I sure miss Ma Bell...

Photo Creative Commons 2009 The Fuddler.
Non-comm, attrib, no derivs.

Last week, I found an mid-1970's-vintage desk telephone. It was sitting out at the curb next to boxes of trash, and an old steel record caddy full of 45 RPM records (which I also glommed). Needless to say, it needed cleaning, and I did a thorough job (didn't the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy remind us of the importance of telephone sanitation?). I lightly spritzed some contact cleaner into the phone's base cord and handset cord jacks as well as the modular jack on the receiver. Half an hour and a new base cord later, I was ready to test it. I connected the base cord to the phone, then plugged it into the wall jack. I picked up the receiver and heard the dial tone. Good sign. I called up a friend, who was kind of blown away by the fact that I was calling her on a 31-year-old phone!

As you can see from the photo, this relic of the disco era has no controls other than its keypad. No redial, no mute, no LCD screen counting off the number of minutes I've been talking, just the numbers 0 thru 9 and the usual star and pound signs. How lovely it feels to press those keys which give when you press them, so luxurious compared to dialing the keys of modern phones, which make you feel as though you were stabbing your fingertips into the wall or the desk on which the phone rests. It's solid too. Your cat will not be able to knock this baby off the table, unless your cat's an ocelot or a leopard. When it rings, there's no missing or mistaking it, for under that sleek black plastic enclosure reside two 2-inch-diameter bowl-shaped brass bells. Not a ringer, not a ringtone, bells, which are struck by a vibrating electric hammer when someone calls. They're loud too!

The phone's receiver is primitive by today's standards. The technology of its carbon-button microphone capsule and dynamic earphone is almost a century old. Yet, people that I called had no problem hearing and understanding me. I heard them loud and clear too, even the ones using cell phones with speakerphones. What does that say about today's high-tech digital cell phone system over which some conversations simply cannot be heard clearly, period?

This simple, cleanly-designed, almost-indestructible device from a bygone era was the industry standard for telephones until the breakup of the old Bell System in 1984. It was purpose-built for just one thing – making and answering telephone calls, something which it did without fail. No touch-screen, no camera, no MP3 player, no video games, nothing but an unfailingly dependable communication device. These phones were built to be rented to subscribers for decades, and their build-quality shows it (if General Motors, Ford and Chrysler had borrowed The Bell System's playbook, seeing a Toyota, Subaru or BMW's on the road would be a curiosity rather than commonplace). Compare that with the pocket-sized toys of today which are designed to be obsoleted in a few years by newer models with more gee-whiz features and ever-more-annoying ringtones.

Call me a Luddite if you want, but I'm starting to take a shine to this piece of old school technology! I might never break out my cell phone again!

What's a human life going for these days?

Photo Creative Commons by Connectologist.

If there was ever any doubt in your mind that American corporations regard their customers as the enemy, you now have indisputable proof.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court (the conservative-agenda-promotion machine carefully assembled by presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush I and George W. Bush) rendered a decision which emphatically calls into question whether these United States are still a civilized nation. They ruled that consumers of medical devices – implantable defibrillators, heart pacemakers, insulin pumps and such – do not have the right to take the manufacturers to court if a product of theirs turns out to be defective as long as it has been approved by the Food and Drug administration. In other words, if a can of vichyssoise gives you food poisoning because the manufacturer slacked off on sanitary procedures, you can sue (at least as far as I know). But when the insulin pump that's keeping you alive craps out because its maker laid off half its quality-control staff, your next of kin are out of luck.

The threat of legal action was and is the only thing that will keep the highly-monied producers of these implantable devices from endangering life and limb by going slack on quality-control or even knowingly selling defective items just to get them out of the warehouse.

In short, the high court has taken the cop off the beat.

Now if grandpa dies because his pacemaker failed due to the manufacturer's negligence, the manufacturer can just say “Nyaah, nyaah. Caveat emptor!”

The corporations whose limitless campaign contributions got Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes elected got exactly what they paid for. These radical-right presidents, over many years, carefully selected justices for the nation's highest court, right-wing activists who, they hoped, would consistently rule in favor of corporations, televangelists, right-wing think-tanks and the finance industry. The court, which certain entities are still counting on to “protect the rights of the unborn” has now officially negated the rights of the already-living.

Industries knowingly selling products which threaten life, limb and property is nothing new. “The public be damned” was the reply Henry Ford gave to someone who suggested that it would be prudent to install safety glass in his automobiles rather than ordinary plate glass which shatters into deadly, razor-like fragments when it breaks as in a collision. His sentiments are the creed by which every corporate CEO has run their companies ever since. In the mid-1970's, when it turned out that the now-notorious Ford Pinto line of compact cars had a defect which would cause them to burst into flames when hit from behind, an investigation revealed that Ford Motor Company had no intention of correcting the defect or ordering a product recall. Their representatives lied to congressional committees regarding the safety of the vehicles.

That's “business ethics” for you.

Congress is currently taking up legislation which if passed would undo the effects of this execrable decision. And predictably, the multinationals which make and sell medical devices are funneling money to the appropriate members of congress. They declare, via slickly-produced advertisements and crocodile-teared testimony from hand-picked witnesses or deluded consumers before congressional committees that accountability threatens innovation, that there will be no more development of new medical devices if these oh-so-benevolent medical-device companies are subject to the same tort liabilities as a homeowner who doesn't keep his pet pit-bull caged or leashed. Bushwa. There's money to be made selling medical devices, big money as anyone who has paid for them out-of-pocket knows too well. Too much money for any company to not stay ahead of the curve and cash in on the action.

Call your senators and members of congress right now. (You can find who to contact in your area by clicking the hyperlinks). Let them know in no uncertain terms that your life and those of your friends and relatives is more important than an overfed executive's ego or his company's bottom line.

Great Moments in Advertising (second in a series)

During the years of the “sexual revolution”, the exploitation of sexuality for commercial ends went super-critical. From myriad permutations of the word “intercourse” (for instance, a radio program from that period called “Interchords”) to full-page ads in magazines for a certain brand of blue jeans, which showed only an attractive young woman riding a bicycle, in the buff (not showing the product in the ad? What were they thinking?), things went from mildly amusing to absurd faster than a space shuttle blasting off for the Van Allen Belt.

The proprietors of the electronic emporium being advertised here obviously had no use for subtlety, preferring instead to go as close to the line as they possibly could without landing in court for “obscenity”, no small matter back in those days. The “feet” motif shown in this illustration continues to adorn things like aftermarket auto convertible-tops to this very day.

(Click illustration to enlarge).