Ma Bell was the monopolistic institution in America which brought telephones to the nation and ultimately to the world.
Note: 'monopolistic' is the word Republicans use when they talk of fairness but really just want 15% of the action or, ideally, all of it.
As with many good things (i.e. the American Dream), Ma Bell was destroyed during the Reagan administration with the final death blow in 1982 and the disintegration into the current state of Baby Bell telephone chaos in 1984. Once again, that magic Orwellian year ...
It was fashionable to mock Ma Bell and Lili Tomlin got great mileage out of a famous bit in which she showed the telephone operator who always snorted, "We don't care, we don't have to."
That was a an amusing schtick but people forget she's a high-talent comedian and you could just as easily substitute the cable company to do the same schtick today.
Note: neofemmes don't seem to have noticed but 'comedienne' was a word used to differentiate female comedians as, who knows, a lesser breed or some such. Perhaps the word went letters in the air when it became clear no-one is as naturally funny as Lucille Ball.
It was fashionable to hate Ma Bell but one salient point is the system, despite inadequacies, worked across the largest telephone network in the world. Stalin was still conducting purges and pretending to be a boss while this was being built. Euros were still working through the Marshall Plan and America was clearly leading the world in telephone technology.
The general design goal was one day you will be able to direct dial anywhere in the world. At the inception there were still in-state long-distance charges. Those even existed in Rhode Island, the tiniest state in the country. If you fly a kite in Rhode Island, it will end up flying over Massachusetts ... either that or it gets blown to Maine. That's one of the hazards of an ocean view.
Hold that thought of direct-dialing the world as that's one of the most extraordinary things America ever gave the world and you bet your pseudo-patriotic ass that's where the vision arose. That design and the switching mechanisms to do it all started here.
(Ed: not out of flag waving?)
Sit down, Fox Boy. Find something to salute or paint. Ideally, when you find something to salute, paint it. Piss off.
It's tough to tell who was really driving the teardown of AT&T since the scribes I saw were consistently attributing it to the Department of Justice but that doesn't mean much. The operation has all the fetid stink of a Republican hatchet job for the holy cause of the free market but there's nothing to confirm that thinking. Nevertheless, there's little logical sense for Democrats (i.e. traditional sense rather than Clinton Reaganesque Democrats) to take down that system unless Lili Tomlin wanted to change that comedy sketch.
The biggest casualty wasn't AT&T and you have seen since the breakup that was the most estimable component. However, there were two primary casualties and the first was Western Electric which built the most reliable and consistent telephones on the planet. That company became non-profitable without the guaranteed uptake by the Bell System so it went kaput.
By far the biggest casualty was the loss of Bell Labs and this is the outfit which designed the switching systems which permitted the biggest network in the world and laid the foundation for that which exists today.
Apple Computers didn't do it, Ronald Reagan didn't do it and, (heads up, Texas) fucking Joel Osteen didn't do it either. That came from Bell Labs and deregulating the phone company destroyed it, much to America's great loss because there's no possible way to estimate how much the worldwide deployment of telephone systems and direct dialing was slowed by the simplistic and routinely mercenary greed of Republicans.
With your modern telephone, you often have to go outside just to make a call and you have no fucking idea what your cell carrier will charge you for it or if it will even work. Thanks, Ronnie Boy. Yah, and Tim Cook ... so ahead of your time. Pokemon Go is so much the future and the Jetsons, man. Think of it ... a treasure hunt. My God, the vision! The Vision!
All together now. Click your heels together three times and say, "I want to go back home to Kansas."
(Ed: to Kansas? Seriously?)
Well, maybe not Kansas. That's one of those flat Indian grave-digging states for keeping New York and Colorado apart and to prevent Boston from getting too threatened by the Broncos.
We don't like those Indian grave defilers. Nooooo.
What do you know, they're driven by the same mercenary savages who tore up the phone company. Just think of it as devolution in action, Charlie Brown.
Note: 'monopolistic' is the word Republicans use when they talk of fairness but really just want 15% of the action or, ideally, all of it.
As with many good things (i.e. the American Dream), Ma Bell was destroyed during the Reagan administration with the final death blow in 1982 and the disintegration into the current state of Baby Bell telephone chaos in 1984. Once again, that magic Orwellian year ...
It was fashionable to mock Ma Bell and Lili Tomlin got great mileage out of a famous bit in which she showed the telephone operator who always snorted, "We don't care, we don't have to."
That was a an amusing schtick but people forget she's a high-talent comedian and you could just as easily substitute the cable company to do the same schtick today.
Note: neofemmes don't seem to have noticed but 'comedienne' was a word used to differentiate female comedians as, who knows, a lesser breed or some such. Perhaps the word went letters in the air when it became clear no-one is as naturally funny as Lucille Ball.
It was fashionable to hate Ma Bell but one salient point is the system, despite inadequacies, worked across the largest telephone network in the world. Stalin was still conducting purges and pretending to be a boss while this was being built. Euros were still working through the Marshall Plan and America was clearly leading the world in telephone technology.
The general design goal was one day you will be able to direct dial anywhere in the world. At the inception there were still in-state long-distance charges. Those even existed in Rhode Island, the tiniest state in the country. If you fly a kite in Rhode Island, it will end up flying over Massachusetts ... either that or it gets blown to Maine. That's one of the hazards of an ocean view.
Hold that thought of direct-dialing the world as that's one of the most extraordinary things America ever gave the world and you bet your pseudo-patriotic ass that's where the vision arose. That design and the switching mechanisms to do it all started here.
(Ed: not out of flag waving?)
Sit down, Fox Boy. Find something to salute or paint. Ideally, when you find something to salute, paint it. Piss off.
It's tough to tell who was really driving the teardown of AT&T since the scribes I saw were consistently attributing it to the Department of Justice but that doesn't mean much. The operation has all the fetid stink of a Republican hatchet job for the holy cause of the free market but there's nothing to confirm that thinking. Nevertheless, there's little logical sense for Democrats (i.e. traditional sense rather than Clinton Reaganesque Democrats) to take down that system unless Lili Tomlin wanted to change that comedy sketch.
The biggest casualty wasn't AT&T and you have seen since the breakup that was the most estimable component. However, there were two primary casualties and the first was Western Electric which built the most reliable and consistent telephones on the planet. That company became non-profitable without the guaranteed uptake by the Bell System so it went kaput.
By far the biggest casualty was the loss of Bell Labs and this is the outfit which designed the switching systems which permitted the biggest network in the world and laid the foundation for that which exists today.
Apple Computers didn't do it, Ronald Reagan didn't do it and, (heads up, Texas) fucking Joel Osteen didn't do it either. That came from Bell Labs and deregulating the phone company destroyed it, much to America's great loss because there's no possible way to estimate how much the worldwide deployment of telephone systems and direct dialing was slowed by the simplistic and routinely mercenary greed of Republicans.
With your modern telephone, you often have to go outside just to make a call and you have no fucking idea what your cell carrier will charge you for it or if it will even work. Thanks, Ronnie Boy. Yah, and Tim Cook ... so ahead of your time. Pokemon Go is so much the future and the Jetsons, man. Think of it ... a treasure hunt. My God, the vision! The Vision!
All together now. Click your heels together three times and say, "I want to go back home to Kansas."
(Ed: to Kansas? Seriously?)
Well, maybe not Kansas. That's one of those flat Indian grave-digging states for keeping New York and Colorado apart and to prevent Boston from getting too threatened by the Broncos.
We don't like those Indian grave defilers. Nooooo.
What do you know, they're driven by the same mercenary savages who tore up the phone company. Just think of it as devolution in action, Charlie Brown.
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