Converter Box Controversy

With the cascade of advertisements warning of February's digital transition, there ought to be an outcry particularly from elder and poverty advocates. But the silence is deafening. This is as bad a time for digital transition for cash-strapped consumers as can be imagined. The nation is in the grip of recession if not in the early throes of depression and every dollar counts. The ads say the government is providing $40 coupons to facilitate transition. The government provides nothing; the taxpayer once again is burdened with having to rob Peter to pay Paul. The actual motivation for digital transition seems to be so the FCC can sell the analog frequencies again. They are said to be public airways so why should the government at this precarious time impose another expense on the public, particularly those who can least afford it? Delay the transition or allow broadcasters greater latitude to decide for themselves. Most are already transmitting both analog and digital signals and can easily continue. Or stagger the start and test a particular media market less affected by recession to see how seniors and the poor are able to handle it. If the date remains a drop dead certainty in February, many people will only have radio to rely on and many of them will rightly blame the politicians who lacked the foresight to anticipate this eventuality.

Delay Digital Disaster

Some conservative commentators make conspicuous efforts to appear to lack a social conscience. With the federally-mandated digital conversion creeping ever closer, the time is long since passed for conservatives to put their foot down and impede this foolishness. Stations have already demonstrated that they have the ability to transmit in both the analog and digital formats simultaneously. Most major stations are doing that right now, and it seems to be no great strain on them. With the foreclosure crisis and recession America is facing, to impose even a $9 burden on families or particularly the fixed income elderly, may be too much to ask. It may mean the difference between eating for a day, or with $4 prescriptions per month some pharmacies offer, this new expense could even mean missing two vital medicines. The elderly and infirm who still live independently may not be able to physically manipulate their large, old console televisions to attach the wiring, nor may they have relatives nearby to help them, and in this time of economic dislocation, they certainly can not hire an electrician or technician to assist them. The government has imposed an unnecessary burden at the worst possible moment, but it is not too late to block this idiotic mandate. I long ago attempted to contact both the AARP and the Gray Panthers to thwart this nonsense, but I received no response. True conservatives don't want the government telling them what to watch or what medium to watch it on; this will hurt the poorest the most at the worst time imaginable. I also don't want bureaucrats and politicians telling me what type of light bulb to use. I would like to tell them just where they can screw it in.