Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Why We Lost The Cold War

As a child growing up in the nineteen fifties there were plenty of reminders about the never-ending battle against Soviet Communism.

In and out of the classroom we knew of the value of our democracy, the freedoms we enjoyed as Americans.  We had open and free elections, though blacks could not vote in the South where the poll tax ensured the rule of whites. We could travel across our great country without having to show identification or answering to anyone as to our purpose, so long as there was no probable cause to stop us.

The differences were not limited to democratic values.

The virtues of capitalism were everywhere. In Poland, peasants stood in line for hours for a loaf of bread. In Moscow it took weeks, no months, to have a telephone installed. And the Soviet airline Aeroflot was a joke, United States Airlines Compete With Aeroflot - And Win :

At the height of the Cold War, Americans indulged in self congratulations when comparing our airline industry to the Soviet's Aeroflot. The rickety communist propelled travel provided images of a sweaty, husky commissar boarding an oversold but underfueled airplane, burdened with packages and a bottle of carry-on borscht.

As he worked his way into the seat, storing his chickens in the overhead compartment and his goats under the seat in front of him, he settled in next to an equally husky and sweaty peasant with a crying, soiled child -one  under each arm. If they were lucky, they would arrive at the scheduled destination city, and perhaps within twenty-four hours.

Onward

After the first of the year I was shopping at a big box store. The lines indicated it would take a half hour to check out. I asked the manager why there were so few clerks, "With the holidays over, no help to be had?" The response was frank and honest, "No, after the new year, we were instructed by regional to reduce our staffing to these levels."

My Facebook friends know that I spent over an hour on hold Monday with a life insurance company, a health insurance company, and a telephone company.

It was my fault trying to reach them on the first Monday after the holidays. Of course, I tried reaching them last week to no avail. There are only so many minutes one can waste on a cell phone.

Maybe the free-everything capitalists are right. We need competition. We need competition from the Communists. Then American corporations will start providing service.

Some of my friends probably think that the destruction of our Constitution under the second Bush reign with warrant-less search and seizures is a disaster. They probably think the telephone company turning over their phone records to the government without any legal authority is a travesty.

Screw the Bill of Rights.

The real travesty is the telephone company not answering the phone.

Praise Nordstroms. Praise the local Sundance 608 movie theater. Praise the Nitty Gritty. Praise the local Sentry.

 

 

 

Pilots complain airlines restrict fuel to cut cost - Airlines Say Pilots Lie

From the AP: Pilots complain airlines restrict fuel to cut cost

WASHINGTON - Pilots are complaining that their airline bosses, desperate to cut costs, are forcing them to fly uncomfortably low on fuel.

You heard it here first: 

United Airlines Fuel-less Skies (June 23, 2008)

Friday was a first. We departed a bit late but the flight was managed well when we boarded and things progressed nicely as we headed west.  Then, unexpectedly, the pilot announced that our non-stop flight was going to put down in Denver for a thirty minute fueling.

Otherwise, we would not make our destination.

In these pricey times, while the airlines are unforgiving to passengers who need to rebook a flight, have two suitcases to check, or forget to keep their mileage account current, the carriers haul as little fuel as possible to reduce weight and save money.

Someone miscalculated and we did not have enough fuel. No rebates, no coupons, no extra miles were offered.  All we got was the official  apology from the pilot who pointed out that "It is better to be on the ground and wishing you were in the air than being in the air and wishing you were on the ground."

United Airlines Fuel-less Skies II (June 27, 2008)

United is two for two this past week with my flights. Heading west we had to make a stop in Denver since we were running out of fuel, United Airlines Fuel-less Skies. That was Friday.

On Wednesday I was scheduled to fly into Denver. Wind sheer caused us to circle and then the pilot announced we were to head to Fort Collins since we were running out of fuel. That is a twenty minute flight. We refueled for forty minutes, took off and twenty minutes later landed in Denver.

In the AP story the airlines prove they are full of it:

American and US Airways blame the complaints on heated labor negotiations — both are in contract talks with the complaining unions.

"It's not a safety issue; it's a contract issue," said John Hotard, a spokesman for American.

I have been there. If either of my flights had run into major weather problems, there might not have been enough fuel to make a safe landing without declaring a fuel emergency.

Milwaukee County Worse Than Private Contractor in Records Row

While the furor continues over a private contractor releasing social security numbers while working for Wisconsin, it seem that Milwaukee County has managed to give great comfort to those who claim government performs worse than the private sector.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Records released in error , county officials provided confidential records that:

...detail payments for tests and other costs linked to mental competency, paternity and guardianship cases...

While the release of social security numbers can plague a citizen for some time, the damage can be rectified. There are mechanisms for the federal government, the credit rating agencies, the financial services community, and the wronged individual to undo the damage.

For the individual or family, inadvertently outed by the release of records of everything from psychiatric to medical examinations, there is no way of reversing the damage. As noted in the article:

Clerk of Circuit Court John Barrett said he was thunderstruck...

..."I was dumbfounded by the breadth of information they gave out that was confidential," he said. Doing so violated the trust placed in the county to protect vulnerable individuals, he said...

To date those clamoring for heads to roll in state government  are not focusing on Milwaukee County and its executive.

AT&T's U-verse in Wauwatosa: "Fire to the Node"

Maybe somehow you missed the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's story last week by Rick Barrett:  "AT&T Replacing Batteries - Device Blamed in U-verse Equipment Cabinet Blast in Tosa."

You probably didn't see the pictures from the 'Tosa Fire Department in telecom blog LightReading, but you should. Here are a couple:

 
Even Wigderson got in the act: "Cable Competition Could be Deadly."

But the best line came from Jeffrey Hevey, the Wauwatosa fire marshal:

"It's not like these things are blowing up left and right every day," he said. "Would I want to set up my granddaughter's play set next to one of these cabinets? Probably not. But if I were mowing the lawn, I wouldn't be looking over my shoulder, worried that the thing is going to blow up."

But Christmas Eve, when you're not mowing the lawn? Not to worry. AT&T told us last year, when these were exploding in Texas, that its testing showed the problem was a manufacturing defect and an isolated event, and the batteries were safe and stable.

Or maybe not.

 

-Barry Orton

Media Covers "Video Competition" Bill Signing and Partial Vetoes Despite Timing Designed To Bury Story

If you are Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, and you must sign a bad bill pushed heavily by one of your biggest financial supporters, and you've line-item vetoed some of the bill's worst provisions, which contained language that its legislative proponents specifically voted in both chambers not to amend, what do you do?

How about skipping a public signing ceremony, and releasing the veto message on, say, the Friday afternoon before Christmas, while doing a "feed the hungry" event at Second Harvest? That way, the story misses most television news on Friday, which had already overstuffed its audience with the "NFL Network and Big Ten Network at the Legislature" story the day before. The signing and vetoes story then lands in Saturday's newspapers, and sits largely unread as Wisconsin frantically shops itself into a stupor over the weekend in preparation for Tuesday's Holiday To Save the American Economy, formerly known as Christmas.

So Friday afternoon, my phone heated up with interviews from the working press trying to scope out What It Means, file a coherent story, and go home by dinnertime. Having read the veto message and the text of the actual vetoes, I was ready. This morning I was able to find out what it was I said to each reporter.

Despite the Governor's effort to bury it, the story ran page one above the fold in the Capital Times and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and page one in the local section of the State Journal.

As usual in this story, The Capital Times' coverage was solid.  Jeff Richgels and Judith Davidoff ("Prof: Don't hold breath for new services under state cable law") led with my prediction that:

Gov. Jim Doyle's signing of the state cable franchising bill isn't likely to mean AT&T -- a leading backer of the bill -- will bring its U-verse TV service to the Madison area anytime soon, one prominent observer said.

"I don't see it in Madison in any widespread way in 2008," said Barry Orton, a UW-Madison professor of telecommunications who has advised many communities in their dealings with cable companies.

Orton noted that AT&T has been reducing its rollout projections for U-verse in recent announcements.

"Every single estimate cuts back on the previous one," he said.

Richgels and Davidoff also nailed, in plain language, what Doyle's vetoes did and the likely impact on local access channels.

Mark Pitsch's Wisconsin State Journal story also did a very good job in outlining the vetoes, and covered the access angle as well.  I was happy with my quotes, which Mark used to frame the story:

Doyle 's vetoes hold the potential for substantial state oversight of the industry -- whereas the bill the Legislature sent to his desk sought to eliminate state regulation.

"The state will be a legitimate overseer of this industry rather than a rubber stamp to whatever the industry wants to do, " said Barry Orton, a UW-Madison telecommunications professor who urged Doyle to issue the vetoes on behalf of local governments and some lawmakers who opposed the bill.

"It means the cable companies and other providers won't be able to run roughshod over consumers. "

..."He's made a ridiculous bill only pretty bad, and that's good, " Orton said of Doyle.

Over at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Steve Walters and Stacy Forster managed to cram in a list of all the vetoes, cover the impact on access channels,  add my framing ("Barry Orton, a University of Wisconsin-Madison telecommunications professor and consultant to local governments, called Doyle's vetoes courageous."), and then advanced the story by quoting Senator Jeff Plale, a chief sponsor, that there wouldn't be any attempt to override the vetoes.

Walters and Foster also skillfully managed to put the whole bill in context while quoting one of its most effective opponents, Rep. Gary Hebl, and its most effective shill, Thad Nation of TV4US:

Legislators who fought the bill said Doyle's vetoes improved it but predicted that rural areas will not be helped by competition and new telecommunications products.

"People in many areas of the state won't see any competition . . . because companies such as AT&T have no plans to provide service beyond their existing service footprint, which covers less than half of the state," Rep. Gary Hebl (D-Sun Prairie) said in a statement.

Thad Nation, executive director of TV4US Wisconsin, which ran hundreds of TV ads statewide pushing the bill, predicted that "prices will fall, services will improve and companies will have incentives and bring consumers new, exciting technologies."

TV4US reported $44 million in contributions in 2006 - including $43.9 million from one contributor it refused to identify on its Internal Revenue Service disclosure report.

A "small percentage" of that money was spent in Wisconsin in 2006, said Lizanne Sadlier, a TV4US official.

Sadlier said AT&T was a "significant contributor" to TV4US in 2006.

So maybe millions in advertising from "grassroots" TV4US had some impact on this process?  Could be.

- Barry Orton

(with apologies for lengthy and self-centered post)

Wisconsin Governor Signs "Video Competition" Bill: Partial Vetoes Put Lipstick, Mascara & Rouge on Pig

Without ceremony, Governor Jim Doyle signed AB 207 into law today, using his partial veto power to mitigate some of the worst aspects of the bill. 

The Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) was given significant powers the original bill restricted: rulemaking, setting the franchise term, state fees, applicant qualifications and revocation standards. So instead of being a rubber stamp, DFI will have some real oversight capability.

The cities didn't fare as well.  The Governor's veto message bragged that he restored municipalities' power to charge permit fees for use of public rights-of-way, but failed to mention that he didn't veto a provision that such fees could be deducted from other fees due the cities. He vetoed a bad limit on auditing fees, but also inexplicably vetoed a good provision added in the Senate that allowed municipal control of the aesthetics of facilities placed in the rights-of-way. So, in all, not much help.

Public, educational and governmental (PEG) access channels didn't get whole lot of help either.  The word "noncommercial" was vetoed, theoretically allowing them "the ability to air revenue-generating commercial programming," but the veto provides no specific help on funding cuts, technical signal quality or channel location.  Expressing concern and urging the Legislature to deal with the issues PEG channels present in follow-up legislation gives new meaning to the phrase "lip service."

AT&T is delighted by the signing, and seemingly unconcerned with the vetoes.

More reactions in the media tomorrow...stay tuned.

- Barry Orton

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: AT&T Accused of "Cherry Picking"

Today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has it on p.1, top of the fold, but the online  p.1 headline and lede is more pointed than the actual story headline.

Online: AT&T Accused of "Cherry Picking"

AT&T in Milwaukee is being questioned about "cherry picking" areas where it wants to offer its new U-verse service, with little access in low-income areas.

Newspaper: AT&T U-verse Access Debated

City's low-income areas often lack cable alternative.

Rick Barrett and Ben Poston took the locations of AT&T's U-verse boxes and plotted them on a Milwaukee map of census tracts split out by income.  The result?  There will be 240 of AT&T's "service cabinets" in all; only 15 of them are in census tracts with median income of less than $24,130, which is the federal poverty threshold level for a family of five.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett says he's worried that AT&T will exclude some parts of the city from U-verse.

"I don't want to see a service map with a huge doughnut hole in it," he said.

That's what the map in the Journal Sentinel has on the North Side of Milwaukee, with several other
holes elsewhere in the city.

Critics and cable companies say AT&T has targeted more affluent, more densely populated areas. That's in contrast with cable companies that have been required to build their networks broadly, including low-income neighborhoods.

"The reality is that block by block, with no recourse or explanation, AT&T will decide who gets this wired video service," said Barry Orton, a telecommunications professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and a paid cable-television consultant to municipalities.

Not offering the service to neighborhoods based on income or race would be illegal.

But consumer protection in the Assembly bill has "so many loopholes built into it, that it makes Swiss cheese look solid," Orton added.

State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout (D-Alma) said she's worried that the proposed cable bill gives AT&T a defense for redlining because the company would have to meet only minimum service requirements for low-income neighborhoods.

After that, she said, the company could ignore service areas it doesn't think are profitable.

Exactly.

The Wisconsin Assembly is scheduled to approve the "video competition" bill today.  This story should not significantly change their vote.  The Governor may see the bill somewhat differently now, although he is expected to sign it.

- Barry Orton

Rural Electrification, Town Roads, Grandma's Telephone, and the Packers on Cable TV

It was not Milton Friedman's free market capitalism that brought electricity to rural Wisconsin and America. It was not Ronald Reagan's dismissal of government regulation that paved roads from the farm to town. It was not some silly Neocon view of the world that installed a telephone in Grandma's living room in some poor neighborhood of Milwaukee.

All of those changes were the result of government interference in the market place through regulation, taxation, and the redistribution of both public and private resources.

After the 1936 passage of the Rural Electrification Act, bureaucrats worked to assist electric utilities to wire rural America with low-interest loans and technical assistance. Congress decided that the social value of rural electrification would mean progress for farmers and their families. It was not some invisible hand that lead to the mechanization of American agriculture.

State legislatures and county boards voted to build paved roads to small towns and farms. That was a redistribution of tax dollars, mostly coming from wealthy city folks. Some of it was self interest, some of it not. After all, getting goods to market, through these public subsidies benefited the producer and the consumer.

Eighty years ago the telephone was a luxury. Yet state legislatures and their regulatory public service commissions made it clear to AT&T that if the behemoth wished to wire wealthy neighborhoods, they would have to provide service to the poor ones as well.

In every instance there were policy makers and consumers who along with the industry, weighed the costs and benefits of the regulations.  We did pretty well.

Now comes football and cable television. The political leaders, the policymakers, and the industry heavyweights are all on the playing field.  No one is looking out for the consumer.

As for public education, fuhgeddaboutit.

Wisconsin State Journal: "Cable Bill May Not be Boon to Consumers." Capital Times: "So What Else Is New?"

Last Sunday's Wisconsin State Journal ran a p.1 story on the "video competition" bill with the headline "Cable Bill May Not Be Boon To Consumers."

"I wouldn 't be holding my breath to see another wired competitor in Madison in less than two years, " said Barry Orton, a UW-Madison telecommunications professor and an opponent of the bill.

AT&T now offers its U-verse television services in parts of Racine and Milwaukee. But if the company decides to offer service in Madison or elsewhere, it won 't make a big announcement, AT&T spokesman Jeff Bentoff said. Rather, it will contact consumers individually through direct mail and door-to-door visits.

"When it 's available, we 'll let them know, " Bentoff said.

That approach suggests a desire to select the neighborhoods in which to offer service, Orton said, unlike typical cable agreements with local governments that require broad-based service.

"That 's what this bill is fundamentally about -- the ability to cherry-pick neighborhoods, " Orton said.

As to the headline, Vikki Kratz wrote in Isthmus, referring to the fact that the bill already passed both chambers of the legislature:

Now they tell us.

The Capital Times, on the other hand, has been all over this story both from the news and editorial sides.  Dave Zweifel reacted to the story Friday:

On Sunday the State Journal ran a front page story that suggested the new "cable reform" legislation might not save consumers money after all.

So what else is new?

The story confirmed what opponents of the legislation had been repeatedly saying as loudly as they could for months and months while AT&T and others filled campaign coffers in the state Legislature.

It's what we said in numerous editorials leading up to the final vote in the state Senate earlier this month and what several in-depth reports by our reporter Judith Davidoff revealed several weeks ago. Not only is this new law unlikely to save cable TV customers any money, it severely weakens the consumer safeguards that have been in place in Wisconsin since cable TV arrived on the scene.

- Barry Orton

 

 

"Video Competition" BIll's Supporters Coincidentally Get AT&T's Largest Contributions

The Capital Times editorial yesterday phrased it right:

The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign has come up with an especially telling -- and especially troubling -- illustration of the primary explanation for the endorsement by the state Senate of a rewrite of cable television regulations that harms consumers and communities while benefitting out-of-state telecommunications corporations.

The 23 senators who voted in favor of the legislation accepted a total of $1.2 million in campaign contributions from special interests that support the proposal, according to the Democracy Campaign.

In contrast, the nine senators who opposed the bill had accepted less than $100,000 in total contributions from the special interests.

Reduced to raw numbers: The average senator who supported the controversial measure -- which was crafted to benefit its chief proponent, AT&T -- collected $52,297 from interests associated with AT&T and its allies.

The average senator who opposed the bill had contributions from the same interests of around $11,000.

...Politicians always claim that patterns of contributions and votes are mere coincidences.

But these patterns are too consistent to be dismissed as mere coincidence.

Today's Cap Times has a story by Judy Davidoff that several legislators are drafting a bill to stop the kind of misrepresentation that TV4US used to push the "video competition" bill:

Rep. Joe Parisi is not giving up.

The Madison Democrat is still incensed that the group pushing for cable deregulation misrepresented his position on the bill, and he wants to put a stop to the practice.

Parisi and Rep. Sondy Pope-Roberts, D-Middleton -- who also opposed the cable bill but was categorized as a supporter in documents submitted by TV4US to state lawmakers -- started seeking co-sponsors Wednesday on legislation that would prohibit special-interest groups from misrepresenting constituents' views to lawmakers.

Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, will also introduce a Senate version of the bill.

The legislation, according to an analysis by the Legislative Reference Bureau, would require anyone submitting a communication to lawmakers with the names of constituents to first obtain "a written or electronic document which proves that the named constituent has taken a position in support of or in opposition to the proposal identified in the communication."

"The onus would be on the interest group to have some kind of documentation," Parisi said in an interview.

Meanwhile, Emily Mills at Dane101 tried to pin Senator Russ Decker down as whether or not the "video competition" bill was his priority, and apparently struck a nerve.  A very defensive comment from a "sallyjones" reads very much like it came from Barb Worcester, a senior staffer of Decker's and Chuck Chvala's wife:

Russ Decker never said it was a priority. John Nichols never interviewed him on the topic and has no quote to from Decker saying it is a priority. Go ahead and ask him. Decker was asked if we would schedule the bill everyone took that to mean it was a priority. This bill has been out there for months and the only reason people had some to build support for amendments to make it better is because Decker insisted it go to the Joint Finance Committee. Sen. Robson and others wanted the bill passed in the spring and there are direct quotes for that.

He also didn't put in the liquor provision. Some folks upset about the change in leadership are spreading rumors that just aren't true.

And as a woman I'm a little disappointed that other women would count a woman working in Decker's office as being in "cahoots." Have a little more respect for your own gender than letting people talk you into believing that a professional woman still gets her orders from her husband on what to do. (bold emphasis Waxing America's)

Talk about protesting a bit too much. This debacle never ends...

- Barry Orton