Balsamea Aranyaka

          I have kicked the television habit.  Both TVs have been permanently removed from the household, never to return (donated to a non-profit thrift shop).  As much as I may occasionally miss PBS and C-SPAN, which I greatly enjoyed and learned from, and which were the only reason I had cable service, I think I will be better off without that kind of passive entertainment and education.

          For a while, I may miss Bill Moyers, Charlie Rose, Tavis Smiley, The News Hour, etc.  But there’s plenty of good reading available to replace their TV shows.

          The only radio I listen to is public radio.  I can’t stand radio commercials, and I don’t like songs getting piped into my head unconsciously (I don’t like it in stores, either — never felt good about other people choosing what gets fed into my mind beyond my control).  With public radio, I won’t have any shortage of news, commentary, competent criticism and cultural programs.  I get three public radio stations offering a broad variety of programming 24 hours per day.

          I have a nice little collection of music CDs and tapes, which may now get better use.

          I subscribe to one magazine now, the NY State Conservationist … which has no advertising, and is a great nature education resource for only $10 per year.  I just now ordered subscriptions to Utne Reader and The Sun magazines.  These, in addition to books, will be more than enough reading for one person each month.

          Beyond that, I turn to Mother Nature and hobbies for entertainment, inspiration and education.  When my cable TV service (also my broadband Internet connection) is terminated in a few days, my Internet usage will become infrequent, but it is available for research and some other things it serves well.  There will not be a computer running full-time in my home.  Internet access will be something I have to get from a library, friend’s house, or go somewhere that has a live WiFi connection I can use with a laptop.

          I’m confident that my life will not suffer for lack of television and full-time access to the Internet.  I may even grow a little more human, and grow more imaginative, more creative, less passive, and have more time to do other things better for mind and body.

          I may even write more interesting blog posts.

- The Balsamean
P.S.:  Some related information:

“Center for SCREEN-TIME Awareness provides information so people can live healthier lives in functional families in vibrant communities by taking control of the electronic media in their lives, not allowing it to control them.”

Quoted by Screentime.org from AARP: January & February 2008 Magazine:
“To wake up refreshed tomorrow, scale back on screentime tonight.  In an Osaka, Japan, study, people who watched TV or used a computer more than three hours per evening were more likely than others to report insufficient sleep-even though their actual sleep duration was only 12 minutes less, on average.  Electronic media may increase your need for sleep and undercut its quality, say the researchers.”

“Currently we live in a world where escape is of paramount importance and facing reality is something to avoid at all costs. ‘News’ has become entertainment, there is no such thing as television anymore, everything is now a television and Second Life and Webkins are where we ‘live’ since we can control for everything, something we cannot do in real life. … When people take the plunge and reduce and or eliminate recreational use of screens their world opens up, the fear is eased, the sounds of nature soothe rather than unnerve us and everything slows to a human pace. Our relationships become important and time shared increases in value. It creates opportunities for our minds to expand, because we have time to invest in reading, exploring and daydreaming.”
- from the Screentime.org blog

          I finally broke down and bought a cell phone.

          Just got my first Unicel bill.  Immediately called them and dropped the crazy handset insurance (which I declined when I ordered the service but I guess they know better than me what insurance I need) … $4/month insurance premium for a $20 phone!

          The very nice Unicel lady said, “It was only $20 because you bought a 2-year plan.  If you lost or damaged the phone and needed to replace it today, it would cost $100.”

          Okay, so it’s $4/month for insurance on a $100 item.  At that rate I could buy a new and better phone every two years.  Considering that a year from now I’ll be able to get a phone that will walk the dog, make coffee, and scratch my back for $100, I think I’d rather just upgrade to a new phone every year or two anyway, and keep my old phone as backup “insurance.”  Or even just buy a second phone now for $100 (which I can probably get discounted at less) and be self-insured.

          Speaking of walking the dog … no doubt soon somebody is going to offer — if they have not already — a micro-miniature device on a dog collar with GPS tracking that will tell you within 15 feet exactly where your dog is if they get lost.  They already use it for tracking banded wildlife.  Soon it will be a commodity in every pet store … for about $200 up front and a $20/month service fee.  Maybe it will even automatically call you if the dog exceeds a certain range.

          “Press 1 for your dog’s location.”

          It’s just a matter of time before they have a GPS-tracking microchip implant for pets.  Unfortunately, because my dog is a constant companion, most of the time it would tell people where I AM, TOO!

          FOR YOU, soon enough that will be programmed into your car and your driver’s license — which will be an electronic card — and mandatory.  It won’t be long before any time anybody wants to know where you are, all they need is to punch in your driver’s license number, license plate number, cell phone number, or social insecurity number on a web site or cell phone, and it will show them a map to the exact location of your bones, what direction you are moving, how fast, everywhere you’ve been in the past year, what route you took to get there, how long you spent there, and whether you were sitting, standing, or laying down.

          So bury me with my driver’s license and I’ll be immortal.

          Before long, whenever you exceed the speed limit or run a stop sign in your car, or neglect to put on your seatbelt, your car will blow you in and you’ll get a ticket in the mail, and by email, and by cell phone.  Or maybe the car will just print out the ticket right from the dashboard.  Or even just automatically debit your checking account or credit card for the fine.  They could call it EZStop.

          It’s not a bad idea for law enforcement, but I don’t like my car telling anybody where I am, where I’ve been, and how long I’ve been there.

          Many people will opt to get the GPS tracking implant installed in their children’s heads at birth, in the interest of personal security, until it becomes mandatory in the interest of Homeland Insecurity.  It won’t be long before people start buying cyborg implants, like a TV, radio, phone, video camera and web browser built right into their heads.  At first you’ll have to wear a special hat for it to work, but later it will only take a thought to turn it on.

          I’m serious!  Bionic integration is the future of humanity.  Eventually you won’t be able to get into a store or a government building without it, and if you try, you’ll get an electric shock to the brain, after a nausea warning.  Maybe you won’t be able to start your car or unlock your front door without it.

          It’s not just a possibility, but our destiny.  You WILL be assimilated, if you live long enough.  It will be “necessary” for “Homeland Security.”  (What is “homeland” in a globalized world?  Home is where the heart is, no?)

          But I digress from the Unicel story.

          So the friendly Unicel lady says, “But you can have up to two replacement claims per year.”  (She assumes that six months from now a replacement of this $100 model of phone will still cost $100.  Food prices are skyrocketing thanks to former less developed countries acquiring our excessively meat-eating consumerist lifestyle, but their slave labor wages keep our electronic gizmo prices going down.)

          I guess if I were really clever, I would interpret that by thinking, “Hmm.  I think I’ll just report my phone lost twice every year, beginning tomorrow.  At the end of two years, I’ll have five phones!”  No doubt some people do it.  Tempting, maybe, but I’m not a thief.  That’s the business of “insurance” sellers.

          No thanks, sez me.  I’ll take the $100 risk.

          Besides: after I hung up, I looked at the policy brochure they had sent with my new account paperwork.  The nice lady neglected to mention that it says, “Deductible: $50 per occurrence.”  FIFTY PERCENT DEDUCTIBLE?

          So it’s $4/month “insurance” premium for a maximum of $100 per year of coverage (given that they cover two incidents per year), in the case of this $100 phone.

          By the way, the policy says that they may opt to replace my phone with “refurbished equipment.”  So, after the 50% deductible, they can give me something worth $25 for my $48/year in premium payments.

          I might be willing to pay $1/month for this insurance if it had no deductible.  It is, after all, INSURANCE, where millions of people pay into a pool and only a tiny percentage of them make claims.  At this price, it’s not at all about INSURANCE.  It’s about somebody laughing all the way to the bank with millions of so-called insurance premium payments.

          My renter’s home insurance policy has a premium that is 0.5% per year of total-loss coverage value, and it includes more than just property loss, such as liability coverage, temporary housing after a fire, smoke damage repair, etc.  And they cover full replacement cost, not refurbished furniture.  This phone insurance is FORTY EIGHT PERCENT per year of coverage value.  That’s not “insurance.”  That’s robbery.

          They also hit me for VERMONT sales tax, a NY resident, who bought the service via landline in NY, and had the phone mailed to me (my nearest Unicel store is 35 miles away).  I said, “Huh?”  So did the nice lady.  She said don’t pay it, and it will not be on my next bill.  We’ll see.

          Then there’s $0.99/month added for “fraud prevention insurance.”  I said, “Exactly what does that do?”  She says it protects me against anybody committing anything fraudulent regarding my account.  I’ve been walking around for five decades and did online and electronic activity far more than average for three decades and nobody ever defrauded me in any way regarding any electronic account I ever held, so I want to drop this insurance.

          Can’t.  It’s mandatory.

          Of course it’s added to the $40/month price they quoted me, which makes them … um, not quite honest (or maybe just “inaccurate?”) … because it’s actually $41 to include mandatory insurance to protect them from me being stupid enough to let somebody use my account fraudulently, as if that ever happens.  I have no policy statement detailing exactly what this “fraud insurance” actually covers at the rate of $12/year for the rest of my life, or what the deductible is.  If I spent that amount on additional car insurance or homeowner’s insurance, it would provide a few thousand dollars of coverage.  So who’s going to defraud me of thousands of dollars with my phone number?  What are they going to do?  Order a hundred pizzas in my name?

          Anyhow, the bottom line is that with the taxes and fees, which I was waiting to find out from this first bill, the actual cost of the Unicel Local 800 plan is $50/month.  That includes the 25% in taxes and fees required by law (i.e., for Upstate New Yorkers; your tax mileage may vary).  Just thought I’d mention that, if you’re ever conteplating cell phone service prices.  Add 25% to what they quote you.  No doubt the $0.40 per minute roaming charge they quoted me will turn out to be $0.50.

          The “Local 800 Plan” provides 800 “anytime minutes,” 1000 off-peak minutes (9 PM – 7 AM and weekends, but no holidays), and no roaming charges charges anywhere in NY, VT, NH, MA, and ME, no long-distance charges for calls nationwide, and unlimited incoming calls (except roaming charges for taking incoming calls if I am outside those five states).  Roaming outside those five states is $0.40/minute.  I very rarely ever travel outside of NY and VT … only a handful of times in the past six years.  And I carry an MCI calling card that I can use on any landline or pay phone at $0.03/minute.

          I give Unicel a lot of credit for one thing: every time I call their toll-free support number I get someone on the phone immediately, no waiting, speaking to me in plain American English (no Asian subcontinent bubbly accent), and they are always pleasant and answer my questions satisfactorily.

          By the way, my cell phone does not work at Balsamea.  I’m glad, because taking refuge there means refuge from electronic access by The Borg, too.

- The Balsamean