Hard Times And the Rest of the Story Sam Aurelius Milam III
On Sunday, May 1, 2022, I watched a news segment about inflation, titled Paying the Cost, on PBS News Weekend. The news report featured the Bandy family, consisting of two parents, Scott
and Lindsay, a ten-year-old girl named Hope, and a three-year-old girl
named Haley. According to the news report, they live just outside of
Grand Rapids, Michigan. Lindsay works at a retail job. Scott is
a cable technician. Throughout the news report, Lindsay complained that
the high costs of fuel and food are creating serious hardships for the
family.
And now for the rest of the story. I noticed that, in their house as it was shown in the news report, every shelf was packed with possessions. Every counter top or table surface, and all of
the floor space, was filled with possessions. The material wealth
that was visible in the news report was impressive. It appeared to me to represent a significant expenditure of funds. I also
noticed, during the sequence about the cost of fuel, that Lindsay was
pumping gas into a huge pickup truck that was about a foot taller than
she was. It was one of the big ones, the kind with two rows of seats,
and four doors. Given their occupations and their situation, I think
that a small economy car would have been sufficient. As she drove
away from the pumps, she was carrying a huge, super-sized soft drink
of some sort. While they were sitting at their table, eating pizza
and complaining about the cost of food, I noticed two big take-out pizza
boxes on the table, and several super-sized take-out beverage containers.
Maybe sandwiches and iced tea would have been less expensive. Their house, as shown in the news report, appeared to be more than comfortable, and I couldn’t help but to notice a satellite dish on the roof.
Broadcast TV, through an antenna, is free. In one scene, Lindsay
was using an Apple computer for video conferencing. Is video conferencing
really necessary? Isn’t a land line sufficient for communication,
and a lot less expensive?
Henry David Thoreau commented, “Yet men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but
for want of luxuries....” In the report, Lindsay blamed corporate
greed for her hardships. Maybe corporate greed and inflation are
contributing factors, but I’m inclined to also blame Lindsay, et al,
and human stupidity, ad infinitum.
And that’s the rest of the story.![10x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/10x5_Page_Background.gif) Frexit Update Sam Aurelius Milam III
I’ve noticed on the news that even homeless people have cell phones. They can’t afford food, medicine, or a place to live, but they can still afford cell phones. Go figure.
About 10 years ago, I commented to a visiting family member that, after a certain number of people have cell phones, then having a cell phone will be effectively mandatory. Lately, I’ve seen
the fulfillment of that prediction. It doesn’t matter that the
requirement isn't legislatively imposed. What matters is that,
if COVID requirements (for example) require you to have a cell phone before
you can enter a restaurant, or a movie, or a concert, if you can’t update
a security setting unless you can receive a confirmation code on a cell
phone, when various other things require a cell phone, then having a cell
phone is effectively mandatory.
I mentioned in Frexit, in the February issue, that when my cell phone expired, I was content to leave it expired. Actually, it didn’t expire. It
became incompatible with the new forced obsolescence changes in
cell phone technology. It was easier, in the article, to just
say that it had expired. Anyway, AT&T wasn’t content to
let me drop out of their network. Instead, an unsolicited replacement cell phone arrived in the mail. I took it out of the box, looked at it, put it back in the box, and put the box on a shelf.
Lately, I’ve occasionally received messages from various of the few internet services that I still use, warning me that, if I don’t upgrade something, then I might lose access to whatever service they’re providing. I’ve been ignoring such warnings, but a recent message from Google seemed to suggest that I might lose access to my Google email address if I neglected to do the security
upgrade. It was a bit vague, but that’s what it seemed to say.
I use that address a lot, and I don’t want to lose it. So I tried
to do the upgrade. I got to a step in the process where I was required
to provide a confirmation code that would be sent as a text message,
but only to my cell phone.
So, I wandered around looking for the new cell phone.
I finally found where I’d put the box. I took the cell phone out of the box, installed the battery, and charged it.
I called somebody and had her call me back. The cell phone
worked. It seems like another manipulation of my behavior but
I was able to receive the confirmation code and save my email address.
The cell phone is turned off again, and its battery is removed. That way, it isn’t listening to everything that I say, revealing my location, or making itself available as a target for a missile strike.![10x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/10x5_Page_Background.gif) June 2022 | Frontiersman,0c/o 4984 Peach Mountain Drive, Gainesville, Georgia 30507 http://frontiersman.org.uk/ | Page 3 | |