Author: R J Adams

“Thank you for calling the Power Company. Your custom is extremely important to us. Please listen carefully to the following menu……”

We’ve all had it happen to us. A sudden emergency; we reach for the phone, only to by stymied by an automated message that presents us with a menu we can’t remember full of suggestions that are of no use in solving our immediate predicament.

Last night, at exactly 9.09 pm, we were plunged into Stygian darkness when some plonker at the power company decided it would be fun to throw a switch and cut power to ‘Section 31’.

‘Section 31’ is a small group of residential properties on the outskirts of town, that just happens to include ‘chez Adams’.

The weather was balmy; the night was warm. There was no reason on the goddamn planet for a power outage, yet ‘Section 31’ was suddenly denuded of light, cast into the blackness, an outcast from the world of fluorescent joy and gay, twinkling, effulgence enjoyed by everyone else in this mid-Illinois conurbation, other than the unfortunate residents of ‘Section 31’.

You see, it’s not the first time. This was the third occasion in four days that power has suddenly died, only to be reinstated within a few minutes, or even a couple of seconds. Their excuse is always the same: transformer failure.

It’s what their automated voice tells you:

“Our engineers are aware of a problem in Section 31 due to a transformer failure, and are working to rectify the fault. Power restoration is expected within five minutes.”

Only, we ‘Section 31’ residents all know its not a transformer failure. Transformers don’t fail for a few seconds then repair themselves. Oh, no! We residents of ‘Section 31’ know we are the fall guys.

When the heavy industry to the east of town needs more power, and the densely populated areas to the south and north turn up their air conditioning, it places an enormous strain on a power grid dating from the era of Thomas Jefferson. Something has to give, and what gives is ‘Section 31’.

In the main power control room the cry goes out: “Overload!”

In a flash, the supervisor assesses the situation, sees the problem and barks the order, “Shut down Section 31.”

The switch is thrown and ‘chez Adams’, together with a couple of dozen other properties, finds itself transformed in a millisecond from a cosy, humming, domicile to a dead, dark, silent tomb.

Of course, the power company would argue – if the power company deigned to argue at all, which it doesn’t – that it’s most important to keep the industry and heavily populated business areas supplied, rather than a few old codgers watching television or playing video games on their computers.

I disagree. What’s more, I’d tell them so if I could only speak to something that actually drew breath. First of all, I pay the same rate for power as anyone else in this god-awful town, so I’m entitled to equal priority. Second, my computer is just as likely to corrupt its files during a power outage as those of the Archer Daniel Midland Corporation or the Tate & Lyle Sugar Refinery.

And third, it plays havoc with Arnold.

But can I get through to a human being at the power company? No, of course I can’t ……

What? Who’s Arnold?

Ah, well, during the summer Arnold lives and works in the backyard. He needs a constant supply of electricity in order to do his job. When the power goes out, Arnold downs tools and won’t do a tap till I go out and boot him into action once more.

Only, during a central Illinois summer, no-one ventures out into their yard after dark. A night out in the Amazon jungle is more appealing than even a minute or two outside in a central Illinois backyard mid-summer.

Consequently, if Arnold stops work after dark due to a power outage, it’s next morning before anyone risks booting him into action again.

Still, as I was saying, if I could only manage to contact someone down the power company other than that darned machine, I’d tell ’em…….

What? What does Arnold do?

Why, Arnold’s a Mosquito Magnet. You see, that’s the reason most central Illinois residents won’t step outside their yard door after dark: mosquitoes. We’ve got mosquitoes bigger than bald eagles flying around out there, and Arnold does a great job of vacuuming them up. Well, that is, so long as the power keeps flowing. As soon as it cuts out, so does Arnold. It means a trip down the yard to boot him up again once the power’s back on, and there ain’t no-one’ll do that after dark.

Still, eventually, I’ll succeed in getting through to one of them bigwigs in person down the power company, and when I do he’ll get a right piece of my mind. We folks in ‘Section 31’ have as much right to power as anyone else in this town and…….

What? Why’s a Mosquito Magnet called Arnold?

Geez! Are you dumb! Because it’s an Exterminator. Right? You know – Arnold, the Exterminator……?

And that’s what I’ll do to that bigwig down the power company, one of these days……if I can ever get past that bloody automated machine……

Filed under: Customer disservice

Way back in March of this year, in a small town in Kansas, it was discovered that a woman had been sitting on her boyfriend’s toilet seat for two years, without ever getting off.^[1] I mention it because it’s a story I’ve only just noticed, and while reading the facts one thought that recurred was, “Did the boyfriend have his legs crossed all that time.”

It’s difficult to find much in the news that’s worthy of comment these days. Perhaps one of the most obvious titbits has been the New Yorker’s cover cartoon of the Obamas, with its resultant public and media furore, but even that is hardly worthy of serious discussion.

Was the New Yorker right to publish? Yes. Was it in bad taste? Well, that would depend on your taste.

Perhaps the greatest indictment should not be of the New Yorker, but of ourselves, for taking it and twisting it into a political event. After all, this nation is supposed to be all about freedoms, but whenever anyone exercises those freedoms it seems the whole nation is consumed by wrath and indignation.

There’s an equal outpouring of disagreement over the International Criminal Court’s decision to charge Sudan’s dictator president, Omar al-Bashir, with genocide. While most sane people don’t argue his guilt – Bashir’s government makes the Saddam Hussein regime look like followers of Mother Theresa – the contretemps is over the timing, and whether Sudanese repercussions might endanger UN peacekeepers.

Perhaps the UN should have considered that back in 2005 when it originally referred the matter to the ICC? Since when has justice been something to be deferred until more convenient?

Still, we can rely on the great U.S of A. to swing its political muscle behind the ICC. Oh…. no, we can’t. George W Bush and his merry band refuse to recognize international justice – unless it’s dispatched from the bomb bay of an A10, of course.

I think we’ve all had enough of this economy business. It’s time to turn it off and get back to normal. After all, it isn’t real. Phil Gramm said so, and he should know, he’s a senator. We’re all just whining over nothing. So what if gas is over four dollars, Fanny Mae refuses you that loan for a Big Mac, and cows have set up their own Milk Marketing Board to cut out the middlemen?

There’s one positive note to the economic downturn: we’ve all learned not to blame anyone. No-one’s pointing a finger. It’s true the FBI are feeling the collars of a few small-fry businessmen for shady practices, but in the true spirit of pulling together for the good of all, no-one in America is asking, “Who’s responsible?”

Perhaps the reason no-one’s asking is because the answer is so obvious. All you have to do is look back at the figures. In March 2002, the economy was doing fine. Oil was under $23 a barrel^[2]. Then, in early 2003, something happened that caused the price to jump by ten dollars a barrel. Over the next few years it climbed steadily as the dollar weakened against international currencies, driving the price of oil higher and higher.

Now, let me see, what did happen in early 2003……….. nope, blowed if I can remember……

Finally, the best news item of the week for me – and one that provides a (very) weak and tenuous hook to my leader paragraph – was last Tuesday’s BBC report claiming that the ‘Presidential Memorial Committee of San Francisco’ was preparing to honor President George W Bush on his retirement from office, by naming a sewage works after him.^[3]

Committee organizer Brian McConnell said:

“It’s important to remember our leaders in the right historical context.”

Occasionally, you read something that just makes you feel better.

^{[1] “Woman sits on boyfriend’s toilet for 2 years” MSNBC, March 12th 2008}

^{[2] “Historical Crude Oil Prices (Table)” InflationData.com}

^{[3] “Group seeks Bush sewage ‘tribute'” BBC, July 8th 2008}

Filed under: Shit by any other name

It’s difficult not to cringe at the mass of views and opinions circulating throughout the news media, both here and in Europe, specifically with regard to the ‘United States/Israel versus Iran’ argument and the possibility of war between these nations.

So much ‘tuppenny wisdom’ is circulating that it really does depend on whose views you prefer, which team you’re supporting in the run up to the possible big game.

Occasionally, among this riff-raff of know-it-alls, arises a commentator whose desire for factuality far outweighs any need for pseudo-intellectual pontification.

Such a man is Norman Dombey, Professor emeritus of theoretical physics at the University of Sussex. In a recent letter to the Guardian newspaper, the good professor wrote:

Last December the Israeli deputy ambassador to the UN, Daniel Carmon, was interviewed by the BBC about the Iranian uranium enrichment project. He said: “The Americans and British made nuclear weapons with 20 centrifuges: imagine what the Iranians can do with 3,000.” In fact, neither the US nor Britain used centrifuges to enrich uranium for their early nuclear weapons. The US primarily used gaseous diffusion in the Manhattan Project during the second world war, while Britain did the same in the early 1950s.

Ian Black interviews an unnamed colleague of ambassador Carmon’s (June 25) and reports his claim that “Syria was planning to supply Iran with spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing into weapons-grade plutonium”. This claim belongs to the same fantasyland as wartime American centrifuges. Iran has a programme to produce low-enriched uranium, which it says is for peaceful purposes, although it would be relatively easy, as I pointed out in a previous letter (November 22) to refigure the centrifuges to produce high-enriched uranium for a weapon. But unlike North Korea, Iran has never had a reprocessing plant to convert spent fuel into plutonium.

Nor was Syria in a position to send Iran spent fuel because North Korea was unable to provide fresh fuel for the Syrian reactor under construction at Al Kibar. North Korea did have a fuel fabrication facility at Yongbyon, but it has been closed since 1994 and is now being dismantled together with the reprocessing plant under the six-party agreement reached last October. There is some fresh fuel at Yongbyon under IAEA safeguards. None is missing and it remains under the supervision both of IAEA inspectors and of a US team based at Yongbyon.^[1]

I make no apology for reproducing Professor Dombey’s letter in its entirety because, despite its relative brevity, it tells us a great deal.

It tells us that here is a man who doesn’t deal in opinion. Norman Dombey is stating facts, pure and simple, which is more than can be said for the deputy Israeli ambassador or his unnamed colleague.

Perhaps one of the most frightening facts to explode from the political debacle that resulted from post-9/11 hysteria was how little our governments know about other nations. The intelligence gathering organizations many assumed were doing their jobs efficiently, turned out to bear little relation to the James Bond-type establishments Ian Fleming depicted in his novels.

It’s become obvious our leaders listen to the same ‘tuppenny wisdom’ from similar ‘know-it-alls’ as write their op-eds and half-baked opinions in newspapers all over the Western world.

Through oft-repeated sound-bites our politicians take these opinions and twist them deftly into irrefutable facts. At no time was this more obvious than in 2002-2003, when every politician’s smoking gun was turning into a mushroom cloud. A few years on, the smoking gun once again metamorphosed, this time to ‘another Holocaust’.

In 2006, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told delegates to the annual United Jewish Communities General Assembly:

“It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs….. believe him and stop him [Ahmadinajad] This is what we must do. Everything else pales before this. He is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state.” ^[2]

The truth is that neither Netanyahu nor any other Israeli politician had, or has, evidence to back up such comments. But they don’t need evidence. They know such words will be picked up by the media and spread around the world, as substantiated facts.

We have two choices, and one is to believe implicitly the spawn issuing from our politicians’ tongues. It’s the easier, more comfortable option for many. The other is to seek out truth by closing our ears to those who pervert the facts for their own advantage, and instead make informed opinions after consultation with the Norman Dombey’s of this world who, by virtue of their positions, hold at least some of the facts.

Of course, Professor Dombey is an academic. That would make him too ‘liberal’ for many in the political establishments. Their greatest fear is knowledge. It might force them to do the right thing.

^{[1] “Iran, Syria and nuclear weapons” Guardian, July 12th 2008}

^{[2] “Ahmadinejad is preparing another Holocaust” Haaretz, November 14th 2006}

Filed under: Political subterfuge