I mentioned in an earlier blog that I returned from Tacoma to find I could no long find Turner Classic Movies or Bravo on my TV. I called Charter Communication and got some foreigner speaking gibberish from an off-shore, non-U.S. customer support center that provided no customer support, just the aforementioned gibberish.
So, yesterday I saw one of my favorite movies, The Night of the Hunter, was on TCM. So, I decided to go to the Charter Communications website and see if I could find any info or an email customer support address.
I found several customer support options, including email. I took the email route. The first reply came today. And it was gibberish. It's obvious that Charter also has non-Americans doing their email support. What is the point of them spending money on this type of customer service?
What follows is the email exchanges, 2 of them, first my question, then Charter's answer, then my follow up question with Charter's next answer.
I came home from a trip to find I no longer get TCM or Bravo. I then learned TCM has been moved from 49 to something like 78. However, when I tune to 78 I get a blue screen. What gives? And how do I get the missing channels, that I thought I was paying for, back?
Thank for contacting Charter Communications. My name is Susan. I'll be walking through your concern today regarding your favorite channels.
First of all, thank you for your e-mail submission. I understand, how frustrating it could be that we can't view our favorite channel. I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you. In line with the 2009 cable digitalization of service, your favorite channel is no longer available in Basic and Expanded cable sesrvice. It was transferred to digital service. I am very sorry for this short notice.
You may check our website at www.charter.com for all channel changes. Click on the ; ; . TV Guide Channel, Guide button on remote control. If you have additional concern please have a live chat with us. You can also call 1-888-438-2427 if this is more convenient for you. If there is anything further I can assist you with please let me know.
So how do I view the channels that have been moved to digital service? And why am I being charged the same amount if my service has been reduced?
Dear Mr./Ms. Durango: Thank you for contacting Charter Communications. My name is Mae. It's my pleasure to reply to your email.
To see the channel lineup in your address, please access this link: http://***charter.com/Visitors/Channels.aspx. In addition, if you want to know what programs will be aired in your favorite channels, please go to http://***charter.net and click on the "Tv" tab on the upper right side of the main window; then, you'll be routed to another window wherein you'll be prompted to enter your Charter Account user name and password or, if you're not yet registered, you can just enter the ZIP code in your area.
If you have any additional questions and needs further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us again through chat at www.charter.com for further assistance. You may also contact us by phone at 1-888-438-2427.
Thank you and Godspeed.
Mae
My favorite part of the second reply is the "Godspeed" part.
One of my favorite all time TV shows is The Rockford Files. That show had many a good episode, but the best that I recollect was a two-parter called Lions, Tigers Monkeys and Dogs.
Lauren Bacall played a lady named Kendall Warren. Kendall Warren was the best friend of Princess Irene Rachevsky, played by Dana Wynter.
Someone had tried to kill the Lauren Bacall character, hence the hiring of Jim Rockford to figure out who wanted to do Lauren in.
Turns out Lauren and the Princess were originally from the LA area, but had escaped the horrors of Simi Valley decades before. They went to Europe and created fake personas for themselves. Irene married a Prince, making her a Princess.
At one point, when talking to Rockford about her relationship with the princess she says something like "Ours is the sort of friendship where no matter what happens or what problems come up, the bond of our friendship is never broken. Is that as rare as I think it is?" she asked Rockford, to which he said something like "Pretty much extinct."
Trouble is, it was the princess who wanted to have Lauren killed. The princess felt she could never be totally free of her Simi Valley past as long as Lauren was there to remind her of it.
As for the Lions, Tigers, Monkeys and Dogs. Well, Lauren made some remark about someone being a Monkey. Rockford said "huh?" To which Lauren explained how she and the princess classified people's social standing. Royalty are Lions, leaders like Harry Truman are Tigers. Someone like Mick Jagger is a Monkey.
And then Rockford goes "You don't need to tell me who the Dogs are."
I've never known a Lion, Tiger or Monkey before. But I sure have known a lot of Dogs.
It's in the 90s again today here in Fort Worth. I went swimming real early. It was not in the 90s then. It was barely in the 70s and the water wasn't much warmer than the air.
By a bit past noon it was hot enough to go on a hike. So, I went to the Tandy Hills. It's my favorite place to hike. When I discovered this hilly place way back in October of last year I thought there'd be no way it'd be hikeable when the super hot days of summer arrived.
But, the heat hasn't stopped the Tandy Hills hiking. A couple times I have gotten pretty much blinded by water oozing out of every pore. I was in icy Tacoma when they had a string of 100 degree plus days here. I guess I'm glad I missed that.
There is a sort of annoying addition to the Tandy Hills trails that popped up while I was up north. That being these giant weeds or mini-trees with little white flowers on them. These things are right at the edge of the trail in places, some of them over 6 feet tall. Today it was a bit windy and that gets these weedy mini-trees thrashing about. It's like being whipped by a bunch of skinny straws.
There was one sort of odd scene at Tandy Hills today. A mom and dad and 4 or 5 kids were on the trails. What made it odd is one of the kids was being pulled in one of those little red wagons, I forget their name. Radio Flyer, is that it? The Tandy Hills trails are not conducive to such a vehicle. But they were on the downside of a bit of steep terrain when I came across them.
This morning's paper had yet one more good letter to the editor objecting to the poking of thousands of holes in Fort Worth and the laying of miles upon miles of underground pipelines to transport the odorless gas.
That's the satellite view of the Chesapeake Energy drilling operation that's my neighbor in the photo.
Below is this morning's letter to the editor......
Drilling, pipeline moratorium now
How did the residents of Fort Worth become the last thing to be considered rather than the first? Residents are being treated as if they live in a Third World country. City leaders elected to protect our public welfare are ignoring major issues involved in the gas-drilling process.
The most obvious instance is that your home is no longer your home. Texas law is allowing pipeline companies to use the right of eminent domain under the guise of public utilities. Residential property owners don’t stand a chance because they don’t have the money or legal precedent to fight pipelines from coming through their property. What happens to the value of your home when a gas well or pipeline is built near it?
Based on pipeline explosion data provided by the Texas Railroad Commission, it is estimated that if the city of Fort Worth has 3,000 gas wells and associated gathering lines in place, there will be a significant pipeline incident every six months.
The gas industry is exempt from provisions of most federal statutes regarding our health and the environment.. Due to the number of approved and requested wells in Fort Worth and our proximity to them, we will not be able to escape serious health and environmental consequences.
Even though the insurance industry hasn’t yet raised rates because of the location of raw gas pipelines on or near residential properties, it’s just a matter of time. Once they can establish actuarial figures, homeowners insurance may be increased or could even be canceled if you have a raw gas line on or near your property.
The Fort Worth Coalition for a Reformed Drilling Ordinance (CREDO) says it’s time to return to common sense. We need a moratorium to give our city leaders time to have legitimate discussion of these issues in an open forum and to let them get out in front of all the issues, not the other way around.
I think I've mentioned before how appalled and disgusted I was a few years back when the Fort Worth Star-Telegram was doing their extreme version of civic boosting by repeating over and over again the bizarre propaganda that a lame little food court type thing in downtown Fort Worth, called the Santa Fe Rail Market, was modeled after Seattle's Pike Place Market and public markets in Europe.
And that the Santa Fe Rail Market was the first public market in Texas.
This was to be the start of my realizing that the Star-Telegram was not a newspaper of the sort I'd been used to reading.
Not only is there a place very much like Pike Place Market nearby, called the Dallas Farmers Market, the failed Santa Fe Rail Market wasn't even the first public market in Fort Worth! An historical marker makes note of that fact at the building's location. The Star-Telegram has since mentioned this, but not their boo-boo, when that former public market was deemed a building of historical significance worth preserving.
I think the Star-Telegram thinks it can get away with some of its more ridiculous hyperbolizing because they figure most of their readers won't know any better. Which perplexed me regarding the Santa Fe Rail Market misrepresentations, because I figured at least a few Fort Worthers must have made it to Seattle and Pike Place at some point in time.
Those of you who were victims of the Santa Fe Rail Market false advertising and wasted gas going there to check it out. Like I did. And if you've not been to Pike Place, watch my video below and you'll get why I found comparing the thing in Fort Worth to an actual tourist attraction to be bad journalism at the very least. Someone should have been fired. I think her last name is Tinsley.
So, when I was up in the Seattle zone last month I wandered around with my video camera in Pike Place on a Thursday afternoon on August 7. When I was making the video I was making sarcastic remarks directed at Fort Worth, well, actually at those who falsely promoted the failed Santa Fe Rail Market. Saying things like "more people are here in Pike Place in 1 minute on one lazy summer day than were in the Santa Fe Rail Market during the entire time it was open." Likely the number was probably closer to half a minute.
I also said things like 'See why I was disgusted to read that that pathetic Fort Worth Rail Market was modeled after this?" And at one point I said something like "Fort Worth, see all these people? This is what a tourist attraction looks like." This was in reference to the Star-Telegram's once more breathless hyping that a sporting goods store, Cabela's, opening in Fort Worth, was going to be the Number One Tourist Attraction in Texas. A short time later another Cabela's opened down by Austin. And a short time after that Fort Worth's ruling junta figured out they'd been snookered again. But, they're back seeing clear once more, with their Trinity River Boondoggle, I mean, Vision.
Anyway, below is a YouTube video of a few minutes at Pike Place Market. I edited out my sarcastic remarks. Some of them were hard to hear due to the noise from so many people. I could have whispered remarks in the Santa Fe Rail Market and my video camera would have picked them up from 50 feet away. It was that dead.
Oh, one more thing, I wouldn't repeat these Star-Telegram embarrassments if they'd just once fess up to being a bit too exuberant with the hyping. They do drop some of the stupid stuff, sometimes, like the Star-Telegram no longer repeats that the Trinity River Boondoggle will make Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South. Nope, not making that up. That paper can be that ridiculous.
Fort Worth's responsible, high quality newspaper, FW Weekly, has a feature called On Second Thought where a reader can opine about any subject and if it is deemed reader worthy, FW Weekly prints it. This week's On Second Thought was some very good thinking about all the holes being drilled in the ground all over Fort Worth and surrounding towns.
The Price of Cake The only good urban gas well is one that doesn’t get drilled.
By GRAYSON HARPER
There’s something a bit sad and desperate about this gas drilling business. With utility bills mounting, the economy shuddering, and college costs rising so high that it seems only rich families can afford them, little wonder that so many in Fort Worth couldn’t wait to sign on the dotted line when the gas companies were waving the money around.
But now the reality is setting in: homes threatened with eminent domain, dangerous high-pressure gas lines about to be laid beneath our feet, thousands of gas wells — roughly seven pad sites per MAPSCO page — planned for our fair city.
A lot of folks who signed have been running to the city council crying, “Shocked, shocked!” as if they couldn’t have imagined beforehand the ruthless nature of the folks to whom they sold out. I wonder what they were thinking when they embraced the gas companies in the first place. Of course Chesapeake and the others misled everyone. With so much money at stake, it’s hard to imagine them acting like Boy Scouts.
Of course they manipulate the truth. They withhold crucial information, such as how crazy it is to bury high-pressure pipelines carrying odorless wet gas near homes and schools. Even during a prolonged drought, they forget to mention the amount of clean water — millions of gallons — they will destroy. And they certainly don’t talk about the catastrophic explosions from blown high-pressure pipes and animals dropping dead after drinking water poisoned by failed injection wells.
And how about those injection wells? You think the gas boys are going to share with us the number of such wells in Texas where highly toxic production water is pumped deep underground? Of course not. The answer is more than 30,000, the most of any state in the union, but to say that would be to admit that, thanks to them and their cohorts in the oil sector, our fine state is now one big toxic dump. We have one injection well operating right here in the city limits. Chesapeake would like to drill up to 15 more in and around the city. One thing is certain: An awful lot of wastewater is going somewhere — maybe to a neighborhood near you!
Some of the folks who are complaining are hedging their bets. They’re all for getting out the minerals, “Just don’t come in my yard, not on my street, not if it means my house getting eminent-domained.” As an old friend of mine likes to say, “Everyone wants to go to heaven, they just don’t want to die.”
Will the citizen group known as CREDO — Coalition for a Reformed Drilling Ordinance — be able to change anything for the better? I hope so, but it seems to me the fix is in. Everyone is bought already, from the Texas Legislature to the Railroad Commission that oversees the drilling. Everyone on the Fort Worth City Council (with the noteworthy exception of Joel Burns) has taken contributions from the gas companies. Mayor Mike Moncrief gets royalty checks from Chesapeake, XTO, and others while routinely voting for new permits for them to drill. As the mayor himself said in a recent meeting, “Money talks, everything else walks.” He should know.
The record is clear and was well known before the first person signed away minerals — the duplicity of the industry, the catastrophic accidents, the lack of oversight, the brutal impact on public health and the environment, including air, water, plants, and wildlife. The fact is, you can’t get a “reformed drilling ordinance” because there’s no such thing as “reformed” or responsible gas drilling.
The only right thing to do would be to go back to square one: Pray over it. Ask the “Great Spirit,” or whoever’s in charge hereabouts, for forgiveness. Then regroup and start fighting on the basis that it’s simply dead wrong — unsafe, immoral, insane — to be drilling for gas within the city limits, because our immediate environment will likely end up polluted beyond recognition and our groundwater destroyed, all for the enrichment of a few who — after thoroughly trashing the joint — will move on.
Unless we fight the whole thing, those who worry about lowered property values, noise pollution, explosions, fires, and all kinds of health effects might want to move elsewhere.
This may turn out to be one of those cases where you can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
Grayson Harper is a Fort Worth-based writer and artist.
You'd think with the recent Jesse Jackson misstep, when he spoke ill of Barack Obama when he didn't realize he was still being recorded, that those talking head people on news shows would be really careful about what they say anytime they are within listening distance of any microphone.
A few days ago a former advisor to John McCain named Mike Murphy and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan were on some cable news show being interviewed by an anchor named Chuck Todd.
On the air they were talking about the Sarah Palin pick for VP. Murphy and Noonan were gung-ho about the pick. On the air.
And then when they cut to show a clip a technical boo-boo let their real feelings be known, live, to the listening viewers.
The anchor Todd said, "I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchison."
Mike Murphy said, "Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good."
To which Peggy Noonan said, "It's over."
The anchor Todd then says, "Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?"
Noonan then says, "The most qualified? No! I think they went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives."
Anchor Todd then agrees with, "Yeah, they went to a narrative."
Murphy then says, "I totally agree."
To which Peggy Noonan adds, "Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it."
Then former McCain advisor Murphy responds with, "You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical."
To which anchor Todd says, "This is cynical and as you called it, gimmicky."
Then the clip ended and they went back to praising the pick of Sarah Palin.
In 2009 Seattle will finally have a light rail train that will run from Sea-Tac airport to downtown Seattle. The train will track through the Seattle Bus Tunnel that was built back in the 1990s. It's now being called the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel.
Many visitors to Seattle don't realize a tunnel runs under downtown, at some points, deep under downtown. This would seem to be a tad unsettling in an area known to have earthquakes. Supposedly the bus tunnel is built to withstand an 8.0 quake. I'd rather be on top of the Space Needle for such an event though.
The Seattle Bus Tunnel makes it real easy to get around downtown. There are 5 huge stations, themed to their location, like the International District Station is Chinatown themed. The Pioneer Square station is Old Seattle themed. The University Street Station is sort of High Tech themed. Westlake Station is the biggest. There are entries from the Westlake Station to several department stores, like Nordstrom's flagship store and to Westlake Center, which is one of Seattle's vertical malls and is also the downtown terminus for the Monorail.
It is free to use the bus tunnel to get around downtown Seattle. In the video below, that I took a month ago, on August 7, you'll see how well used the Seattle Bus Tunnel is.
There is no similar transit system in downtown Fort Worth, nor is there a need for one, since there are no department stores, few attractions and few people, like tourists, on the streets with a need to get from one end of downtown to the other. Arlington has no public transit system. Recently Fort Worth's bus system, called The T, began offering Arlington people bus service to Fort Worth from a couple Arlington locations. Few are riding though.
In the past year Seattle has started up a new above ground streetcar line, called South Lake Union Transit. They named it that before they realized the acronym was SLUT. By the time it was realized that a different name might be a good idea it was too late, the locals had taken to calling it the SLUT train. That's a SLUT car you see in the pic.
South Lake Union is a boom zone on the north end of downtown Seattle. Lake Union is a natural lake, it isn't the result of anything like a Lake Union Vision Project. Someday Fort Worth may have a lake at the north end of its downtown, the result of the Trinity River Vision. Somehow I doubt if that lake ever floats a boat it'll end up being a boom zone like South Lake Union. South Lake Union has an actual visionary behind what's going on there in the form of Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen. Unfortunately, Fort Worth's billionaire benefactor is noted primarily for having bad taste in architecture with visions like naming a bunch of parking lots Sundance Square.
Meanwhile, Seattle has an actual public square at the heart of its downtown, thought they don't call it a square, it's called Westlake Center.
You'll see part of Westlake Center, both the 'square' and the vertical mall in the video below. And you'll ride with me through the Seattle Bus Tunnel to the Pioneer Square Station where we'll exit to someone singing about it being a beautiful world in Occidental Park.
Above I made mention of tourists. One thing that struck me this time up in Seattle is the huge increase in tourists from Europe and Asia. You'll see a lot of people from Japan in the bus with me in the video below.
I see it's in the 50s in Western Washington this morning. And in the 40s on the east side of the mountains.
Here in Texas we don't have many mountains requiring passes to get over them.
