You are currently browsing the daily archive for September 13, 2009.
A braver man than I. A very interesting comment from a woman in the crowd about 3 and a half minutes in: “You can have it (public option), just don’t make us take it.” I wonder how many of the tea party participants, if properly informed, would support the reform knowing that they don’t have to opt for the government program. How many of the protesters really want to deprive the rest of us of the choice? Call it the fog of rhetorical war.
Addendum: Honk a horn, go to jail.
And here are some excerpts of an interview from someone purporting to be an insurance industry whistle blower.
And Senator Tom Harkin is promising a law with a strong public option by Christmas.
Second addendum: When the question is asked the right way, even Arkansas supports the public option.
Do you favor or oppose creating a government-administered health insurance option that anyone can purchase to compete with private insurance plans? Favor Oppose Not Sure
All 55 38 7
Dem 81 14 5
Rep 22 71 7
Ind 56 34 10
And the support nationally is strong, even when the media mangles the questions.
Taken by Bob Bushnell on September 11.
I’d like to keep the whole complaint on, but as a few posters noted the message itself had contained a “don’t post” note. Apologies to Woods and everyone else. I’m going to discuss the matter with Woods before putting it back up with a summary instead of the complaint itself. In the meantime, I’m leaving here the letter which was posted in the thread.
Published in the Redwood Times
What will it take to restore our phone service?
Redwood Times
Posted: 09/10/2009 07:19:39 AM PDT
To the Editor:
Since the middle of July 2009, dozens of rural residents in the Southern Humboldt community of Ettersburg have had no reliable phone service through Verizon. We can receive calls but if we try to phone out, we are cut off almost immediately. Most of us have filed repair requests with Verizon repeatedly. At first Verizon would not acknowledge that there was a problem until so many of us complained and then they called it an “outage.” The two or three local technicians have been working hard to correct this and have been very honest with us. They say that our phone system is 40 years old and no one makes parts for it anymore so when this problem occurred, Verizon had to “scrounge” for the needed parts which they said would be delivered promptly. It in fact took about 10 days to arrive. According to one of the technicians, only two “cards” arrived and neither worked. As this situation continued, the local techs would call some of us regularly and say they had an idea on how to fix it and had us do a test call out. It always fails. When asked if the local techs are the only people in Verizon working on this problem, they will tell you “yes.”
What we apparently need is a new system and it does not appear that Verizon is willing to make that happen.
To this point, many of us have repeatedly called the Verizon district office, the Verizon state office, the New York City CEO’s (Ivan Seidenberg) office (which they have now started blocking our calls), the California PUC, Congressman Mike Thompson, Humboldt County 2nd Dist. Supervisor Clif Clendenen (who has not returned our emails or calls), and many other Verizon officials. We have done news interviews and still, after 8 weeks, we have no phone service! In fact, those of us that have filed repair requests and have Internet access not through dial up, can check the status of our repair request and often Verizon will have deleted our request and say that the problem is resolved.
It is a miracle that no one has died as a result of not being able to call 911. Here in Humboldt County, this is the height of wildfire season with no way to report an emergency. Most of us are about a 45-minute to 1-hour drive to the nearest town and 1/4 mile to 1 mile to the nearest neighbor, so the importance of a dependable phone line is obvious.
What is it going to take to restore our phone service and avert a tragedy?
Claudia Thompson
Rod Silva
Mark Hilovsky
Dani Walthall
Justin and Spring Cogswell
Dr. James and Lily Macy
Colum and Monica Coyne
Gil Gregori
Robie Tenorio
Jeremy Wallace
Sonny and Melva Wilson
Tanner Speas
and dozens and dozens more
Ettersburg residents
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