Category: default || By jt3y

Did the Dave Matthews Band slime a boatload of Chicago tourists? The band says no.

But this much is certain: This past Sunday, two tour buses, while crossing an open-grate bridge over the Chicago River, dumped (no pun intended) the contents of their septic tanks.

Directly underneath that bridge? A ferry boat carrying people on a tour of architectural landmarks.

Mike Thomas of the Chicago Sun-Times apparently couldn't resist writing this, but he should have: "Sightseers trying to enjoy a Chicago Architecture Foundation river tour Sunday afternoon discovered the true meaning of poop deck when they were splattered by raw sewage."

Hey, let's leave the smarty-pants one-liners to the blogs, mm-kay?

According to the Sun-Times, at least five people went to the hospital, and the owner of the cruise line has had to replace clothing for dozens of people. Now the police are investigating.

A first-person account in the Chicago Tribune paints a more vivid picture:

People wiped off their glasses, took off their coats, and sat in stunned anger. What could you do? I was on the boat with my girlfriend and a friend of hers visiting from out of town. They, too, managed to avoid the worst of it and we hustled down into the boat's main cabin. There we could avoid the stench up top but could clearly hear people puking in the nearby bathrooms.

Don't drink the water, indeed. (Tip o' the Tube City Online hard hat to Obscure Store.)

...

Speaking of Chicago ...

I realize I'm easily aggravated, but this recent tendency of (very) conservative pundits and some Republican politicians to refer to the "Democrat Party" is obnoxious. I'm hearing it frequently on talk radio and the Fox News Channel.

I assume it's meant as a slam on Democrats --- "Look, we hold you in such contempt that we won't even use your real name" --- but it just makes the speaker sound illiterate. My dictionary (Merriam-Webster's New Ideal Dictionary, 7th edition, copyright 1973) shows "democrat" as a noun and "democratic" as an adjective.

In fact, the second definition of the word "democratic" is "of or relating to one of the two major political parties in the U.S., associated in modern times with policies of broad social reform and internationalism." (Look! Liberal bias in the dictionary!)

I bring this up because it turns out that Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune is also aggravated. He says he first heard "Democrat Party" back in 1996:

I wrote that my ear had latched onto "Democrat Party," and I recognized it as an expression that immediately identifies the speaker as a whiny, partisan Republican.

The conceit is that the party "is not democratic," as Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp said during his 1996 convention acceptance speech. "They don't have faith in people," Kemp went on. "They have faith in government."

Hence "Democrat Party" in speeches by Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey, in Republican radio ads and in the foamings of every third caller to what I tautologically call conservative talk radio.

Bob Dole's famous snarl about "Democrat wars" goes back 25 years, and published sources variously first attribute "Democrat Party" to Thomas Dewey in the 1940s and Sen. Joe McCarthy in the 1950s.

Oh, great --- Joe McCarthy. So, Republican National Committee, that's who you're taking as your inspiration now? "Tailgunner Joe"? (Although, in truth, there's been an effort by the right to "rehabilitate" McCarthy's image. "Yeah, he may have been a drunken, lying, bullying, misogynistic racist who blew his nose with the Bill of Rights and ruined the lives of dozens of innocent people, but he meant well," is basically what they say.)

But then Zorn goes off and starts his own namecalling: "(Those) D's who wish to fight back with a childish taunt of their own ought to refuse henceforth to say GOP (the abbreviation for Grand Old Party, an appellation long claimed by the R's) and, instead, refer to the MOP --- Mediocre Old Party," he writes.

Haw. Haw. Haw.

I liked the "poop deck" joke in the Sun-Times better.

...


Younger co-workers don't believe me, but back in the old days, when Target and Wal-Mart weren't the main employers in the Mon-Yough area, people didn't actually own their telephones.

It's true. You rented your telephone from the phone company. If it broke, you called 611 and a nice man came out and replaced it. When AT&T was forced to divest itself of local Bell System companies in 1984, just about everyone either purchased their phones from Bell (remember the "Bell Phone Centers" in downtown McKeesport and at Century III Mall?) or bought off-brand phones from Murphy's Mart or Rat Shack.

But not everyone, according to The Associated Press. About 1 million Americans --- mostly the elderly --- are still leasing their phones from an AT&T subsidiary at a minimum of about $5 per month:

(Consumer) advocates say the program takes advantage of consumers, particularly elderly people, who may be easily confused over what their options are. According to an AARP survey from 1998, the latest year for which figures are available, 6 percent of people 75 or older leased their phone, compared with 2 percent under 65.

The AT&T Web site touts these benefits to leasing a phone:

Obtain convenient same or similar model replacement of the leased product for any reason ... Trade-in or exchange the leased product for a different color or for a telephone with more or fewer features ... Plus, if you move take the leased product with you anywhere in the continental US. ... Receive the leased product at your home or office the next business day at no charge.

Prices start at $4.45 for a old-fashioned plastic rotary-dial desk set.

I think I'm gonna be sick. Hey, anyone currently getting that "convenient" deal from AT&T, I've got a special offer for you: I'll lease you a rotary-dial desk set for half that price. Your choice of white or black. I throw in all 10 digits for free.

The AP story quotes Chris Baker of AARP as saying that the phone leases are "such a rip-off. It's one of the things older people really depend on, and the fact they get abused is pathetic."

"Rip-off" doesn't begin to describe it. It's obscene. Foul. Disgusting. Not quite as bad as having Dave Matthews' effluent dumped on your head, but it's pretty gross.

At least we know one thing for sure: Obviously, AT&T has learned to suppress its corporate gag reflex.