Tag: Things that make you say hmmm?

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I caught a deal…

I was wandering through the Apple TV Movies and noticed that Good Night and Good Luck was not only available, but on sale!

For those of you that may not know this movie, it’s a dramatization of Edward R. Murrow taking on Senator Joseph McCarthy while Murrow was working at CBS.

The movie was released in 2005 and I’d purchased a copy of it on DVD, but never replaced that copy once it was lost.

The movie has an all star cast, including amazing performances by Jazz singer Dianne Reeves.

Edward R Murrow

The subject matter of the movie is timely. It could be argued that Murrow was among the first victims of cancel culture.

He called out Joseph McCarthy at the height of the McCarthy hearings and essentially said what you’re doing is wrong and un-American.

For those who don’t know who Joseph McCarthy was, here’s a brief synopsis of what I remember from history.

McCarthy in the late 1940s and early 1950s chaired a house subcommittee that was supposed to root out communists that McCarthy said had infiltrated the State Department. You need to remember that the cold war was raging and America was just out of World War II.

McCarthy subsequently targeted LGBT people as easily compromised. His lasting legacy was that gay people were considered a security risk well into the 1980s.

Joseph McCarthy

McCarthy terrorized Hollywood, created black lists of suspected communists and through these black lists ended the careers of many average people, and writers, actors, producers, and journalists.

The movie mentions one journalist killing himself over the accusation that he was affiliated with communist subversives.

There’s a great deal more negative that the McCarthy hearings did. Look it up for yourself.

Although, in the context of today’s events, I do sometimes find myself wondering if McCarthy might have been right. Perhaps he was just 50 years ahead of his time…

I hadn’t seen the movie in many years, but remembered the jazz. So I bought it last night and sat back to be entertained. There was an irony in the movie because as I watched, I was struck by how the names, causes, and political party has changed but the persecution today is much the same. McCarthy was a Republican, but could as easily have been one of todays politicians of either party.

Edward Murrow, effectively won. But winning cost him his prime time Tuesday evening show. He went on to produce numerous shows until about 1960, and died in 1965.

I remember his voice from my early childhood. I don’t remember the context in which I heard his voice, only that it was distinctive. He was a true journalist, based on what I recall from some of the things I recall reading about him.

I ran across some of his writing at the UK library when I lived in KY. His words were clear and what he said was said plainly and directly. I don’t recall him being apologetic in his writing. What I think I remember most was his somewhat terse style and his eloquent use of English. I learned some new words reading him. (no, they weren’t dirty words.)

He seems to have stood by his words believing in presenting the truth of a situation as he saw it, but assumed that the audience was intelligent enough to draw their own conclusions.

I recall reading an apology to a viewer where he said something to the effect; “Reading your letter, I have rethought my position and you may be right. I apologize for any harm my words may have caused you.” That’s not an exact quote but I remember that it struck me how this fairly powerful journalist saw fit to actually put in writing that he’d reevaluated his position and told a viewer so.

After watching the movie, I still appreciated the vocals of Dianne Reeves. As I watched the credits roll I thought, “We need journalists like Murrow again.”

As is pointed out in one scene, Murrow tried to behave as if he was above editorializing, but he did editorialize to some extent. I thought it was interesting that he was portrayed as accepting the criticism and the consequences as part of doing business.

I thought about that, and have concluded we’re all human, we all editorialize, but a journalist is supposed to keep that natural tendency in check. They’re supposed to present the facts as dispassionately as they possibly can.

One line in the movie is, “We report the news, we don’t make it.” If only journalists still operated on that premise, we’d all be better informed and perhaps less prone to passionate outbursts based on half the information and our emotional response to it.

If you get a chance, check out the movie it’s 94 minutes of your life well spent. Especially if it makes you stop reacting and start thinking.

Oh, if you play the movie, your TV isn’t broken… The whole thing is shot in period correct Black & White.

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Conspiracy Theorists Huh?

I saw this little gem in a Breitbart post located here. I don’t always agree with Breitbart but I applaud them sticking to their guns and calling ’em like they see ’em.

For the better part of a year, We’ve been told that the COVID-19 rates were increasing at alarming rates. Indeed in some places there have been hospitals that were overwhelmed but this hasn’t necessarily been a nationwide phenomena.

When emergency hospital ships sit idle in harbors waiting for patients that never come, and tent wards costing millions are set up in parks and hospital parking lots then dismantled without ever being used, that suggests that something isn’t as the powers that be, would have us believe.

When I personally know of two emergency room nurses who applied / volunteered to help at the height of the New York hospital overflow and they were turned away with no explanation, I start thinking something smells funny.

When Doctors questioning the efficacy of tests, are silenced, when acclaimed researchers have their papers on the utilization of the PCR test as a diagnostic tool are censored, when nurses send unused tests to labs and have them come back as positive, and citizens who were scheduled to take the test for COVID-19 but missed the appointment were subsequently notified that they’d tested positive…

Well then SOMETHING DOWNRIGHT STINKS!

When everyone who asked questions or disputed the accepted narrative, from medical professionals, to the creator of the PCR test itself, to politicians, or anyone else, is labeled a conspiracy nut, then I suddenly find myself standing at the beach after a red tide. (Picture a beach covered in dead fish rotting in the sun on a still July day!)

Now, it looks like perhaps all those people questioning the PCR testing who have been labeled conspiracy nuts may have been correct.

The WHO (World Health Organization) issued an information notice specifically about the utilization of the PCR test to determine if someone does in fact have COVID-19.

Here is the link to the WHO notice .

The notice basically states that if someone shows a positive result in one test, a second test should be administered. Ideally with a test from a different manufacturer and that observation of the patient’s symptoms, if any should be used as well for a final diagnosis.

Generally speaking, if a person shows positive on one test but has no symptoms then do another test to see if the first test is in error.

Most PCR assays are indicated as an aid for diagnosis, therefore, health care providers must consider any result in combination with timing of sampling, specimen type, assay specifics, clinical observations, patient history, confirmed status of any contacts, and epidemiological information.

WHO Information Notice for IVD Users 2020/05

So from the comment above, they are suggesting a return to good medicine where the Doctor makes the diagnosis, not the lab and not a single hastily administered test.

The WHO also makes reference in the article to the number of iterations the PCR test is allowed to run, when they talk about manually applying the positive threshold. There are a number of reports that speak to iterations in PCR testing. It seems that if you allow PCR to run long enough you’ll always come up with a positive result. In a way that makes sense based on my limited understanding of how this test works.

So what does this mean to the average person on the street?

Well you may have been tested and you may have been exposed to COVID-19 but you may not actually know your status because the testing methodology was flawed.

In fact in the SARs epidemic they also used PCR testing but they used it then, the way they’re saying to use it now.

Funny how the WHO suddenly “remembered” how the testing should be done isn’t it?

Funny how medical professionals were censored for questioning the way testing was being done, isn’t it?

What this is likely to do is reduce substantially the daily number of cases. COVID-19 will fade into the woodwork just like SARs did. It will become a non-issue. If the testing, done appropriately starts coming back with fewer and fewer positives, all this insanity may have been a tempest in a teacup.

Normality will return, and 8 months from now people will be going on about their business with or without having been vaccinated.

But the politicians have learned just how compliant people will be in a “Medical Emergency”.

This is not to say that some people didn’t die from COVID-19 or related issues, they did. But for me it brings into sharp focus that all may not have been as it seems.

Every year thousands of people die from complications related to the Flu. We never paid it much mind, it happened and it was tragic, but generally we accepted Flu as a average thing.

This year, the Flu has been a non-issue and you’d be hard pressed to find any statistics on flu deaths this flu season.

It’s just one of those things that makes me say Hmmm.

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So Sirius & I are done.

I’ve had  Sirius for more than a decade.

Originally, they were pretty cool and the variety of programming was a delight to listen to.

Then slowly things changed. The “News” Stations got more and more left and I just stopped enjoying the spin that was on everything.

I tried the conservative stations, and they were mostly people screaming all the time.

I settled on the Spa Channel and enjoyed it. It was pretty much the only channel I listened to. LA Freeway traffic is stressful and that channel seemed to be mellow all the time.  Except when Sirius decided to stop playing Spa and play something they thought was important. A George Michael week? Ugh!

As to many of their other stations, I simply wasn’t interested. I don’t like RAP. I couldn’t stand their ideas of a nice Rock & Roll set. Talk radio was like listening to fingernails on a chalkboard, and many of their other “Themed” stations were either annoying or completely mis-named.  No matter what, I always ended up on the Spa channel, and after a while, I stopped even checking out the other stations.

I’d purchased a lifetime subscription for my 1 Series and enjoyed never having to think about the Spa channel being on if I wanted it.

When the car was totaled in 2017 Sirius told me that I couldn’t have the subscription transferred to another car. (More on that later.) 

I went ahead and activated Sirius in the new car, and when I changed to the 440 I transferred that subscription. 

That transfer process was a nightmare and I really thought about pulling the plug more than once during that call.

Late in December 2020, I got an email saying that there was a class action lawsuit regarding Sirius and their lifetime subscriptions. With all the chaos around the election, my life, being unemployed, and oh yeah, my health insurance being cancelled. I never got back to the Sirius email. There is, after all only so much time you can spend on the damn phone before you’re over it!

What I didn’t notice was that the deadline to respond was Jan 12th 2021. Somehow I thought it as the end of January… I missed the deadline of Jan 12th. DAMNIT!

But I got to thinking about the Sirius subscription. 

With fingers crossed, I went to their site and OMG! My id and password actually worked. 

(This was surprising since the last few times I’d tried to log on, I was met with password and user ID issues.  These issues persisted even after multiple password resets. This is part of what made my last phone call to Sirius such a pain in the butt. Well, that and the fact that like so many companies they’ve put their call center in the Philippines so with a static filled connection and sing song English. Having a conversation is a challenge.)

Once I was logged into the page I saw the last bill which looked normal. Then I happened to notice that Sirius had changed the billing cycle from 1 year to quarterly. 

They were clever… They kept the amount the same but increased their profit X 3 with the quarterly billing. Great way to rip off your customers Sirius! 

Obviously, they were counting on the amount being familiar, and people’s short term memory being completely overloaded to hide what they’d done.

Now I’m very interested!

I call their customer service number, (conveniently hidden 3 menu items deep, with a warning popup that said, “Beware of Tiger!”) 

I waited on hold after dealing with the genuine people emulator call routing AI.  After a time, I was connected to a cheerful lady in the Philippines and asked her what gives?

I’m told that I was on some kind of promotion and that this reflected the end of the promotion. Uh Huh… When did the billing cycle change?  No answer. Uh Huh. 

Then I asked about putting my lifetime membership back in place which is what the lawsuit provides for. 

I get a bullshit line about that. In 2017 they claim they weren’t allowing lifetime subscriptions to be moved. I told the little lady I knew that, but that the lawsuit says they will now.  She doesn’t know about that.

She offered to give me a promotional special for a year on the two radios (Portable & Car) of $200. I tell her that since I only listen to one channel it’s still not worth it. And that Apple CarPlay works just fine in my car meaning I don’t have to have Sirius and that I have greater control over the music I want to hear.

She asked if I’d let her check another promotion.  I say sure why not?  She comes back and tells me that I have have both radios for $120 a year.

I think about it, and decide that I just want to not have a subscription at all. I tell her that and that I want the subscription to terminate as of the March 1st billing cycle. She fiddles around a bit more and tells me that she’s sorry she couldn’t keep a valued customer like me. I’m Like Whatever… I obviously wasn’t all that valued a customer.

So come March 1 2021 for the first time in many many years I won’t have Sirius.  Unless of course the court decides I can have my lifetime membership transferred. In that case, I’m calling them back with the case docket number in hand and demanding they re-instate the account.

In reality, I’d pay $60 a year for Sirius in the car. But now it’s a matter of principal.

I’ve said it before, If companies would just provide the service they’ve contracted to provide at a fair price, and not screw around with the billing because they think they can get away with it, they’d have a lot more customers and those customers would be a lot more loyal and happy.

On the plus side, It’s one less online account for me to fart around with.

Update 1/22/2020

I got one of those little “How did we do” surveys fromSiriusXM

When I answered that I was not satisfied, the survey opened a tex block where I could freely type. I do hope that someone who reads this is able to understand the words written on the page. I’m not hopeful. There’s that old adage, if you don’t want to know the truth… Don’t ask the question.

I never got an answer as to who authorized or when they authorized a change to quarterly billing. 

I was told that I couldn’t reactivate that lifetime subscription on my new vehicle because the transfer wasn’t available in 2017,  regardless of the fact that I had a lifetime subscription, and there is currently a class action lawsuit pending about not allowing people transfer those subscriptions to new vehicles. 

Then when I said that for the 2 stations that I listen to (1 in my car and the other on a portable radio in the house) wasn’t worth $423 a year and that I wanted to cancel the account, I’m told that suddenly there’s a discount of 50% and when that wasn’t good enough the yearly cost was reduced again. 

Frankly, if you’d offered your service for a fair price in the first place and been upfront about your billing practices I’d still be a customer. 

However, given that you won’t let me transfer my former lifetime subscription and apparently have no trouble charging outrageous fees for your service it makes me question your business model.

I have Apple CarPlay in my vehicle which works just fine. I have Apple music and can use it throughout my home on all my devices. This ability makes your service redundant and excessively expensive.

For many years now, the few times I’ve called your customer service department it is difficult to understand the representative. In part due to the accent but the greatest part of the problem is static on the line or background noise in the call center’s environment.

The young lady I spoke with, to her credit tried to do the best she could and aside from the noise she was well spoken. My dissatisfaction is in NO WAY with her. 

My dissatisfaction is with SiriusXM’s corporate policies and practices. 

My feeling now is that I will not be purchasing a vehicle where I pay for the SiriusXM option installed. I will also not be turning on the SiriusXM option if it is supplied with a vehicle.

I will continue to seek out Apple CarPlay or some similar option.

I can only imagine that as your satellites age, and you continue to alienate customers that you will find it harder and harder to maintain service. Perhaps that is a good thing and your company will go the way of the dodo.