Wednesday, April 20, 2005

small (white) dicks loosely interfaced

Today, most U.S. homes can access only "basic" broadband, among the slowest, most expensive, and least reliable in the developed world, and the United States has fallen even further behind in mobile-phone-based Internet access. Thomas Bletha, found here on Jon Husband's Wirearchy.
Jon suggests this is one reason USians like to mix it up with other cultures - we have no liking for seeing what we see when we are looking at us. Our expertise lies in diversion.

Blogging is clearly an example. Instead of being about anything, it has itself become a fetish for, in Jeneane's memorable phrasing, small-dicked white males. We must have more face time with faces that are exactly like our faces(2). The more exactly like US, the more we feel we are at the top of our game.

A trivial example: We recently moved - to a larger metropolitan area than the one we previously inhabited. All went well until I contacted our internet provider to pick up the DSL service we'd had at our former location with the same company. I called on April 18th, and was given a service date of May 23 - "after 6 p.m." I thought they were joking. Not only were they not, but despite being the local telecom monopoly, they offer no local dial-up number in the area.(1)

The small dicks comfort each other and nothing gets accomplished. The US enjoys Most Deluded Nation status, and its delusions compound at the velocity of American bullshit. These terrific delusions are our truest weapons of mass destruction, and no white cannonade of smalldickians can touch them.

(1)Sheila Lennon supplies additional insight.

(2)via the recently revived Kombinat!

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

After I posted the excerpt of the Verizon CEO saying, "Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?" I got an email from a pr person wanting to set up an interview with the ceo of an ancillary business:

"Carriers can’t afford to provide coverage in every home across America, so consumers take it upon themselves to improve their indoor wireless coverage problem and maximize their wireless service plan with a carrier-approved solution."

It's a solution to the "last 10 feet" problem, apparently.

4/20/2005 2:58 PM  
Blogger Tom Matrullo said...

Sheila, the reason USian business is so full of solutions may have something to do with its capacity for creating problems.

Jon, thanks for that - it's happening in lots of places, apparently. The campus where I taught in Mexico had a wireless mesh network. I blogged sometime last year about how nice it would be if a local mall made itself into a wifi net. It would offer people access in a commons setting, air conditioned, with food, bathrooms, etc. Somehow they do not see what's in it for them. They think they are there to suck money from retailers who are there to suck money from, yech, consumers. Another model, in which public space is commerce but also social and educational, needs to be staked out, but this only happens when the old vampire model begins to lose its lustre. Any day now.

4/20/2005 10:08 PM  
Blogger Tom Matrullo said...

Not to harp, but I suspect, Jon, that unlearning will happen more quickly the less often the piece-challenged conferees confer. ;)

4/21/2005 9:46 AM  
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