Posted on

Something to think about when you are on hold

Hello?

Remember the old days when you had a telephone installed and the man from Ma Bell did all the magic stuff he did and ta-ta!? You got yourself a real telephone. A big momma with a rotary dial and built sturdy enough to beat an intruder half to death.

Well, a lot of much younger folks might not. I do remember rotary dial phones. The first phone that I can remember in the second house in which I grew up was a rotary dial. A note: The first house I lived in — from birth until I was around 10 — didn’t have a phone that I can remember. I seem to remember hearing my parents had a phone at some point in time in “the old house” but I don’t remember it. Nevertheless.

My first phone, after I got out of the Navy and worked as a firefighter, was a touch tone. That had the same keypad layout you see to day. Those type of phones also were a transition to life without a central switching office with actual humans who would dial the number for you. Can you imagine that?

Of course, I am not old enough to remember depending entirely on an operator for a call. But you would have to call an operator to make a long distance or collect call, as well as for local information. The mother of a friend from high school worked as an operator in the little telephone building in my hometown. I could always tell her voice when I dialed “O.”

This was before the days of recorded voices telling you which numbers to punch, driving a sane person half mad and and a mad person insane. That was what happened today. It’s kind of involved, but these days when you deal with a cell company, it’s always that way. I don’t have a land line these days, BTW. (Oh come on, you know that means “By the Way.” Get with it!)

I recently switched my phone service from T-Mobile to Verizon because Verizon provides my wireless Internet.—> I went to the Verizon store and got a new phone, but not the one I wanted. —> The phone I bought had a faulty camera. (Wow, when I was a kid I could have never imagined a camera on my phone. I couldn’t have imagined a phone one takes everywhere.) —> I got into an argument with the store guy because I didn’t feel like I should have paid a $35 restocking fee to make a basic dollar-for-dollar trade. —> I raised a little hell with Verizon, then I raised a lot more hell. —> The company waived the restocking fee and sent me a “new” phone. It wasn’t new, however. It was used and a Blackberry. I didn’t want a Blackberry. The phone I wanted already had mobile Internet access. Wow. What’s an Internets? —> Today I finally got my phone. I programmed it but had to call Verizon six times to get everything I needed done.

And there you are. I live in a time I never imagined as a kid except,  perhaps, when playing like I was Dick Tracy from the “Funnies” and the weird-looking detective who wore an interactive TV on his wrist watch.

So today, we have tiny little telephones that can communicate over a wide world and find out damn near anything — although you have to be careful as to the veracity — and write little messages damn near anytime. You can take pictures and just send them right over the phone. I can even make a video. On my phone!

But to do all of this, we have to go through our own little brand of Hell. Instruction books one receives when you get a new phone, or computer or TV are basically little pamphlets that don’t instruct. When one calls “customer service,” the path is littered with voice “prompts” at every turn, followed often by waiting to speak with someone which can sometime last hours. Finally, you might talk with someone who works who knows where and who knows what they are talking about, or not.

This all leads me to ask: What price for magical methods of communicating on devices which are built as much as for convenience as they are for the actual act of communicating with someone?

Sometimes, I think the answer to such a question is “a lot.”

You could get Miz Jeanette, the operator, by simply dialing “O.” You could speak with a person you know. If you were a few cents short to make a call at the pay phone outside the phone company, it wasn’t a big deal. You didn’t have to yell and raise nine kinds of hell to get results in your favor. That was unthinkable. You could get results, most of the time, by being polite.

It’s too trite to paraphrase Bob Dylan that the “times, they are a’ changing.” But I did. Damn. I got to go and check my e-mail.

Your what?

Posted on

No longer on the "No Fly" list, maybe

Well, the good news is I’ve been cleared from the “No Fly” list.  I think.

I’m referring to an October incident in which I was not allowed to print a boarding pass prior to a flight to Memphis. The airline folks said it was something like the “No Fly” list in which a passenger is screened for extra security by the Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Nothing happened except I was inconvenienced by having to check in at the Continental ticket counter. I didn’t go through any extra scrutiny by TSA in the actual screening before the flight. No pat downs, no wands and thankfully no cavity searches. Just take off your shoes. Pull your computer out. And, this was new, take out your CPAP machine, which I use for sleep apnea.

On my return flight to Texas, I had no problem printing a boarding pass.

Later, I found a link on the TSA Web site where one can receive information on how to clear your name if you wind up on a watch list or have something happen which requires added security. It’s called TRIP, appropriately named, not because of the obvious reference to “trip” — as in taking a trip by flying. I think its name fits because the whole experience is a “trip.” Wow man. Far out. Groovy.

You can file your redress request online and you get a “Control Number.” This allows you to track your request, kind of like tracking a package on FedEx but much slower. The only time I tracked my case, it noted that my request had been decided and I would be replied to in writing. That seemed like two months ago.

But lo and behold, I received a letter yesterday from the Department of Homeland Security. It stated:

“In response to your request, we conducted a review of any applicable records in consultation with other Federal agencies, as appropriate. Where it was determined that a correction to records was warranted, these records were modified to address any delay or denial of boarding that you may have experienced as a result of the watch list screening process.”

So that sounds as if the DHS did something concerning my experience, or maybe not. But the department did acknowledge what I “may have experienced” was a result of the “watch list” process. Thus, one would think by that language that they had me on a “watch list.”  Why, I would be watched, I can”t imagine. I’m the dullest person this side of the Sabine River these days. I used to raise hell when I was younger, but I was never what one could call a radical. Well, relatively speaking.

All”s well that ends well, though. Hopefully. The National Security Agency or TSA itself will probably read this and put me back on a watch list, for whatever reason. Or even worse, I’ll be flying somewhere some day and all of a sudden an air marshal will pluck me out of my seat, throw me down on the cabin floor and handcuff me. If that happens, I might know the reason for it in such an instance, or at least part of the reason.

CBS News broke a story a couple of nights ago about what appears to be rampant discrimination in the TSA’s air marshal program. There is a whole list of minorities and other groups the flying cops like to target for some type of hassle or another. On that list are disabled veterans.

Now I’m not a disabled veteran. Well, I’m somewhat disabled due to my medical problems, from chronic pain at least. And I am a veteran. But I am not what is called a disabled veteran in the government sense, also known as “service-connected.” That means the disability was a result of or happened during military service.

I have been looking on the Web and have been unable to find why the air marshals are all up in the air, pun intended, when it comes to disabled veterans. The only possible beef I could think of is that “qualified disabled veterans” receive a 10 percent advantage over people with no military service or service-connected disability when it comes to hiring for a federal job such as air marshal. I don’t know if that is it or not.

However, the CBS report indicated many of the air marshals who were said to be in a snit were former Secret Service agents. That too is a federal job. So I don’t know.

It will be interesting to see if DHS finds anything in their investigation and, if so, will do anything. In the meantime, I am going to try and stay off the watch list, or better yet, stay off airliners.



	


	





		

		
Posted on 
Groundhog day predictions: Get real!
	


	
	

		
Happy Groundhog Day.


Seriously, some people actually celebrate the day the townsfolk of Punxsutawney, Pa., drag the cuddly little rodent Punxsutawney Phil out of his hole to predict the fate of winter. It is six more weeks if Phil sees its shadow or winter will come to an end in six weeks if no shadow falls from the little groundhog.


Phil saw its shadow today or so say his handlers. We can go on the supposition that groundhogs recognize shadows, in their own little groundhog way. Whether or not they can predict weather is a matter of belief, such as Santa Claus. Of course, anyone with any sense knows damn well that Santa is real.


There are tons of Punxsutawney Phil knockoffs these days: Gen. Beauregard Lee of Atlanta, Buckeye Chuck of Ohio, Jimmy the Groundhog of Wisconsin and so forth. Whether these weather prediction experts see their shadow and foretell winter matters more on geography and meteorology than true superstition.


We don’t have a groundhog to forecast weather here in Beaumont, on the upper Texas coast near Louisiana. Hell, I don’t even know if we have groundhogs in Texas. I will check and get back with you on that, but don’t hold your breath, please. I suppose we would have to come up with a nutria with a Cajun name, such as Boudreaux Bill or something of that ilk if we were to have a Phil impersonator. Since we average nearly 60 inches of precipitation a year, it would be a good bet that Boudreaux wouldn’t see his shadow. It depends, of course, on the time of day and the time of year.


I think a lot of TV stations miss out on a bet by not having their weatherman come out of a hole on Groundhog Day. A hole is where some of them certainly belong. I won’t mention any names.


Personally, when I see my shadow on groundhog day it means the sun is shining or the cops have hit me with a spotlight. My prediction: six more weeks of winter. A late snow in February. Then, smooth sailing about mid-March. That’s just a guess. But it works for me.


	


	





		

		
Posted on 
An interesting look at the Jihadist next door
	


	
	

		
Perhaps it is too difficult to look inside the life of our enemies.


I speak of the jihadist — our main enemy these days — who killed thousands on 9/11 and continue to kill with their strapped-on explosives or even with weapons of mass destruction if they are available. Many Americans probably see these fighters as young men with brown skin and haunting eyes. Some are from the poor neighborhoods where their lives have been one of want and lack of justice. Others come from privilege, courtesy of the petro dollars from the massive oil and gas wealth of some Middle Eastern states.


But others who fight civil society also seem normal and are the boy next door turned “The Jihadist Next Door,” which is also the title of a fascinating New York Times Magazine article I read yesterday. The article — by Pulitzer Prize winning writer Andrea Elliott — explores the life of  Alabama boy Omar Hammami.


Omar is the son of a Syrian immigrant, and Muslim, who married a Southern Baptist from Alabama. His intellect and wit drove Omar to become one of the most popular kids in his high school. He was steeped in both of his family’s cultures including spending summer days shelling peas on his maternal grandmother’s farm.


But eventually, Omar’s intellectual and religious curiosity steered him to those with the more radical interpretations of Islam, in which as a student and young adult Omar became increasingly entrenched.


A fascination with Somalia — complete with a Somalian wife — landed Omar in that African nation, held together by threads of authority. Now, the young Alabaman who still signs off “Later Tater” to his sister in e-mails has become one of the most powerful and fiercest jihadists in Somalia.


If you are looking for answers as how a seemingly normal young Syrian-American boy, the smart but funny kid everyone likes, becomes a jihadist you will either be disappointed or find yourself looking ever deeper.


Perhaps it is the lack of a solid reason why this young man, who says he considers America a target in the Jihad, is both so frightening and interesting. Maybe the clash of cultures were too great for Omar to withstand, even though on the surface he seems more assimilated than many Anglo Americans. He doesn’t appear to be a product of bad, or even lackadaisical parenting. So why is Omar a jihadist? It is a question that too often has followed the end to tragic cults, which is the closest I came to a parallel. If you are prepared to read an excellent article with an open mind, you might not be disappointed not knowing the answer to that question.