi-crisis, though, and there was no avoiding it. The clicker in the bedroom had quit working and needed replacing. If there’s anything more annoying than having to get out of your recliner to change channels or adjust the volume, it’s having to climb out of your bed to do so.

Since I had to go deal with the cell phone people anyhow (another task that’s right up there on top of the list of dreaded activities) I figured I may as well shoot the morning and deal with it all.

Getting a new remote was easy. Apparently they fail all the time and the lady at the counter didn’t ask any questions, she just took my old one and handed me a new one.

Then I asked the $64 question – “Is there anything we can do to lower the bill?”

The cable bill is appalling. It climbs a bit every year or so, and it’s easy to lose track of how much it really is. Like mid-life weight gain, the incremental increase isn’t so much but when you step back and look at the whole of it you’re shocked that you’ve allowed yourself to get in that kind of shape.

When my brain says, “You aren’t going to pay that much for cable TV!” I have to stop and realize that it’s not just the television – it’s also the computer and the telephone, and when I compare the bill from the cable provider with what the combined bills for those things used to be, it becomes a bit more acceptable, say down to the “exorbitant” range instead of up around, “shocks the conscience.”

It’s always amazing to me that customer service reps – who are simply doing their job as directed by their evil overlords – suddenly find programs for which a person qualifies when you start doing things to cut your ties with them and reduce your bill.

I was dropping tiers of channels that had crept onto the bill through earlier offers and which had fees that had stealthily crept up over time through my own neglect. Like gym memberships, we were paying for things that we don’t use. We rarely watch any of the HBO channels, being unable to stay awake during an entire movie. HBO got added onto the bill, along with Showtime and the Latino tier, a couple of years ago when we bundled it up with high speed internet and the telephone and dropped the bill $20.00 a month or so in a “limited time offer.” That’s expired, though, and all those things were on the bill at full price.

Realizing that I was intent on separation, if not divorce, the young lady pulled a trick out of her bag to light up most guys eyes and make them want to sign up for about anything.

She offered a new gadget.

In this case, they were offering to exchange the HD television receiver for a Digital Video Recorder (DVR). Of course, since she had on her computer most everything short of my blood type, she knew that we didn’t have one of these. She also figured that the xy combination of chromosomes wouldn’t let me refuse an offer of that type without a lot of internal struggle.

Mind you, we’ve had an old-style video cassette recorder plugged in for ages and haven’t touched it since the remote quit working a couple of years ago.  We don't have any blank tapes to go in it -- can you even buy those any more, or are they relegated to the back shelf of thrift stores, like 8-track tapes?

Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean that our lives won’t be more complete with a new DVR.

She cinched the deal by offering free installation – probably looking at me and realizing that nobody with that physique is going to be thrilled about climbing around in the dust bunnies trying to figure out how to plug the assorted wires into a television set who’s mere operation obviously exceeds his technical abilities.

When she said that a technician would come to the house and install the new DVR tomorrow – speed unheard of in cable-company terms, who usually move about as quickly as the average building contractor – I was hooked.

The question remains, though, as to why prices vary between customers. Cable companies, like utilities and some other “services” receive a franchise so that they are the ONLY one with whom you can deal if you want to buy what they offer – and sometimes, these are pretty essential. While we could get by without cable television, internet or telephone, the argument can be made that we could also get by without natural gas or electricity although I have no desire to start chopping wood for heating and cooking or reading by oil lamp. There really is no realistic alternative, and they have a government sanctioned authority to control the market.

So why don’t we all pay the same rate? If I go to the grocery store for a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk, it’s the same price for everyone who walks through the door. You don’t have to give the secret handshake and password to get a special price. Why then, do we tolerate this gamesmanship with pricing from the cable company? Who goes through their cable bill line by line every month and then goes on the internet to see if there’s a better deal available through your provider? Should a person have to do that just to be treated the same as everyone else?

As Cable Provider / Customer interactions go, this one was relatively painless, much like an addict’s trip to the Methodone clinic.

Gimme the stuff and I’m outta here.

All I had to do was promise to continue our unholy alliance for another two years. Probably the most annoying, and expected, thing happened when she read me the prepared message, made me swear fealty and then dialed the telephone where I had to listen to the exact same message on her telephone and do it all over again.

Like the video from the in-store cameras wouldn’t be sufficient witness to my willingness or something.

Now all I have to do is wait around today for the cable guy to come sometime between 1 and 3 this afternoon, so there’s still the opportunity for my blood pressure to go up again, even before I try to figure out the footlong remote that comes with the new gadget.

Maybe getting out of bad to change channels wasn’t such a bad deal after all.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Springtime

Spring is Sprung,
The Grass is Ris.
I wonder where
The Flowers is.

So goes one of the two poems that I actually committed to memory in school. What can I say, poetry was never my thing. It’s still not – I much prefer the system and order that goes with the grammatical rules that I understand. Through good fortune, I happened across something in about the 5th grade that solved all of my poetry needs through high school.

Be that as it may, it is the case here in Catawba County. While we were away, much winter happened. Major snowstorms, the likes of which haven’t been seen for years, dumped massive amounts of snow – well, massive amounts for North Carolina. One would think that the economy of bread and milk producers, to say nothing of grocery stores and movie rentals, will show first quarter improvements based upon the people making the mad rush to the store at the last minute.

If the forecasters are to be believed, much winter is yet to come despite the fact that the temperatures over the weekend topped 60F every day. Monday was warm and rainy, today is foggy and the weather channel isn’t optimistic about the rest of the week, predicting a high of only 38F for Thursday and another chance of snow over the weekend.

If you look, though, the signs are there that life is returning. The darkness comes noticeably later and recedes earlier than it did just a few weeks ago. The birds, while still grateful when the feeders are restocked, seem to be thinking about nesting and welcoming the summer folk back to town.  Stocking caps are replaced with ball caps and hoodies have taken the place of hollowfill coats.

Most importantly, though, the spring bulbs are starting to come back.

If there was ever an act of faith, it’s that of putting those misshapen globs of organic matter into the ground about Thanksgiving and anticipating that they’ll come out and bloom in the spring, not only this year but for future years as well.

About 4 years ago, lots of bulbs went into the yard. Somewhere upwards of 4,000 of them. The seem to do well, and each year there’s a splash of springtime that erupts suddenly, starting with the daffodils (my favorites) with their yellow megaphones heralding the arrival of spring, followed by the bottle-brush like hyacinths and tulips that seem to use every one of the 64 crayons in the big box for their color.  It's a glorious show for about a week, until the symphony starts to fall apart, the different players moving in different time signatures.

When they start to peek through the ground this time of year, I am an expectant parent, worried that a late snow or freeze will catch them and eliminate the possibilities for the year, the effort requiring another 12 months of waiting for an attempt.  There are no "do overs" in this.

I’m not sure what all the point is of this today; maybe it’s just musing on the optimism of springtime. After a long, dark winter that seems to have left snow on the ground forever -- our last spot in the yard as of yesterday was on the north side of the house in the shade, and is about the size of a turkey platter – it’s hard not to feel the excitement of the little green things poking through the ground, preparing for their annual invasion.

But if you are observant, you can see signs of it everywhere.

Like our neighbor's Christmas tree, the last one of the season, which finally made it to the curb yesterday.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

On Facebook and Teachers

The buzz in the newspaper yesterday was about an 8th grade teacher who’s managed to get herself suspended, in part over comments that she posted on Facebook about her students.

Seems that her students didn’t think she was “Christian” enough and did things designed specifically to needle her, like leaving a Bible on her desk with a Christmas card or singing “Jesus Loves Me” when they are around her.

She groused about it on her Facebook page.

Let’s not talk about the phenomenal stupidity of a junior high teacher that lets her students get that far up in her business, especially if her views on religion aren’t in the mainstream. Common sense says you need to differentiate personal life and professional life, especially before anything about your personal life goes through the imperfect filter of a 13 year old’s brain.

Or that she’s now allowed those same students to get the upper hand by manipulating her to the point of meltdown with silly little antics that a 30 year veteran of the classroom would probably ignore, or respond to differently – say, for example, by playing reruns of the “Gospel Singing Jubilee” or maybe tapes of some particularly onerous TV preacher. Give the little buggers a dose of their own medicine and then let them stew for a bit.  Going through transcripts of some of those sermons and grammatically correcting them, say, might be a perfect lesson in English.

Instead, she’s allowing them to control the situation by reacting to their stimulus. The inmates are definitely running the asylum, at least as far as her classroom is concerned, and rather than figuring out how to contain the situation, she's confronting the problems directly.

Anyone who's ever dealt with teenagers knows that's not any more effective than trying to exterminate by stomping cockroaches.  There are lots more of them than they are of us, and they're made to withstand nuclear explosions and still survive.

It would seem that this young teacher may need to re-think her career options, although depending on how her suspension comes out, that may be a moot point.  Administration may choose to cut their losses and let her go now; it's not like there aren't teachers waiting in line for any available position out there.

There are a couple of competing issues out there, though, that don’t immediately come to the top and which ought to be considered regardless of what happens to her or these students.

As Americans, we enjoy the right of free speech. We can comment on most anything of public interest without fear of repercussion, as long as we do it in the right forum.

Interestingly enough, that forum includes screaming it on the sidewalks in front of the Courthouse, although it doesn’t include the hallways inside the courthouse. It includes public parks, but not the food court at the mall.
It most certainly doesn't include the inside of a classroom at a public school, and probably doesn't include either the hallways or any part of the school grounds.

It probably includes a person’s social networking pages as well, assuming that you don’t put out protected information that you happen to have – like your student’s grades or personal information.

The question, though, is whether or not it’s very bright to exercise that particular right without a modicum of restraint. After all, just because a person can espouse their views in a particular location, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best career move to do so. It’s kind of like having the right-of-way at an intersection with a large cement truck coming from the other way without the apparent intent to stop, regardless of what the traffic controls direct.

You can pull out in front of it and argue that you are within your rights, but is that the wisest decision from a personal standpoint?

I’m constantly amazed at what people put up on their Facebook and other pages, and what people’s “friends” put up about them on their pages. More and more frequently, those pages are being printed off and used in custody or criminal proceedings, and it’s not usually to prove the upstanding character of the subject.

Let’s face it, a pic of someone drinking a margarita the size of a number 2 washtub with the caption, “I was sooooo polluted that night,” might seem humorous to someone who’s twenty and in college.

When you realize, though, that the person is the mother of a 2 year old and that the child is in the background in the picture because it was her weekend, then it becomes an issue – and a basis to lose custody.

I sympathize a bit with this teacher, in that she has probably done nothing legally wrong. She’s probably even morally correct in that she’s not required to acquiesce and hold the same religious beliefs as the majority of her students.

But it’s equally obvious that she doesn’t have the demeanor necessary to hold this position, and ought to use her suspension period to explore the other options which may be available to her.

I’m also sorry for the children in her class – not because of the quality of her teaching, about which we know nothing, but because these young people – in part through the reinforcement and example of their parents – have now learned that you can use religion to intimidate, embarrass and ultimately eliminate someone with whom you disagree.

That is antithetical to the foundation of our country, but we’re seeing it more and more. And with this incident, our society has simply contributed to the group of future citizens who think this type of activity is acceptable.

That can’t be good for anyone.

Regarding my Absence

I’ve been absent from writing here for a bit. It’s not that I’ve been lazy or slacking off – well, maybe a little, depending on one’s perspective. It’s just that we’ve been travelling, and I blogged the trip. I wondered for a while whether anyone would notice or not, and was pleasantly surprised when at least two people not my mother wrote about it.

For better or worse, it’s encouraging enough to make me start again.

My original intent was to keep this up at the same time. After all, newspapers and all the other media is available online now, so I figured I could skim through, get the highlights, think about my topic and still stay on top of current events enough to have something to say.

I discovered it doesn’t work that way, though. The allure of the Palaces in Thailand, or the ruins of Angor Wat in Cambodia proved to more of a draw than the local newspaper. The longer I was away, the less I found that I cared about the local issues which seemed so important – and are, in their own way – but which are for the most part irrelevant in the greater scheme of both life and the world.

This is one of the reasons that we travel. It helps you put things in perspective, it gives you the opportunity to take a step back and recognize that it’s probably not the end of the world if your candidate isn’t elected, or a rezoning happens up the street and it bothers people.

Instead, you have a chance away from all the normal routines to sit and contemplate, to feel the ebb and flow of humanity as you enjoy your morning coffee or tea. You get to see the routines of others as an observer, and then to decide whether or not you should adopt some of their practices or examine similar ones in your own life and make adjustments.

Somewhere we picked up the phrase that, “Travel is an enriching experience, particularly when viewed with the benefit of hindsight.” We’ve had a little over a week of “hindsight” now, and wouldn’t change a thing about it. Even the “disasters” of travel – like plugging your shaver into a 220 outlet the second day out, or being unable to link your phone up to the local telephone system, or having a reaction to something you ate that you can’t seem to shake all just becomes part of the adventure, especially when examined from your own bed with your own blankie.

So I’m back, for good or ill, until the next adventure takes us away from home.

Helping Haiti

If you are abroad, you sometimes get a very different picture of what’s going on in the United States than the local media gives, especially as related to interactions with other parts of the world.

Two weeks ago, Haiti was hit by a devastating earthquake that essentially leveled much of the country. Infrastructure such as roads, hospitals, utilities, water and sewage systems all collapsed, and many of the people who know how to either repair, rebuild or operate them were killed.

This is a disaster on par with Hurricane Katrina or the Tsunami in southeast Asia in 2004. Hundreds of thousands of people are impacted, many of whom will die if aid is not rushed there.

The United States is Haiti’s neighbor. We’re not on especially good terms with her, still being mad over the snub we (and Great Brittain) were given in 1804 when this slave colony revolted and declared it’s independence from colonial powers.

Imagine the audacity!

The US, though, has stepped up to the plate to render aid. Control over the airport at Port-au-Prince was turned over to the US to manage incoming flights from around the world. We can organize things so that the aid can be distributed efficiently, right?

Not so fast. According to an article in Thailand’s paper The Nation, that’s not what’s been happening. The US has instead turned away planeloads of medical workers and supplies in order to make sure that US Soldiers are able to get in. This, supposedly, is to insure that there is an orderly and efficient distribution of these supplies to people who need them.

OK, that might be viable, although it’s a stretch to buy off on that line. But it loses credibility all together when you find out that the US has very quietly thrown up a naval blockade as well, to prevent any refugees from fleeing and potentially reaching the United States.

So essentially, the US is stopping aid from coming in and stopping the people in need of help from leaving.

Help me remember – aren’t we supposed to be the good guys?

Protecting the borders of the country is legitimate, but how about if we take care of the injured, homeless and hungry there first, then we’ll deal with whether or not someone has slipped out of that little corner of Hell to come to the US for a better life? For the relatively few that would make it to the shores of America, there’s a process set up already.

It ain’t a very good one, and you see all kinds of screwing with it by Congress when it serves their political purposes, but there is a process.

This is the best that the greatest country in the world has to offer? Soldiers inhabiting yet another place that really doesn’t want to be inhabited? Another form of military government that will suck the resources away from our own needs while doing nothing to help others? While turning away doctors, medical supplies, engineers, architects, builders and heavy equipment operators from helping those who are in need?

This is on par with the stupidity that happened when people went to try to rescue Katrina victims from their flooded houses and were told that they had to provide proof that their registrations and insurance were current on the boats they were using.

How about if we take a deep breath, not get too twisted up in our own self interests and take care of people who are hurting? 

We can sort out the rest of the stuff later.