Greetings, fellow Freedom Fighters™ and Defenders of Democracy™!

We of The Scallion are back with our usual hiatus-limited assortment of the sadly usual outrages, wrongdoings, injustices, and crimes being committed by the Bush junta and its adherents and corporate cronies.

We bring you a handful of original and hopefully amusing pieces, political letters written by Scallion staffers, and links to news articles that every American should read.

Please continue to do all you can every day to save our precious democracy. We can’t afford to give up or give in … the stakes are simply too high.

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Highlights from AT&T’s Defrauding the Elderly Division

Does AT&T really have a “Defrauding the Elderly” Division?

No, but it may as well.

As we and our gentle Readers who remember the 1960s recall, back in the “good old days” when AT&T was the only show in town for telephony, they used to “lease” phone equipment to customers. This means that, over the lifetime of the contract, customers had no recourse but to pay the value of the equipment several times over.

The corker is--guess what!--they still do it! Yes, AT&T still charges rental fees on that same, thirty- or forty-year-old phone equipment … regardless of whether the customer has used said equipment within the last thirty-or-so years ... regardless of whether the only available service is touch tone and said telephones are of the pre-touch-tone rotary variety.

As long as you have that equipment in your home, AT&T wants its pound of flesh from your posterior, regardless of the fact that “worthless” would be a euphemism for said equipment.

Who suffers from this ruthless scam? Typically, it’s the elderly who suffer. After all, they are the ones most likely ever to have used rotary phones and other historical relics; they are the ones most ingrained by society to accept authority’s dictates without question; they are the least likely to take on the system and fight on their own behalf.

If there is someone in your life who is harboring one of these artifacts, do him or her a favor: have him or her stop paying the nonsensical phone rental bills, and call AT&T to request a postage-paid box to ship their antiquated junk back to them.

All we can say is this: leave it to AT&T to put the “phony” in telephony.

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The Scallion’s news to use, amuse, and confuse (lest it abuse)

According to folks in the field, Operation Swarmer is really Operation Overblown:
http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2006/03/operation_overblown.php

From the “Iraq, New Orleans--same difference” department …
MILLIONS OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS WASTED ON KATRINA “RESPONSE”:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5690845,00.html

Wanna read the Katrina response waste report for yourself? The Scallion’s got you covered:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06461r.pdf

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What’s wrong with monopolies, anyway?

Yes, gentle Readers: an engineer and personal friend of The Scallion’s chief editor asked this question in all seriousness. A somewhat elderly gentleman, he seemed unable to grasp the fact that not everything that seems to be good for business really is good--either for business or for America’s citizens. In response to this otherwise intelligent man’s question, we offer a fanciful (?) sketch of what life would be like if, say, the telephone company had a monopoly over American telephony.

Let’s call our hypothetical company “Lone Parrot” (we apologize in advance to those of you who actually pick up on the awful “mono Polly” pun).

Let us then posit that Lone Parrot Telephony, or LPT, is a monopoly and that you are the hapless customer.

Let us suppose that LPT charges $100 per month simply to provide phone service to you. Feel free to assume that it costs $100 per month either for land line or cellular service; having both costs $200 per month, of course--what did you expect, a price break? Silly consumer! Naturally, this $100/month does not include local, state, or federal taxes and fees. It also conspicuously does not include the actual phone equipment itself, which LPT leases to you at a rate of $25 per month per phone for as long as you subscribe to LPT’s phone service. It matters not to LPT that, within the first year of service, you will have paid the retail value of said phone equipment several times over. For heaven’s sake, don’t misplace your cell phone or have it stolen: you will not only be liable for the $25/month rental on that phone but for an additional $25 for its replacement. “First born child” would seem cheap by comparison. Since anyone stealing your phone who later has it activated will also have to pay the $25/month rental, the thief’s only gain is a well-earned sense of revenge on you … which, oddly enough, is sufficient motivation for some of the more unsavory members of society.

Let us further suppose that you experience an interruption to your phone service due to technical difficulties on LPT’s end. There are two things to remember in a case like this:

1. During the service outage, LPT will continue to charge you the full $100 plus taxes and fees as well as phone rental. Monkeys will fly out of your butt before LPT would actually agree to prorate what they continue to collect for the service they are failing to provide.

2. “Customer service” is not in the vocabulary of monopolies like LPT. To prove it, here is a sample phone call between you and LPT as you frantically seek to stop hemorrhaging money for phone service you are not getting:

After one hour of dialing menu numbers on the shiny new rotary phone lovingly leased to you by LPT, you find yourself in the call queue … in which you patiently wait three hours. This is the conversation you ultimately have after that four-hour effort:

“LPT, America’s monopoly phone company. How may I irritate you today?”

“Hi, um, I’m having a problem with my phone service. I took my phone over to a friend’s house and tried it there, so I know that the problem is with the service and not the phone itself. When can you send someone out to fix the problem?”

“Well, sir or madam, this is a monopoly. Our sole responsibility is to our multi-billionaire executives and our shareholders--not to measly, low-life customer trash like you. So, the first available time we can come out and fix your problem is ‘never.’ How does ‘never’ work for you?”

“[expletives deleted for the sake of brevity]”

“We at LPT hope you enjoyed this call and found it useful. Thank you and have a nice day.”

But wait, there’s yet another facet of LPT as a monopoly. Because LPT is the only show in town, it will never face the challenges and stimuli of free market competition. Never again will LPT strive to improve its processes or equipment. Why should it, when all it has to do is charge the customer more and more money to compensate for the inefficiencies and waste that run rampant throughout the system? If stone knives and bear skins are most convenient or seem cheapest for LPT, then stone knives and bear skins are what you the customer will get, by gum.

As our friendly engineer would say, this is a free country--you the customer have a choice.

That’s right: you can either pay through the nose, or you can go without.

We of The Scallion hope that, if you opt to subscribe to LPT phone service, you manage to buy some of their stock while (if?) you can still afford it.

We certainly hope that, if you choose to go without, you never need to call 911.

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New songs for the Catholic church

The Catholic church has a history of using liturgical music to highlight its priorities.

For example, back in the 1960s, Catholics sang songs at Sunday Mass about helping the poor and loving thy neighbor. Rather than purveying self-righteousness, exclusion, and condemnation of others, these songs focused on messages that were uplifting … messages that encouraged parishioners to show compassion toward each other and the less fortunate members of society at home and abroad.

Apparently, however, liturgical songwriters are no longer keeping up with the times.

As a result, Catholic liturgical music has failed to keep pace with the church, which now has only one message and one priority. Thus, since helping the poor and loving thy neighbor have long since disappeared from Catholic preaching and vogue, we of The Scallion can’t help but wonder: where are all the new Catholic anti-abortion songs?

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A letter from a Scallion staffer lambasting Senator Allard for calling Senator Feingold a traitor for seeking to censure George W. Bush for his ILLEGAL domestic spying and wiretapping:

Senator Allard, you are a traitor.

By seeking to squelch legitimate debate and dissent, you are condoning the remaking of America from a democracy into a theocratic, fascist regime. How dare you attack a TRUE patriot like Senator Feingold, who is trying to PRESERVE our democracy from the graft, greed, and destruction currently being waged by decreasingly taxed or regulated corporations?

You are the terrorist here.

You are condoning and therefore helping to commit corporate and state acts of terrorism against the American people, including the squelching of workers’ rights and civil rights as well as the wanton destruction of the environment. You are condoning George W. Bush's impeachable offenses -- committed solely to retain power -- of lying the nation into an invasion of aggression against Iraq and illegal domestic spying on those Americans who seek to hold the government we pay for with our taxes accountable to us.

Your acts of treason and terrorism are costing lives at home and abroad.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

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Bush’s ratings at all time low

Just when we thought 34% was an abysmal approval rating for the occupant of the White House, we come to find that yet another point has been shaved off. The link below offers a comprehensive look at Americans’ views not only of George W. Bush but also Congress and all their hijinx and hilarious capers while in office:

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=271

Bush’s slide in the ratings reminds us at The Scallion of a golden oldie from our misspent youth:

Limbo lower now. How low can you go?

La la la la la la la … la la la la la la la …

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How DENSE can the Republicans BE? “No means no! No drilling in ANWR!” as an irate Scallion staffer wrote to Republican Senators:

How many times do We the People have to tell the Republicans: NO MEANS NO! NO DRILLING IN ANWR! NO, NO, NO!!!

Like an undisciplined, five year old brat who turns sneaky the instant his parents aren’t watching, AGAIN the Republicans are trying to slide ANWR drilling into ANOTHER Senate bill.

While Republicans hastily muzzle THEIR OWN scientists -- who warn we may already be past the tipping point of planetary climate catastrophe -- we hear that the Arctic sea ice pack has failed to re-form for the second year in a row. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have hit ANOTHER new record high.

Even worse, this week also marked the most massive Arctic pipeline oil spill ever. It covered two acres of fragile tundra -- not exactly a "small" footprint. Republicans know that oil is neither a clean nor readily renewable fuel source. Republicans know that America is addicted to oil, the burning of which devastates our environment. Republicans know that the only Americans who stand to benefit from oil drilling in ANWR are the oil companies. The rest of us stand only to lose.

It is time for Republicans to WAKE UP and GET A CLUE. Americans care deeply about their public lands and wild spaces. Americans care deeply about saving ANWR. Americans care deeply about the environment and are deeply concerned about global warming.

Let me repeat: NO DRILLING IN ANWR!!! NO, NO, NO!!!

If Republicans won’t represent the people who elected them, they need to resign.

NOW.