![\"bubbles\"](\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/bubbles.gif\")
<\/p> <\/p>\n Chaos Manor View, Sunday, September 4, 2016<\/p>\n
Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for the West as it commits suicide.<\/p>\n
James Burnham<\/p>\n
If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war.<\/p>\n
Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983<\/p>\n
Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.<\/p>\n
<\/p> <\/p>\n
<\/p> \n
I\u2019ve actually been getting some work done, but I\u2019ve also been engaged in monkey motion because of the new ATT&T system. It didn\u2019t help that I seem to brought back about seven different varieties of common cold or mild influenza from Kansas City. I\u2019ve pretty well shaken them off \u2013 I no longer have that ache all over feeling \u2013 but I admit to doing a lot of funking out and reading old Nero Wolfe stories.<\/p>\n
My problem with AT&T can be stated in a few words: on my cell phones the service fades in and out over time, from never more that three dots, generally only one, and all too frequently zero, which still sometimes permits a call, or worse it says on my iPhone, \u201cno service\u201d, and really means it. My wife\u2019s old fashioned flip phone has the same kind of service \u2013 erratic fading to zero \u2013 but her phone doesn\u2019t give her information. It just works or it doesn\u2019t, and all too frequently, it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
This bad wireless service has been a problem for decades, and I dealt with it by buying a mini-tower from AT&T; that worked like a charm for years, but then it stopped working, and I\u2019ve lost all record of how to use it. This problem I can solve: I just take the Mini-tower to an AT&T Store and tell them to make it work, and if they can\u2019t, I buy another. It will shoot a morning, but it can be done.<\/p>\n
Because cellphone or wireless service is so erratic in this part of Studio City, I have always had a landline. At one point I actually had five of them, including a kind if primitive high speed digital preview of ISDN which I used for broadcast radio back in the days before the Internet. I couldn\u2019t get actual ISDN. We are three hundred feet beyond the distance allowed to the switch.<\/p>\n
But the landline always worked. Back before they got clever and broke up the old AT&T, the two things you could count on from the SAT&T Regulated Public Utility: arrogance for the clerical staff, and dial tone. If you ever lost dial tone, it was likely that all your neighbors had as well. If it was only you and you could use a neighbor\u2019s phone to report it, you were never more than one day without dial tone, and more usually only an hour or two would go by before an AT&T truck pulled op in front of your house and a very competent technician fixed the problem, generally without cost. AT&T might be hated for its attitude, but by gum they got you dial tone.<\/p>\n
They broke up AT&T, but the parts kept merging, and eventually someone put enough of them together to be able to call itself AT&T. Of course it no longer had or supported Bell Labs, AKA the Basic Research Institution for the human race, but that\u2019s not all it had lost: Gone, too, was the basic mission of \u201cwe always give you dial tone.\u201d There are a few of the old AT&T people who remember that era, but most have died out; and their replacements apparently don\u2019t care.<\/p>\n
In my case, my problem is that I have no dial tone, and I have no way of getting AT&T to acknowledge they know that. I go on line and it tells me, if I have no dial tone, disconnect everything and wait five minutes \u201cto let the line clear.\u201d Did that. Another tells me to go to the box outside and connect a working telephone and listen for dial tone. The Phone Company put a big cable tie around that box so I cannot open it.<\/p>\n
I need help. I tried 611 calling on my cell phone. So has my wife. The result is invariant. I get a person who tells me my cell phone is fine. I say I want to report a landline without dial tone. Considerable conversation about who I am and what number I want to report takes place. Eventually this person, probably in Bombay, says she can\u2019t do anything but she\u2019ll connect me to someone who can, please hold. Then nothing no matter how long I wait. Now it may be that the cell phone irregularity has something to do with this, but it happens every time. Every dadgummed time.<\/p>\n
If anyone knows a way to report NO DIAL TONE to AT&T, please let me know. I thought of going to the AT&T store on Ventura, but Roberta called them and they said there is no one they can notify. I saw an AT&T Service truck as we were on the way to church this morning, but we were late and I didn\u2019t see it on the way home after we left church for breakfast. Come Tuesday, I may just go out and hunt one down. Or go to the AT&T store and sit there with a sign saying NO DIAL TONE or something similar.<\/p>\n
If any AT&T execs read this, I have NO DIAL TONE on an AT&T landline. Attempts to dial the number produce the illusion of ringing to the caller, but my phones never ring. If I answer while it is \u201cringing\u201d to the caller, I hear a sort of buzzing noise in the phone I answer with. After 20 rings I hear a robot tell the cell phone that the number you are calling is unavailable. I cannot test the NIB because the AT&T tech put a cable tie around the outside box; and how would I know if the test phone I was trying it with works anyway?<\/p>\n
I HAVE NO DIAL TONE. I cannot find a way to report that.<\/p>\n
<\/p> \n
Aside from the AT&T nonsense, and recovering from seven kinds of flu, I am getting back on track. Thursday was entirely devoured by locusts, including a no charge visit by reliable Mike Diamond to root out the sewer pipe which was causing my toilets to overflow. Distracting. Friday the flu got me. Friday and Saturday were used in vain and frustrating attempts to report the landline had no dial tone. It\u2019s now Sunday afternoon and Labor Day is tomorrow.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a great deal of mail, some important, and I need to do an essay on the essence of America and The Melting Pot.<\/p>\n
<\/p> \n
![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/image_thumb.png\" "\\"image\\"")
<\/a> <\/td>\n![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/image_thumb-1.png\" "\\"image\\"")
<\/a> <\/td>\n