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End of the Copper Line

I am concerned about the abolishment of reliable, mechanical, communication when it comes to “plain old telephone service” — POTS — and the future of voice and data communication.

Hurricane Sandy has shoved forward the end of the copper telephone line.  Big communication companies have decided it is in their best interest to push people onto cellular networks instead of rebuilding what was lost:  Traditional “communication by wireline” that has been a staple of everyday communication in the USA for almost a hundred years.

The changing landscape has Verizon, AT&T and other phone companies itching to rid themselves of the cost of maintaining their vast copper-wire networks and instead offer wireless and fiber-optic lines like FiOS and U-verse, even though the new services often fail during a blackout.

“The vision I have is we are going into the copper plant areas and every place we have FiOS, we are going to kill the copper,” Lowell C. McAdam, Verizon’s chairman and chief executive, said last year. Robert W. Quinn Jr., AT&T’s senior vice president for federal regulatory issues, said the death of the old network was inevitable. “We’re scavenging for replacement parts to be able to fix the stuff when it breaks,” he said at an industry conference in Maryland last week. “That’s why it’s going to happen.”

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Overcoming a Cruel Aesthetic

Sometimes, there is no place lower to go than the depths of a tasteless, public, aesthetic parading itself on the paving stones of public discourse as an ingenious iteration of inspiration — when the idea is really nothing more than visual vomit.  Today, I introduce you do the “Cloud Towers” — where Art-Meets-9/11-Terrorism-In-The-Sky in Seoul, South Korea:

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Remembering September 11 Through Comics

As a child, the Sunday newspaper was my favorite because the comic section was much bigger, and every comic was in full color. Artists were free to tell stories that could not be told in a confined four panel layout. Some comics, like the one panel comic The Lockhorns remained one panel — but there were three different one panel comics instead of one and it was still beautifully colorful. This was before newspaper comics were posted online and put into full color, as is the case with Doonesbury and others.

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No PATH Photos for You!

The other day, I was riding the PATH Train from New Jersey to Manhattan and the Conductor — he’s the guy who manages opening and closing the doors and making announcements while the Engineers “drives” the train — came up to an Asian couple and demanded the woman delete the photograph of the train she took right before boarding. The woman was confused and embarrassed, but she followed the order and the Conductor watched her remove the photograph from her cellphone.  If she’d been using a traditional film camera, would the Conductor have confiscated her entire film roll?  The woman’s boyfriend took a more aggressive perch, and said, “There are no signs prohibiting taking pictures.”

The Conductor brusquely retorted, “There are signs everywhere.  Look for them.”  Then the Conductor left the car.  A few minutes passed and the Conductor came running back into our car to retrieve the train keys he’d left dangling in the control panel switchbox so he could bawl out the woman.  I thought to myself, “Which is a greater threat to the people riding a PATH train?  A tourist taking a photograph, or a Conductor who leaves his keys behind for the taking?”

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Is the Bayonne Teardrop Memorial Really a Vagina Dripping Sperm?

Sometimes a gift is best left unopened.  I was watching the first quarter of the NY Giants and Carolina Panthers football game today, when the telecast cut away to a live shot of the “Teardrop Memorial” — a 100-foot tall gift from Russia to the citizens of Bayonne, New Jersey — intended to memorialize the dead in the World Trade Center disaster.  The teardrop alone is 40 feet long!  However, to even an untrained eye, the monument looks more like a vagina dripping sperm, than a tear falling between torn twin towers.

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The World Trade Center Falling on Your Head Meme

The sculpture you see below, believe it or not, was created to honor those that died in the World Trade Center airplane bombing on September 11, 2001.  The fact that many people leapt out of the burning buildings to escape the fire in the sky to quickly find their deaths on the ground below was lost on the artist.

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Palin the Pig: 091101 NYC and the Child Martyr

It’s that time of year again when New York City once again feels sorry for itself and the parade of 9/11 martyrs make their mandatory appearance in the pit of what used to be the World Trade Center.  This morning, we witnessed the young children of the dead — they “do not remember their father” — but are nonetheless forced to pretend to recall him on television, in speeches they did not write, to help perpetuate the offensive and utterly meaningless “Why Us?” chest thumping that has replaced healing and rediscovery of a forward-propelling hope in America. 

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