Sperry Topsiders, Cable TV, and American Destructionalism

Largely I have been driven the last few days for several reasons.  I have had a knee-jerk reaction to get rid of cable.  A friend of mine cut the cord and has been using an Ollie's Army aerial antenna for his TV reception.  After experimenting with several different antennas both at the beach and in 'Nam, he is satisfied with the result.  Free TV.  I was intrigued.  I have come to hate cable TV.  Time/Warner was plagued with equipment malfunctions.  Their set-top boxes were erratic at best.  We would lose service often and have to reset the modems, if that is what they are.  When the big transition came from analog to digital, Time/Warner issued digital to analog converter boxes, that were supposed to allow you to be able to continue to use your older analog TV's.  It didn't work.  The little boxes were about as useful as an ashtray.  I have a mid 1990's Sony Trinitron television with a beautiful picture.  I love its RGB tube, convex screen, and natural ambient sound.  It is stereo.  I have kept it.  The decision to dump Time/Warner Cable was necessitated by a system that failed to support older televisions.  The computer industry is most guilty of this business practice, rendering products obsolete so you will have to buy their new ones.  Hardware today never is as good as it once was.  We call it vintage.  With outsourcing, Globalization, and corporate downsizing of the American labor force foreign-made products most likely never will be as good as American-made ones.  Well, that is not entirely true.  Like everything in life it is relative.  There have been great American-made products, and there have been ones that have been usurped by foreign markets such as Japanese cars.  I hesitate to say electronics, but that probably is true as well.  The Japanese, with their lack of land mass, have learned how to pack a lot of performance into small spaces such as apartments.  History must agree that Japanese electronics revolutionized the market.  Today most electronics are made in China at a fraction of the cost, and who knows if they are any good?  I think not, but maybe they are getting better.  I doubt it.  CEO's, shareholders, and board members continue to get rich, and consumers continue to get poor buying cheaply-made products that do not last.  We did not really want to get rid of Time/Warner's cable service, but my Sony Trinitron would not work with their budget converter box.  The decision was a metaphor for a moral.  There is another word for this action, a decision that is based upon experience, wisdom, and probably malfeasance.  "Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me."  If Time/Warner could not in their corporate mindset choose to support my older vintage television, then we could not support them.  Two years later we are dissatisfied with Direct TV.  Direct TV was purchased by AT&T, who now are producing television programs.  Their service also was an example of malfeasance.  Like many other customers we were horrified to learn after the first year of our two year contract our rates doubled.  It was written into the contract in small print.  This is an unethical business practise, and now I want to dump Direct TV for the same reasons we dumped Time/Warner.  They are unscrupulous, and the product they are selling is not worth its price.  Dramatically their product is not worth its price.  Cable TV across the board no longer is worth its price.  That is the intended subject of this missive.  Cable TV sucks.  Why is this?  I have been chewing on it for quite some time.  Like the Facebook addiction, we in our lonely and meager lives are addicted to creature comforts, habits which give us a sense of security.  Security is not the right word.  Oneness with the world.  Contentment.  A connection with the world.  Both Cable TV and FB provide this.  Rarely is there any good content, but surfing cable channels is like browsing your newsfeed.  We get a bird's eye view of what seems to be happening in America, but we don't.  Neither Cable TV nor FB offer a realistic depiction of current events in America.  They may offer a suggestion of current pop culture, and this is so shallow and unsatisfying that it merits a chucking.  I have just now realized this.  Both Facebook and Cable TV are unneeded entities.  I don't need them, because other than providing that anodyne to make me feel content, they offer nothing constructive, informative, or educational.  Then again neither does our current system of public education thanks to W..  "No Child Left Behind" was a misguided travesty for public education, and that is coming from a certified teacher.  (UNC-Chapel Hill, Class of 1985, BME)  W.'s dad, George Sr., championed the "Three R's" as well as our first "television" war.  I could support an old school approach to public education. (reading, writing, and arithmetic)  I could not even spell that word it has been so long since I have heard it!  With W.'s presidency came the era of exploiting our children, but that is a different blog entry.  What I want to say is both FB and Cable TV, as much as we like them, are not good for us.  Zuckerberg is releasing information about 3000 advertisements purchased on Facebook by Russian interests.  That should suggest whence he is coming.  Mark Zuckerberg sold internet advertising indiscriminately to Russian influences attempting to influence the 2016 presidential election.  That seems a bit like an act of treason to me.  Then again the internet mostly has been unregulated.  That is not a good a thing, but again it must be viewed in relative terms.  The originators of the the World Wide Web would of course like to maintain net neutrality, a freedom of information exchange which is embraced for its possible and probable positive social, political, and cultural influences.  That precept has been soiled like America herself.  We have been penetrated by foreign interests for the sake of Wall Street profits.  Let me say that again.  We have been penetrated by foreign interests for the the sake of Wall Street profits.  Since the media is owned by these interests,  they will not forsake their employers.  The Japanese own much of Hollywood, the Chinese own much of New York City, and the list goes on.  Newscorp, under the leadership of Rupert's two sons, has its fingers so deep in America's pie we never will be the same.  It would not be surprising if "Shrimp on the barbie" replaces hamburgers and hotdogs as our national fast food.  Do we really want to go Downunder?  I have traveled to Australia, and while a former British penal colony today seems unassuming, any interest like our President, who has not experienced the breadth of possible suffering, is not capable of leading.  My desire to eliminate Cable TV is for these reasons.  I have found cable to be a glut of un-American, propagandist, mind-numbing fodder.  Overtly I cannot say it is evil, but I am beginning to sense that.  That, in combination with the Trump presidency, is a formula for world destruction.  It became a necessity to get rid of Cable TV, and I did.  It took much effort like signing off a six month cruise ship contract.  They do not appreciate you when you are there, but when you leave their ensuing prospect, panic, and anxiety of failure deems itself inescapable.  Bail, and bail I did.  It cost me $100.00,  $32.00 for a converter box, $20.00 for coax cable, and $52.00 for a miniature, roof top, yagi antenna.  The funny thing is, and it's not funny, is now I have the appropriate litmus test for my death ray conspiracy theory.  This is sarcasm (satire), but in today's uneducated world of millennials there is little way to convince anyone human activity is  warming the planet.  A roof top television antenna is a step in the right direction.  Why?  It is proving that excessive, aberrant, electrical energy is flowing through our air.  It took me two tries to receive all three local network television stations, and still I am minus one, WNCN.  When all is well, like last evening, I was receiving all stations reliably and satisfactorily.  I was able to enjoy television in my way, channel surfing between networks and catching bits and pieces of differing entertainment and information.  Today mysteriously all bottom stations are absent except for WRAL.  I had to change the direction of my antenna slightly to pick it up.  Today stations that must be in the other directions are absent.  The most prominent stations, which were present from the beginning, UNC, UNC-EX, WTVD, all of them are black today!  There only is one explanation for this.  It is called radio interference, RF for short.  RF has been a common term throughout American history.  In recent years, as RF as been erased from American consciousness and Americans have become addicted to the internet, the main avenue of information flow has moved from the airwaves to wire.   How is this possible?  This change, like everything else in life, must be viewed on a relative scale.  Telecommunications have moved in an opposite direction.  Formerly reliable home landlines now magically have been transformed into wireless wonders.  We are carrying around miniature microwave transmitters in our pockets and purses, and television moved from the air, to cable, and then to the internet.  While television still is broadcasting over the air, and this must be overwhelmingly shocking to most Americans, their business protocol has moved to the internet.  Internet streaming has surpassed Cable TV, and Cable TV has become the propagandist's dream, both because largely the internet is unregulated and it is available to foreign interests with little scrutiny.  It would seem Mark Zuckerberg is a metaphor for human ethics in the making.  Millennials are so sheltered from lack of education, history, and experience, how else can they learn what is right and wrong?  I would have hoped the internet would not have to be the example, but it is.  If given a choice whether to regulate or not regulate the internet, I would suggest that overseeing corporate America always has been a good idea lest they steal all of our money.  The unfortunate thing is Washington no longer is capable of drafting effective legislation much less regulating private businesses.  They have become a Congress of yes men holding their open palms for alms from the bad.  They are bought and paid for.  Cable TV is the prime example that foreign interests are vested in America, and it has crippled the American Dream.  Harking back to one's roots is the only way possible to find one's way in America's dark, violent, self-destructive future.