.:A Voice in the Crowd:.

It’s been a while since I’ve visited!  Just got some inspiration though, and lots has been going on.  Big decisions being made in a noncommittal way.  Specifically, Amy’s return to school for nursing, along with some careful reflection about my career trajectory, has led me to decide to take a few steps towards training as a Physician Assistant.  It’ll be a 4- or 5-year process, including knocking out prerequisites, so I’ve only really committed to starting in on the prerequisites.  We’ll see what the next year or two holds before diving into the real meat of it.

But the prerequisites are what brought me back here, to this online haven for stream-of-consciousness, infrequent public displays of entertainment.  I was attempting to register for Biology 101 when I was informed by the online registration system that I had to complete an English placement test first.  I laughed, figuring there had to be a way around that one.  Just to speed things up, I went ahead and ordered transcripts from the institution that granted my Honors Bachelor of Arts degree, as well as the one that granted my Juris Doctor degree (one of those has to count, right?).  Then tonight I called the local community college’s Call Center to ask who I needed to get those to in order to have the placement testing requirement waived.

The very friendly woman on the line asked “Have you taken a college-level English course before?”  I actually had to think about that for a minute… after completing a post-graduate degree, a literal reading of her question might actually have required me to answer “no.”  The only reply I could muster was “Well, I have a law degree…”  The problem is that my Undergraduate institution waived the entry-level English requirement because of my SAT scores, and I didn’t remember until after the call that I had actually taken one other English class in college.  I think I blocked out most of the experience for interpersonal reasons, but now the few good memories are flooding back (the Chiquita Banana Fiasco and the Goodville Project).

It didn’t even occur to me that my Legal Writing and Research course from law school might count (try reading a Supreme Court opinion that isn’t Scalia in the dissent and you’ll understand why I question the English language acumen of many judges), and so as a 26 year-old with both a Bachelors Degree and a Law Degree, I almost answered “no” to the question of whether I had ever taken a college-level English course.  I can only assume that it was moments like these that led to the choice of name of the Wisconsin Trade Federation and the NJ Motor Vehicle Commission (one for you, EMS community!).

With any luck, I’ll be back much sooner than I was last time.  And on the topic of English, I think I need tense conjugation from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to properly express that time relation…

So let’s get this out of the way first – I’m not going to talk about whether or not I think Representative Joe Wilson is a racist, or whether his outburst was racially motivated.  Not touching that one.  Period.

That said, today the House voted along party lines to pass a Resolution of Disapproval, the House equivalent of that look your wife gives you when you’ve forgotten to empty the dishwasher.  It looks bad, but it’s really nothing to worry about unless it happens frequently.

Think about this for a minute, and you’ll get a better idea of why I’m so disenchanted with the party I identified with for most of my life (that’d be the Republican Party, in case you were wondering).  Rep. Joe Wilson did something that has never, NEVER been done in the history of the United States Congress.  It was a monumental and groundbreaking breach of protocol… in a forum where protocol is just about the only thing that ever really matters.

This was not the equivalent of forgetting to empty the dishwasher.  This was bringing a megaphone to a shopping mall and using it to vividly describe the last time you and your wife had sex while she’s trying to pick out jeans for your child.  It’s not just something you’re not supposed to do – it’s something so basic, so fundamental and so universally unexpected that people around you wouldn’t even know how to react to it.

Yet all but five of the House Republicans seemed to think it was not appropriate to even cast a disapproving stare in the general direction of Joe Wilson, because that’s what they voted against in the form of the Resolution of Disapproval.  Seriously?  Let me say that again…  Seriously?!?!?!?  That should’ve been a no-brainer.  They weren’t even voting to censure him (and nobody even knows what that means, but it didn’t seem to hurt Bill Clinton too much), or kick him out, or castrate him.

It also shouldn’t matter that Rep. Wilson apologized to President Obama.  That was appropriate, and necessary, but the fact remains that in the House of Protocol, Wilson pioneered a brand new way to break the rules.  Even with the apology to the President, doesn’t that deserve at least a dirty glare from the Rulemaker(s)?

This one should’ve been easy.  Can anyone offer one good reason why any member of Congress should have voted against that Resolution?  Please?  Because once again, the Republican Party has left me grasping at straws in trying to understand what the heck they’re doing.

This may be one of those rare times when I share the same goal as a Texas Republican, though for different reasons.  Seems some in the Senate want to investigate Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T to distribute the iPhone, apparently as an antitrust violation of sorts.  NYTimes mentioned it, and PCMag picked up on FCC action to open an investigation.  According to the NYTimes brief, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) opposes the investigation, on the grounds that it could stifle private investment and job creation.

I have a different reason for completely agreeing that this investigation is a bad idea, and a misuse of antitrust laws.  Antitrust laws were enacted and are enforced to prevent the creation of monopolies, which just about every agrees are bad for consumers.  The problem is that in this particular situation, AT&T’s deal with Apple prevented Verizon from solidifying what was rapidly becoming an effective monopoly.  Verizon’s growth was outstripping Cingular/AT&T’s by magnitudes, boasted much better coverage (meaning AT&T’s prospects for recovery were slim), and Cingular was on the brink of going under (which is why they bought the AT&T name, to try to trade on the strength of AT&T’s brand to prevent more defections).

When Cingular/AT&T leveraged Apple’s brand power and loyalty with the iPhone deal, they attracted enough customers and grabbed enough market share to prevent Verizon from dealing the company a death blow, largely by raising enough capital from the new business to invest in expanding their network coverage to the point where they could actually compete with Verizon (I know, they’re still lagging behind in total coverage area, but not anywhere nearly as badly as they were a few years ago).

At the time, that exclusive deal was the only way Cingular/AT&T could compete with Verizon.  Ironic, I know, and probably a rare situation, but citing that particular deal is a bad reason to open an antitrust investigation because it’s extremely likely that it in fact PREVENTED the formation of a monopoly.  Now, if the deal had been between Verizon and Apple, and Cingular/AT&T recently filed for bankruptcy, I’d be on the other side of this issue.  But for now, with Verizon still strong, AT&T still rising, and Sprint making a strong push, I’m with the Republican from Texas.