I knew it. Don't ask me how - I wouldn't tell you anyway, even if I knew how I knew. I just knew. And, even though fyrefly and prolly a host of others whom I haven't had time to read or read and fail to recall now (say sorry - I love you all) said it both better and before me, I just had to add my cents-less-ness to the discussion.
I got hosed. And, the sad part is, the hosing took place by the only politician - in my 45 years on this, god's green footstool - I ever believed in. Let's be the quick brown fox, jump over the lazy dog and I'll tell y'all about it all (even if the nuns come after me - again).
Bye the bye, I gotta get this out quick before the bartender: 1) Stops serving me and kicks my ragged ass to the curb; or 2) Swipes my I/P (Hat Tip to Lieber and the rest of the kidz in the DKos Shipping Department for restocking the supply of P's, I's and /'s) as I have been babbling to her all afternoon about what I have to say here.
See, way back when, in like, 2006 Congress passed a lawwhich, if you and I are naive enough to believe the obviously misleading title, sought to reduce the deficit of 2005. That's cool. I can get behind deficit reduction. Especially at the the time.
Nestled into PL 109-171 we had this nefarious little gem, which basically said (to spare you the trouble of reading Congressionalese) that as of 02/17/09 all broadcast television transmissions must take place digitally and that the government (sorry, Government) would subsidize we poor, luddite souls who lacked the good sense to purchase television sets with digital capability before the law was passed, in converting our decrepit boxes into vehicles for the 21st century.™
My friend The Libertarian Menace* (recently upgraded from The NeoCon Fascist**) explained the rationale for the law to me thusly:
"Listen you bourbon soaked, pacifist, pansy. We, and by we I mean you, need those analogue bandwidths or whatever they are as a means of sending secret coded messages to our operatives so that we can continue to bankrupt economies - including our own - and bomb anybody who has a different religion, society, or skin color than us back into the Stone Age!"
*Not him
**Not him
It might have been the bourbon, but I had to kinda of agree with him on that. And, even though I had thought that the rationale behind the law was (yeah, besides reducing the deficit) to free up some space in the over-crowded ether so you, me and every other Tom, Dick and Mary can continue to enjoy our handheld devices and intertube ready toyz, I decided one of us (prolly him) was in no fit state for high-brow discussion and let the subject - as well as several hard-earned dollars - drop.
Pondering it later that evening, I expanded my thinking on the rationale and considered that Congress passed the law simply to annoy me. After all, they have done it several times before. Alternatively, I relished the notion that Congress did this in order to punish people like me and my small, but extremely non-vocal constituency who have the audacity to hope that we can catch the latest episode of "Dancing With the Stars" or "Howdie Do It" by using a wire coat hanger as an aerial.
Now.
While I rarely miss an episode of "Star Trek" or "Stargate Atlantis" on the local "oldies station" (shameless plug fellow Chicagoans), I am not, personally a big fan of TeeVee. In fact, I consider the medium as a whole a vast, vapid intellectual wasteland, sadly devoid of nudity. But the bartender and me needed something to hook the DVD player up to and since we found out the hard way that it just would not plug into the coffee maker, I dug out the TVset my ex-wife graciously let me keep (along with my socks and underwear) after our divorce back when the Earth's crust was still cooling.
Needless to say, I was quite shocked when the local "news" ran, as a "public" service, a test transmission in DTV and the screen went blank.
"WTF is going on?" I said. "Did we forget to pay the electric bill again?"
"No, honey, your dumbfucktitude is showing (don'cha juz love it when an insult is wrapped in a term of endearment?). They are showing us what our picture will look like after they all start transmitting digitally." replied the bartender. "Don't you remember The Libertarian Menace explaining it to you that night atthe bar?" (another shameless plug, my friends).
"Was I drinking?"
"Yes."
"Then, no."
See, supra.
"Oh."
So, being a "good American" I braved the Black Friday crowds at Walmart and did my duty (consumed), parting with even more of my hard earned dollars to purchase myself a digital ready flat-screen TV and I fully intend to take it out of the box, plug it in and turn it on sometime in mid-February if for no other reason than to see whether the superior image quality of DTV enables me to discern Captain Kirk's toupee line.
Then I saw this. It seems my President-Elect wants to delay, that's right delay, the conversion to digital transmission. You see, it seems that after giving away gajillions of dollars to Wall Street rapists, the government (sorry Government) finds itself a little bereft of funds:
"In a letter to key lawmakers, Obama transition team cochair John Podesta said the digital transition needs to be delayed largely because the Commerce Department has run out of money for coupons to subsidize digital TV converter boxes for consumers. People who don't have cable or satellite service or a new TV with a digital tuner will need the converter boxes to keep their older analog sets working."
Emphasis mine
I mean this is a guy who I knocked on doors for, made phone calls (man those 900 numbers are pricey) for, and made cash donations somewhere in the vicinity of the GDP of, say Bolivia, to, in an effort to get this effete, latte-sipping, arugula chomping, OJ drinking, yada - yada - yada, elitist elected only to have him hose me in the end by delaying a conversion that will minimally increase my happiness, security and civil rights, while allowing the TelComs to continue fighting free WhyFy access.
I have watched and listened and read with growing consternation as my President-Elect (because he is mine) has back-tracked on every promise, vow, obligation he ever made to me (and, yes, he was speaking just for me). Fersure, we all know this guy didn't run for President to represent America or Americans; he didn't run to restore this nation's standing as a land of possibility, opportunity and promise and he certainly didn't run to force a more humane, dare I say, progressive agenda down the throats of those who seek only to enrich the status quo: he ran to represent me and only me. All those speeches, all those pretty, pretty words, they weren't for you or the some odd 303 million other Americans, they were for me.
So when MY President-Elect hoses me, I dash straight to my keyboard (usually found under the couch) and let you all know because I will not have MY President-Elect betray MY interests just because he is concerned with addressing the needs of 303 million or so other folks - many of whom have it a helluva lot worse than I do - and needs as political reality the support of a broad spectrum of interests to get things done for us all.
As an after thought...
Wouldn't it be great if Congress would subsidize us for a converter box that could magically transform many of our elected officials into, real-world versions of oh, I don't know, sentient life forms?