Sure, today it’s the stairs, but tomorrow it’ll be Mount Everest!

https://vimeo.com/60351112

Recently, New York Times technology columnist David Pogue wrote a blog article (and made, with help from his Twitter followers, a video) highlighting just some of the many, many things wrong with the cell phone industry beyond just the exclusivity contracts currently being investigated by Congress.

In response, Mr. Lowell C. McAdam, the CEO of Verizon, sent Mr. Pogue’s boss, New York Times Chairman and Publisher Arthur Sulzberger, an open letter rebutting these complaints.  Except for the fact that he didn’t actually rebut any of Mr. Pogue’s complaints.  Instead, he made up his own “myths”, and debunked them with his own opinions.  Not exactly the same thing.  So I’ll give the same treatment to Mr. McAdam, except I will actually address the topics he brings up instead of conveniently ignoring them:

Myth #1: Americans pay more for wireless service.
Europeans don’t pay for calls or text messages that they receive.  Americans do.  So okay, I could choose to not answer a call from a number I don’t recognize, and then I wouldn’t be charged for it (except indirectly if I call into the voicemail to check any message left).  But text messages don’t give me that option.  If a spammer sends me a text message, and I don’t have one of those ludicrous text messaging “plans”, then I’m out 20 cents whether I like it or not.  This is patently unfair.

Myth #2: The Wireless sector of the technology industry is not competitive.
His answer to this is that Al Gore says it is.  Sorry, dude, that’s not an argument. Exclusivity deals keep consumers bound to a provider if that is the only provider offering a particular handset (yes, I’m talking about AT&T and the iPhone; isn’t everyone else?). 2 year contracts keep me tied to my provider if I want to switch for any reason, including needing to upgrade a broken or lost phone with a different model not offered by my current carrier.  Lack of decent coverage by some of the smaller, hungrier carriers such as Cricket mean I’m tied to the big boys if I want to know my phone will work in a major urban area or a small rural area.  Just because Al says it’s competitive, doesn’t mean it’s so.

Myth #3: Wireless customers are treated badly.
An 84% approval rating may be stellar in politics, but in customer service it’s meh. At least, it should be. A company’s motto (coined by Scott Bourne) should not be “We’re not happy until you’re not happy.” My own dealings with AT&T customer service have found them to be a massive monolith of corporate “We say so” bureacracy. Does that sound like I’m satisfied with them?

Myth #4: The big wireless companies don’t pay attention to rural America’s needs.
Here, Mr. McAdam touts Verizon’s dedication to expanding their network. In my pre-iPhone days, both I and my mother had Verizon and we could not use our cell phones inside her rural-ish-but-not-quite southern New Jersey house, and we’re not talking Timbuktu here, we’re talking 40 miles from Philadelphia! Cingular, AT&T’s predecessor, had ZERO coverage in Fremont, California, the fourth largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I understand the situation has not improved with their acquisition of AT&T’s network.  It’s a simple fact that wireless companies go where the money is, and the money is just not in areas with sparser populations even though they would benefit the most from having reliable wireless phone coverage.

None of this actually covers any of Mr. Pogue’s charges (outrageous pricing for text messages, the way phone subsidies work, etc.).  I’m still waiting to see answers to those issues.

Ah, it’s Virginia Gun Show time again. Time for the right-wing fearmongers to trot out the old mantra “Celebrate the second amendment and get your guns while you still can!”

That’s word for word from the advertisements that are currently on TV here in the D.C. area. Never mind that there is no legislation currently pending in Congress to tighten gun control laws. On the contrary, recent legislation allowing people to enter some national parks with guns and pending legislation that allows people to cross state lines carrying concealed weapons indicates that they’re trending the other way!

And never mind that the Supreme Court’s recent rulings have favored gun advocates over gun control supporters. The impending confirmation of Judge Sotomayor to the court won’t really have a substantial effect on the court in this regard because we’re just replacing one left-leaning justice with another.

No, it’s time to scare the people into rushing out and purchasing all the firearms they can so they can shoot the armored plated deer wandering into their backyards or whatever. And let’s use the second amendment to justify this. And let’s just conveniently ignore the first four words of it (which are “A well regulated militia”; is there any well regulated militia here? I don’t see it.).

I know the majority of inner-city crime committed with firearms are with illegally obtained guns, but really. Having more guns in the world does not make me feel safer. Never knowing which hot-tempered redneck sitting near me and my children may or may not have a concealed firearm is a cause of concern, not comfort. Would allowing students to carry guns to classes really have prevented the Virginia Tech massacre? I don’t think so. And every time I hear of yet another story of someone who has killed him or herself and his or her entire family with a legally purchased and registered gun makes me sick to my stomach, and there have been a lot of those stories in the D.C. area this year. (And I’m being politically correct here; it’s always the husband/father who does this.)

So, Annie, get your gun while you still can. Because you may only have fifty or sixty years left to do so.

It’s Sasha’s birthday! Let’s all wish her a very happy one!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/taupecat/sets/72157616407406830

Got some beautiful shots of flowering trees and a few shots of my adorable little guy.

First, I’ll say that I’m thrilled we were able to secure tickets to this year’s White House Easter Egg Roll. But it was pure, dumb luck. It was clicking the right link at just the right time, after I’d even given up on getting them. I always thought it was a long shot, but we lucked out.

But of course, the problems were highly publicized, as noted in this Washington Post article.  In fact, my experiences were even quoted in the article.  One of my twittering buddies works for the Washington Post and asked me to email my thoughts on the process.  Here is the whole email:

Continue reading We Got Egg Roll Tickets! →

So @bittman tweets the other day:

Recipe of the Day: Leeks With Ginger and Shrimp http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/recipe-of-the-day-leeks-with-ginger-and-shrimp/

Now growing up, we didn’t eat many leeks. They have a rather exotic connotation for me, kinda like bok choi.  Mark, on the other hand, being of Welsh extraction (as in his mother came from Wales), is much more familiar with the scallion’s giant cousin.  Well, Mr. Bittman’s recipe sounded intriguing, so tonight I finally got the chance to try it out.

And wow, what a great recipe.  Easy to make and delicious.  I did make a couple of alterations to the recipe, however.

First off, I didn’t cook the leeks nearly as long as the recipe called for.  One minute before I started tossing them in the pan, then another three or four minutes before taking them off the heat.  I just like my vegetables a little less than completely cooked.

Secondly, I added a little chili paste (Sambal Oelek, to be exact). I can’t say exactly how much – I finished off what was left in a container.  Personally, I think I added a bit too much; it was spicy! However, Mark, being Mark, didn’t think it was spicy enough and added some chili oil to it after the fact.  I swear that man’s tongue is made out of asbestos.

The whole thing was served over a bed of jasmine rice.  Definitely a winner and a recipe we will be making again in the future.

Once again, the Republicans are playing games with the residents of the District of Columbia.

There is a bill in Congress that would, at long last, grant D.C. a full voting member in the House of Representatives as well as granting an additional representative from the state of Utah.  However, Republicans, who have long since opposed any effort to enfranchise the District, have inserted distasteful amendments into the bill in an effort to derail the measure.

Why have Republicans been so against this effort for so long?  They have many arguments for this, some of which hold a hint of validity, but most of them fail on their face.  Their arguments, rebutted:

1. Granting the District a vote in Congress would be unconstitutional because the District is not a state.
   This is the only argument which I actually agree with, but it still fails. If the District does not get representation because it is not a state, then the other provisions of the Constitution, namely the Bill of Rights, should not apply either. This means that the Second Amendment (you know the one, that one about the right to bear arms) wouldn’t apply to the District, so they should be able to pass whatever gun laws they like. However, the District’s previous ban on guns was struck down last year based on the Second Amendment argument. So Republicans need to decide: does the Constitution apply to the District or not?  (It is worth noting that in the case of the D.C. gun ban, an appeals court judge dissented on the decision to strike the ban on the grounds that the District was not a state and thus the Second Amendment did not apply.)
2. D.C.’s population is too small to warrant a full representative vote in Congress.
   Well, then you’d better rescind Wyoming’s right to have a vote in Congress as well. While you’re at it, you’d better eliminate its senators too. That’s because the state that has more cattle than people has a human population of 532,668 (according to the 2000 census) while the District of Columbia boasts 591,833 residents.  So if the Equity State can have a voting congressman and two voting senators, then the population argument fails.
3. The District was created as a federal area, designed to house the institutions of government and not a civilian population.
   This is simply incorrect.  When the District of Columbia was formed, the already established communities of Georgetown (which was then the port of Montgomery County, Maryland) and Alexandria (on the Virginia side of the Potomac River) were incorporated into the District. Residents of these areas, who had voting representation in Congress prior to the establishment of the District, subsequently lost this right. Alexandria, along with present-day Arlington County, were reincorporated into the commonwealth of Virginia 1846 and those residents regained their representation in Congress.  However, the portion of the District north of the Potomac River remains disenfranchised.
4. There is no public outcry for the District to have voting rights.
   Do not confuse ignorance of the District’s plight with a lack of concern with the District’s situation. The majority of American’s believe that District residents have the same voting representation as enjoyed by other American citizens. It is understandable that Americans would only assume that the heart of American democracy would have the same democratic representation as the rest of its citizenry.

What are the real reasons that Republicans oppose District voting rights? Could it be because the residents of the District are 75% African-American and 98% Democratic? Nah, that can’t be it.

It is unfathomable that American citizens, who pay federal income taxes and who send their sons and daughters off to Afghanistan and Iraq to fight for their freedom and democracy, have no vote in the legislative body that determines how taxes are spent and where our soldiers are sent.  No other democracy in the world denies the citizens of its capital voting representation in its legislature.  It is long past time that the District of Columbia receives its due, whether through the bill currently in Congress, or through a constitutional amendment.

For more information on the District’s struggle to gain a vote in Congress, visit http://www.dcvote.org. This site has no affiliation with dcvote.org and all opinions expressed in this post are my own.  — Tracy Rotton