09 January 2009
 
Touch That Dial


(Old School Analog television dial)

There is a chill wind blowing against the flank of Big Pink. It sneaks trough the chinks in the old windows and the draft of cold air creeps along the floor and over my bunny slippers. You don’t have to bear with me, though I beg your indulgence as we work through an exercise of cause and effect, and how it can stimulate Change, which is something we are going to be dealing with shortly.
 
The winter blast helped me figure out something important. It had been something of a mystery to me, and one that cost several hundred dollars to learn.
 
When the sudden micro-bursts of wind strike the west front of the building, the buffet can be extreme; the peculiar shape of the north west wing channels the breeze into a sharp vertical channel. Two years ago, I was sitting in my brown chair, chatting away on the phone with the porch door ajar.
 
A front was moving in from the west with the prevailing weather pattern, and the sudden surge of air as the cumulonimbus cloud sucked the air up gripped the heavy door by the edge and slammed it open, ripping the retaining spring from the top of the heavy door and ripping the hinges from the lower frame as the slab impacted the brick of the outer wall.
 
Hmm, I thought. I poured a tall one and surveyed the sudden damage. I vowed then and there to be more careful about watching the sky to the west.
 
One morning last summer, I rolled off to work with the place buttoned up. Or so I thought. A nice brisk storm came through in the afternoon, and when I returned that evening, I saw unaccustomed light flooding in from the balcony. The shadows of small flying insects danced against the lowering sun.
 
The door hung drunkenly from the upper hinge, the middle and lower ones ripped right out again, exposing the shiny bolts I had drilled through to secure them the last time.
 
With the assistance of good Captain Middleton, the ship’s chandler who is beached this season with the downturn in the commercial yachting market, the door was refurbished before the onset of the cold air last Fall.
 
Still, I wondered at the mischance that had opened the door in the first place. Was the wind powerful and cunning enough to turn the knob, and invite itself in?
 
The cold air this morning helped me understand. Even with the windows shut tight and latched, a palpable movement of coldness could be felt.
 
What were the implications of window cranked wide open to catch the delicious earth smell of Spring? Several of them?
 
Of course. When the front hurls it’s might against the side of the building, and with no cross ventilation through Pricilla’s place across the hall, it would result in over-pressure like a mini-nuclear blast. That pressure could pop a closed (but unlatched) door to pop open, exposing it to the wild blast of the swirling air. Eurika!
 
Spring will come, one of these months, and the implications are obvious. I need to get a hook-and-eye stopper to keep the door where it belongs, even if the wind is pressing to open all on its own.
 
Mildly pleased with the sudden insight, and anxious to defray the cost of future damage, I turned to the morning task at hand.
 
Gaza is too depressing for words. The media, naturally enough, is focused on the misery of those whose homes are being blasted not by wind but weapon. The Israelis are doing what they feel they must, swatting without mercy the biting insects of the little rockets that have been falling on them for the last six months.
 
The disproportion of the response, coupled with blood, is what stirs the sense of injustice, and invites comparison with the dark German machine that ground up the Jews of the Holocaust.
 
Fair or not, the world’s inclination to support the underdog is long gone, if it every existed outside Washington. As clear as the moment I realized that Barak Obama was really going to be elected President, I saw the future. The Holocaust is going to happen again, and without the Second Coming, it is inevitable.
 
Bad feeling, but let me give you the logical steps by which I get to that dire prediction.
 
You have been with me in these stories from the dawn of the new epoch. The news from Mexico is disquieting. Seeing the lines of defense so far north of the border, it is clear that darkness has already seeped across the artificial line in the desert, and is spreading all across the Southwest, leaping from urban center to urban center.
 
The announcement from the new President that things were bad, and expected to continue to be bad, may be a perfect expression of fact. The first step in recovering from an addiction is the admission of its existence. But of course the Chinese know that, too, and have their own fish to fry. They have drastically curtailed the purchase of Treasury Bonds, the stockpiling of which enabled the drunken spree of the last decade.
 
The implications are stark. There will not be enough money to pay for the maintenance of the world’s police force. There will be those who applaud the passing of the order that maintained the brief Pax Americana, but with its passing will come the rise of new, though smaller titans, and the space between will fill with the darkness of anarchy.
 
Somalia is only the preview of what is to come. Think about what is already creeping north from the Sonora Desert, not a world away.
 
We Americans are all natural optimists. How could we not be, after the exceptionally fine life we have lived since 1945? We did not come to adulthood in a sprawling Gaza, abandoned by Arab brothers, and squeezed by a vibrant and painfully alert Israel.  Only with that context could we understand the smile on the face of the terrorist rocketeer, who invites the slaughter of his neighbors, delighting in the prospect of their collective martyrdom.
 
I normally wrap these little bundles of darkness with the idea that somehow, somewhere, sweet reason will arrive, and we will do the right thing. I am uncertain what that might be.
 
The mail this morning brought news of the real and ongoing plan to slash hard-won benefits in Veteran’s Health Care. I can direct you to the official documents that outline the options, if that is one of your interests. If it is not, here is a little parable of how this is going to go over the next few years.
 
Unless you have been in the cave with Osama, you know that digital television transition is coming soon. Actually, now that I think about it, Osama is probably digital-ready. He watches the news. The impending change from analog broadcasting has been in the works for years.
 
The Change is one of the projects that I worked on for the Phone Company in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Karen is really responsible, and if you wish to drop her a line I thanks I can get it to her.
 
It was a no-brainer, one of those simple things that had so many positive aspects that of c course there was resistance. It was obvious to the most casual observer: the scandalous waste of the electromagnetic spectrum in maintaining the ancient broadcast system meant that public safety communications was fragmented, and no national system existed that could guarantee interoperability between those first responders entrusted with our collective care.
 
With our help, and against the fierce objections of the Broadcast lobby, Congress passed legislation in 2005 that mandated the change to digital television signals. The Federal Communications Commission auctioned off the vacated bandwidth to accommodate new commercial applications, including the digital wonders that we carry in our pockets.
The date for the actual transition was set impossibly far in the future- Feb. 17, 2009- and a plan to use some of the auction revenue to establish a plan to help those rely on analog TV sets and antennas.
 
The plan was simple. Converter boxes were designed that cost as little as $30 bucks. Coupons would be issued to purchase them, and enable old televisions to receive the new format. Cable and FIoS users would be unaffected, since the signals were converted at the main hubs. There were four years to get the word out. The transition would be painless, and a win-win situation for all: more channels, better definition, money for the Treasury, and new bandwidth for the First Responders.
 
The cable and phone companies are ready. Every new television sold for the last four years is ready.
 
But no. Someone woke up this morning, and realized that as of this fine but cold January morning, it is already too late to apply for a government coupon and receive it before the middle of next month.
 
Critics claim that there will not be enough converter boxes on store shelves to meet demand. There could be a shortage of 4 million to 31 million viewers, a crisis for advertisers.
 
Of course, only someone who does not watch television could possibly be unaware of the impending change, and thus might be mercifully spared from the programming. Even NSCAR racing machines have had the banner of change painted on their sides.
There is panic in the air this morning.
 
The Mainstream media is carrying the news that we are headed for a train-wreck, though they do not specify if it will be a digital or analog one. even though the vast majority of us will weather the transition without lifting a finger. The change must be deferred. Most important on the list is this: the people most likely to be affected are those who are least capable of dealing with it.
 
I could rephrase that for you, but the implications are as stark and clear as anything I have ever heard. We cannot ask the citizens of the United States of America to adjust their own antennas. This is a watershed moment in the Republic, possibly more significant than the inauguration of President Obama.
 
It is the moment we codified the notion that we are no longer responsible for anything, and thus will be able to accomplish precisely nothing.
 
Change is on our lips, but what is means is something else. There are editorials- I am not kidding- crying for the establishment of government call centers to deal with complaints of the uninformed, and what’s more, there must be a new community-based program government program established to help people hook up their converter boxes and move their antennas.
 
A major training program must be established to train community groups to give assistance to those who need it.
 
I am not kidding. A government program.
 
As a next step, I would expect- no, hell I demand - creation of a National Task Force to help us find the remote control device under our couch cushions. It is our right.
 
So, when I look at the hard eyed Chinese Bankers, and the implacable Mexican Drug Lords, you will probably see that a nation that cannot adjust its own antenna, or call its own cable company, doesn’t have a hope in hell.

Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com