[00:00.000 --> 00:06.820]  Local journalist Avita Barsali reports that a sort of peace has been restored in Nandigam area.
[00:07.140 --> 00:15.140]  He says the armed men have now gone underground and villagers could be seen moving about, though few people would talk to journalists.
[00:18.980 --> 00:22.100]  CRPF battalion has began flag and road marches.
[00:22.300 --> 00:28.300]  They have recovered one landmine and three rifles, including one police rifle.
[00:31.020 --> 00:36.480]  The violence may have paused, but the problems for West Bengal's left-front government...
[00:36.480 --> 00:38.700]  And it's almost two minutes after seven o'clock now.
[00:38.880 --> 00:41.180]  Time once again for Off the Hook.
[00:46.330 --> 00:50.810]  The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
[00:51.750 --> 00:56.290]  I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
[00:56.950 --> 01:01.650]  We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
[01:01.650 --> 01:04.590]  But really bombed for the best, expect the worst.
[01:05.310 --> 01:07.110]  I hope that's understood.
[01:07.270 --> 01:08.250]  But really bombed!
[01:58.110 --> 01:59.190]  And good evening to everybody.
[01:59.250 --> 02:00.770]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:00.810 --> 02:05.910]  I neglected to mention it's WBAI New York that you're listening to here on this Wednesday evening.
[02:05.910 --> 02:12.050]  Manuel Goldstein here with you, and I'm joined tonight by Mike in the studio.
[02:12.310 --> 02:12.710]  Hi there.
[02:12.870 --> 02:13.390]  And that's it.
[02:13.530 --> 02:14.590]  There's nobody else in the studio.
[02:15.290 --> 02:17.010]  Bernie S joins us from down in Philadelphia.
[02:17.230 --> 02:17.550]  Hi, Bernie.
[02:18.010 --> 02:18.970]  Greetings from Philadelphia.
[02:19.330 --> 02:20.510]  You sound like you're in a tunnel.
[02:20.850 --> 02:23.170]  I'm in a time tunnel.
[02:24.070 --> 02:27.230]  Okay, we'll try to get out of the time tunnel, because we have enough confusion as it is.
[02:27.370 --> 02:27.610]  Really?
[02:27.650 --> 02:28.410]  Do I sound that bad?
[02:28.510 --> 02:29.930]  Well, if you speak up, you don't sound that bad.
[02:29.930 --> 02:30.170]  Okay.
[02:30.170 --> 02:31.450]  How about now?
[02:31.630 --> 02:32.450]  Now is perfect.
[02:32.630 --> 02:32.790]  Okay.
[02:32.910 --> 02:33.610]  Absolutely fine.
[02:33.690 --> 02:36.750]  I'm on a landline, so it may sound different to many of our listeners.
[02:37.410 --> 02:39.130]  You're not used to being on a landline, I know.
[02:39.330 --> 02:41.010]  No, I'm getting used to it, though.
[02:41.030 --> 02:41.450]  I like it.
[02:41.510 --> 02:43.030]  It's a privilege, not a right.
[02:43.750 --> 02:44.010]  True.
[02:44.010 --> 02:44.850]  All right.
[02:45.030 --> 02:49.370]  Speaking of privileges and rights, apparently privacy is becoming more and more of a privilege these days.
[02:50.070 --> 02:51.350]  Did you see this story?
[02:51.490 --> 02:55.490]  This was on CNN a couple of days ago.
[02:55.670 --> 03:00.590]  And basically, the headline reads, Intelligence Deputy to America, Rethink Privacy.
[03:00.930 --> 03:09.970]  As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States change their definition of privacy.
[03:09.970 --> 03:11.490]  This is how the Bush administration works.
[03:11.590 --> 03:14.050]  When they don't like a word, they just change the definition of it.
[03:14.690 --> 03:21.530]  Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence.
[03:21.890 --> 03:31.090]  Instead, it should mean that government and business property, I'm sorry, properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.
[03:32.270 --> 03:48.930]  Lawmakers hastily changed the 1978 law last summer, the law called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to allow the government to eavesdrop inside the United States without court permission, so long as one end of the conversation was reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S.
[03:48.930 --> 03:52.930]  The original law required a court order for any surveillance conducted on U.S.
[03:53.070 --> 03:55.510]  soil in order to protect Americans' privacy.
[03:56.050 --> 04:05.130]  The White House argued that the law was obstructing intelligence gathering because, as technology has changed, a growing amount of foreign communications passes through U.S.-based channels.
[04:05.690 --> 04:08.570]  Well, before I go any further, do we all feel good about this?
[04:08.990 --> 04:10.010]  I feel great.
[04:10.230 --> 04:10.350]  You do?
[04:10.490 --> 04:11.610]  Okay, Mike feels good about this.
[04:11.650 --> 04:12.190]  How about you, Bernie?
[04:12.630 --> 04:19.530]  I feel just as great about this as I do about the new definition of torture promulgated by our administration.
[04:20.670 --> 04:28.390]  Well, it's interesting that anonymity is now considered something that is not what we're entitled to.
[04:28.510 --> 04:29.350]  We're not entitled to be anonymous.
[04:29.350 --> 04:33.630]  We have to always identify ourselves and be held accountable for everything we do and say.
[04:33.910 --> 04:38.490]  Well, there is a difference between anonymity and privacy, although they do overlap.
[04:38.850 --> 04:42.970]  But people frequently confuse the two, or conflate the two, I should say.
[04:43.890 --> 04:44.210]  Mm-hmm.
[04:45.650 --> 04:46.770]  Well, I don't know.
[04:46.830 --> 04:51.970]  I don't feel very confident that this is going to lead to good things.
[04:52.550 --> 04:59.930]  And of course, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is jumping on top of this as well and criticizing it in addition.
[05:00.110 --> 05:01.690]  But I don't know.
[05:01.790 --> 05:05.250]  I think privacy is definitely in very grave danger.
[05:05.390 --> 05:07.090]  We've seen many indications of it.
[05:07.190 --> 05:14.050]  We see all the surveillance around us, and that's certainly going to be growing as the days, weeks, years go by.
[05:15.390 --> 05:20.790]  But I think people growing up today just won't have a sense as to what privacy used to be.
[05:20.790 --> 05:21.850]  They'll be used to it this way.
[05:22.330 --> 05:32.970]  It's interesting, this notion that privacy means that they won't mishandle your data, especially given their track record of mishandling everyone's data.
[05:33.830 --> 05:41.590]  So even if you accept for some strange reason their very limited definition of privacy, I don't even think the government can guarantee that.
[05:41.590 --> 05:42.870]  So it's really frightening.
[05:43.590 --> 05:44.230]  It certainly is.
[05:45.130 --> 05:45.730]  Okay.
[05:45.910 --> 05:46.090]  Okay.
[05:46.090 --> 06:01.590]  Also, something else that's been in the news this week is United States companies in foreign countries using their technology to hurt people who are speaking out against oppression of various sorts.
[06:01.590 --> 06:03.370]  We've seen it in China with Yahoo.
[06:03.630 --> 06:04.770]  We've seen it in Myanmar.
[06:05.950 --> 06:08.430]  And we're seeing it in Pakistan as well, I believe.
[06:09.950 --> 06:16.110]  Now, there's a case involving Yahoo that has been brought to attention in the past, but there are some new developments this week?
[06:16.910 --> 06:17.390]  Yeah.
[06:17.610 --> 06:21.470]  If listeners will recall, Yahoo has an operation in China.
[06:22.850 --> 06:28.070]  And one time the Chinese government was like, hey, we want to know who's behind this email address.
[06:28.430 --> 06:30.130]  And the Chinese government told them.
[06:30.210 --> 06:38.550]  And it turned out the reason the government was so interested is because this email address was being used by a so-called dissident journalist.
[06:38.970 --> 06:42.490]  And so they took this journalist and they locked him up for 10 years.
[06:43.670 --> 06:54.150]  And there has been a lawsuit in the United States against Yahoo saying, hey, you shouldn't give information to foreign regimes if they're going to use it to lock up dissidents.
[06:55.650 --> 06:58.830]  And Yahoo recently announced that they had settled the lawsuit.
[06:58.830 --> 07:05.710]  And what they're going to do is they're going to set up a fund to provide training or something for journalists and dissidents.
[07:05.910 --> 07:08.810]  And I'm sure the guy in jail really thinks this is great.
[07:08.950 --> 07:10.610]  Training on how to hold their tongue?
[07:10.610 --> 07:11.410]  What kind of training?
[07:11.410 --> 07:11.730]  I don't know.
[07:11.830 --> 07:15.710]  But what they're not promising to do, notably, is to stop doing this in the future.
[07:15.810 --> 07:16.990]  Yeah, that's what I don't understand.
[07:17.190 --> 07:21.130]  They claim they didn't do anything wrong, but yet they're settling.
[07:21.650 --> 07:21.990]  Yeah.
[07:22.130 --> 07:23.870]  I'm not sure I understand that logic at all.
[07:23.870 --> 07:26.310]  I think it's maybe cheaper than lawyers or something.
[07:26.490 --> 07:36.530]  And of course, there's also Google over in China that has been accused of being complicit in censoring search engines or their search engine on the web.
[07:36.690 --> 07:39.150]  And let's not forget Cisco, who built the Great Firewall.
[07:39.150 --> 07:39.810]  Yeah.
[07:40.410 --> 07:46.550]  So American companies, apparently, are very much in the forefront of this kind of thing.
[07:46.850 --> 07:48.430]  Could they do it without American companies?
[07:48.510 --> 07:49.170]  Could they do it effectively?
[07:51.230 --> 07:53.890]  I don't think they could do it as effectively.
[07:54.590 --> 08:09.570]  If, for instance, Yahoo's China division somehow was able to stop providing this information, then there would be a place where Chinese people could go and know that their information wouldn't be handed over to the Chinese authorities.
[08:09.670 --> 08:14.270]  But there is no longer any such place, at least operated by Yahoo.
[08:14.270 --> 08:18.690]  Here's a little bit of an article that appeared in the Christian Science Monitor not too long ago.
[08:18.850 --> 08:22.290]  During Burma's... they call it Burma, Myanmar, Burma, whichever.
[08:22.910 --> 08:30.570]  During Burma's short-lived uprising recently, young dissidents risked their lives to smuggle news of their peaceful protest to the outside world.
[08:30.570 --> 08:36.350]  They may have been up against internet censorship software designed in America if a connection is found...
[08:36.350 --> 08:39.610]  a connection found to exist in 2005 still holds.
[08:39.930 --> 08:41.030]  Moreover, if a U.S.
[08:41.190 --> 08:49.590]  firm wanted to sell internet filters to Myanmar today, despite several layers of economic sanctions against the government there, it would probably be legal to do so.
[08:49.590 --> 08:51.310]  So, say, export lawyers.
[08:51.670 --> 09:01.870]  Absence of federal regulation has allowed so-called censorware of at least four California companies to end up in the hands of foreign governments shown to block citizens' access to political, religious, and other websites.
[09:02.770 --> 09:05.370]  Events... they can't make up their mind where they're going to say Myanmar or Burma.
[09:05.510 --> 09:11.130]  Events in Burma now provide new fodder for a censorware debate that had focused until now on China.
[09:11.530 --> 09:20.490]  Some experts know that repressive regimes might never have allowed internet access at all, if not for the filters, which tech-savvy citizens can overcome.
[09:20.790 --> 09:22.290]  But critics say U.S.
[09:22.590 --> 09:26.050]  companies are breaking American values by abetting censorship.
[09:27.650 --> 09:28.390]  I don't know.
[09:28.550 --> 09:33.790]  The argument is, if they didn't provide this, then there would be no access at all, wouldn't that be a worse thing?
[09:33.910 --> 09:42.410]  Well, I'm prepared to argue that the censorware companies are violating American values by selling their products here in America, which is a large market, of course.
[09:43.150 --> 09:45.910]  Public schools are a huge market for the censorware.
[09:46.270 --> 09:54.790]  And I think for a lot of these companies, these foreign repressive regimes are almost an afterthought that, hey, we can make some more money with this censoring technology.
[09:54.850 --> 09:57.770]  So I'm not really surprised by any of this.
[09:58.910 --> 09:59.430]  All right.
[10:00.110 --> 10:04.410]  And in other news, AT&T is just kind of a reality check here.
[10:04.530 --> 10:10.790]  AT&T is scaling back its plan to blanket St. Louis with Wi-Fi signals.
[10:11.170 --> 10:13.490]  Remember all these announcements about...
[10:13.950 --> 10:18.510]  I think Rhode Island was one state that was going to be completely covered, and Long Island, supposedly.
[10:18.810 --> 10:28.850]  But now AT&T has changed its mind, and they're going to instead build a Wi-Fi pilot project in the downtown core, and they expect to have it in service early next year.
[10:29.270 --> 10:34.550]  It's a setback, said John Sondag, vice president of external affairs for AT&T Missouri.
[10:34.870 --> 10:37.910]  We're disappointed, but we will still learn something.
[10:38.150 --> 10:38.970]  It's kind of an odd statement.
[10:39.510 --> 10:41.350]  They intend to learn something out of all this.
[10:41.830 --> 10:49.190]  AT&T had planned to build out the wireless network across the city over two years under the plan announced in February.
[10:49.430 --> 10:56.910]  And it would then provide free internet service to everyone for 20 hours a month and charge for more time or higher download speeds.
[10:57.070 --> 11:05.150]  The main problem was AT&T engineers couldn't find a cheap way to power the network's transmitters, which carry the network's signal and send it to people's computers.
[11:05.770 --> 11:09.350]  One estimate required 50 transmitters per square mile.
[11:09.510 --> 11:14.690]  And they initially planned on mounting the transmitters on city streetlights, but some of those don't have power during the day.
[11:15.390 --> 11:20.550]  Utility poles don't always provide the straight line of sight necessary to beam the internet to a computer.
[11:21.250 --> 11:24.370]  Did you know this line of sight was necessary to beam it to a computer?
[11:24.670 --> 11:27.810]  I don't know if it's strictly necessary, but it works better.
[11:27.970 --> 11:28.810]  It works better, yeah.
[11:28.950 --> 11:32.050]  But lots of times I don't have line of sight, and I get a signal just fine.
[11:32.270 --> 11:37.850]  And the statement that there's no power at light poles except at night is pretty silly.
[11:38.030 --> 11:41.010]  Yeah, I mean, there's no light except at night, but there's power.
[11:41.010 --> 11:41.610]  There's power.
[11:41.750 --> 11:45.350]  It just switched on and off by a photo cell switch on the top of the light pole.
[11:46.670 --> 11:47.030]  Yeah.
[11:47.130 --> 11:49.070]  There's something more to this story that we're not hearing.
[11:49.230 --> 11:49.870]  I think so, too.
[11:50.170 --> 11:55.930]  Other unsuccessful options were mounting the transmitters on stoplights and buildings and even attaching a battery.
[11:56.550 --> 11:59.550]  I think the other problem is really what this is about.
[11:59.670 --> 12:07.150]  The other problem being how to make money from a municipal Wi-Fi network, which can cost up to $200,000 per square mile to build.
[12:07.430 --> 12:18.570]  Such networks face growing competition from home broadband access, cellular phone companies boosting their own wireless internet services, and the development of new technologies such as WiMAX, a more powerful version of Wi-Fi.
[12:19.770 --> 12:25.870]  WiMAX may very well be the answer, but I can't say I'm surprised by any of these hurdles that they claim to have just discovered.
[12:26.230 --> 12:29.390]  It's common sense that, yeah, you're going to have to put transmitters up.
[12:29.430 --> 12:30.310]  You're going to need power.
[12:31.710 --> 12:38.610]  If you didn't work it out in advance, I can't say that this is anything you deserve any sympathy for.
[12:38.990 --> 12:39.410]  Emmanuel?
[12:39.650 --> 12:39.870]  Yes.
[12:40.210 --> 12:42.130]  There's a whole spate of...
[12:42.130 --> 13:01.050]  There was a good article in Mobile Radio Technology Magazine this past month about all the municipal Wi-Fi networks that fell flat, that were touted as being the next great thing, and only a small fraction of them actually panned out as working networks.
[13:01.590 --> 13:02.990]  Philadelphia was one of them.
[13:03.570 --> 13:09.890]  But a lot of the promised Wi-Fi networks, municipal Wi-Fi networks, never came to be.
[13:09.890 --> 13:29.490]  And a related story, Sprint PCS, which had a big agreement with three other big companies to roll out a nationwide WiMAX network, which is a much longer range form of wireless internet working, they pulled out of it and said, oh, we can't do this after all.
[13:29.570 --> 13:30.850]  So that fell flat as well.
[13:31.590 --> 13:32.090]  Amazing.
[13:32.090 --> 13:40.330]  Also, other telecommunications developments, Verizon Wireless has agreed to settle a deceptive marketing investigation.
[13:40.330 --> 13:41.030]  Which one?
[13:41.170 --> 13:42.110]  There are so many.
[13:42.270 --> 13:45.890]  The unlimited internet plan, which actually was quite limited.
[13:46.350 --> 13:46.950]  Yeah, that's true.
[13:47.490 --> 14:00.650]  Attorney General Andrew Cuomo of New York State has announced Verizon Wireless has agreed to halt the deceptive marketing of its internet usage plans and reimburse $1 million to customers for wrongful account termination nationwide.
[14:00.650 --> 14:10.510]  The settlement follows a nine-month investigation into the marketing of national access and broadband access plans for wireless access to the internet for laptop computer users.
[14:10.750 --> 14:22.490]  The Attorney General's investigation found that Verizon Wireless prominently marketed these plans as unlimited without disclosing that common usages such as downloading movies or playing games online were prohibited.
[14:22.790 --> 14:29.630]  The company also cut off heavy internet users for exceeding an undisclosed cap of usage per month.
[14:29.750 --> 14:42.150]  As a result, customers misled by the company's claims, enrolled in its unlimited plans, only to have their accounts abruptly terminated for excessive use, leaving them without internet services and unable to obtain refunds.
[14:42.990 --> 14:46.470]  It's good to actually see some common sense rain here.
[14:46.710 --> 14:50.110]  When they say unlimited, I take that to mean only one thing, unlimited.
[14:50.830 --> 14:52.910]  That's why you don't work in marketing departments.
[14:52.910 --> 14:53.930]  No, apparently not.
[14:54.770 --> 14:58.070]  So this million dollars, how does this get paid out?
[14:58.250 --> 14:59.510]  That's a good question.
[15:00.310 --> 15:01.290]  Well, let's see.
[15:01.390 --> 15:03.670]  Let's see if there's any information here in this press release.
[15:04.250 --> 15:16.810]  Verizon Wireless has agreed to reimburse all terminated consumers for the cost of wireless access cards or cell phones purchased by the consumer in order to utilize Verizon Wireless's wireless internet service.
[15:16.810 --> 15:18.370]  It's kind of a clumsy way of saying that.
[15:18.470 --> 15:20.530]  Verizon Wireless is wireless internet service.
[15:21.190 --> 15:27.330]  Verizon Wireless estimates the total amount of restitution to be approximately $1 million nationwide.
[15:27.930 --> 15:38.050]  Verizon Wireless has also agreed to pay penalties and cost of $150,000 to New York State and revisit the company's marketing of its wireless internet access plans.
[15:38.450 --> 15:42.770]  So I don't know if there's an answer in there for you, Bernie, but that's as much as we're going to get.
[15:42.770 --> 15:44.250]  Well, two things.
[15:44.370 --> 15:51.190]  Typically, these payouts don't amount to anything, really anything significant at all per harmed user.
[15:51.410 --> 15:54.230]  And second of all, guess where that million dollars comes out of?
[15:54.590 --> 15:57.630]  All Verizon customers' pockets.
[15:57.930 --> 16:00.770]  Because if Verizon doesn't pay it, the customers always pay.
[16:01.150 --> 16:04.050]  So Verizon doesn't really get punished at all.
[16:04.110 --> 16:07.410]  Nobody has ever held accountable, really, in these situations.
[16:07.990 --> 16:09.130]  That's probably true.
[16:09.950 --> 16:12.050]  But still, it's good to see a little bad publicity.
[16:12.470 --> 16:12.830]  Yeah.
[16:13.110 --> 16:13.370]  All right.
[16:13.730 --> 16:14.830]  So we have that, at least.
[16:15.030 --> 16:16.790]  Okay, let's stick with some good news.
[16:16.930 --> 16:18.730]  Because good news is always...
[16:18.730 --> 16:19.190]  Good news?
[16:19.290 --> 16:20.450]  It's better than bad news.
[16:20.630 --> 16:21.330]  I like to think it's better than bad news.
[16:21.330 --> 16:22.290]  We don't have that on this show.
[16:22.390 --> 16:23.290]  Well, we do sometimes.
[16:23.310 --> 16:25.250]  And this week, actually, we have some good news.
[16:25.310 --> 16:34.370]  Because, as you recall, last week, we spent a lot of time talking about the Hotel Pennsylvania and the fight to help save it from destruction.
[16:34.490 --> 16:37.090]  The Hotel Pennsylvania is where we have our conferences every couple of years.
[16:37.090 --> 16:42.230]  But in addition to that, it's also a very old structure that's been around since, I believe, 1919.
[16:42.930 --> 16:47.830]  It's directly opposite Pennsylvania Station, the biggest train station around.
[16:49.210 --> 16:51.390]  And it's just... it's got so much history.
[16:51.570 --> 16:53.490]  It's got so many things that have happened inside it.
[16:53.530 --> 16:57.250]  It's also, I think, the biggest hotel in the city, if not one of the biggest.
[16:57.770 --> 17:02.950]  1,700 rooms always filled up with tourists and people visiting New York from various parts of the world.
[17:03.910 --> 17:05.310]  And they want to tear it down.
[17:05.310 --> 17:10.350]  They want to build this horrible Times Square-looking structure in its place.
[17:11.330 --> 17:19.670]  And in addition to, obviously, wanting to save the place for our own conferences, we want to save the place just for the sake of New York City and its history.
[17:19.670 --> 17:22.770]  Because once you tear something like that down, it's gone forever.
[17:22.770 --> 17:28.030]  Last week was a hearing of Community Board 5, the full hearing.
[17:28.150 --> 17:37.690]  The week before that, a subcommittee of that particular community board had agreed to pursue the issue of landmarking the hotel.
[17:38.210 --> 17:40.550]  And last week was the big meeting.
[17:40.550 --> 17:42.530]  This is with about 50 board members.
[17:42.610 --> 17:44.590]  We encouraged people to go down there.
[17:44.630 --> 17:47.050]  And we had a pretty good showing.
[17:47.050 --> 17:51.150]  A lot of people giving very impassioned talks and speeches.
[17:51.690 --> 17:53.510]  It was quite a moment.
[17:53.710 --> 17:55.090]  It was quite a lot of moments, actually.
[17:55.530 --> 18:01.190]  Pyro joins us on the telephone this week to tell us more about what exactly happened last week.
[18:01.730 --> 18:02.230]  Hi, guys.
[18:02.530 --> 18:02.970]  How you doing?
[18:03.130 --> 18:03.550]  Can you hear me?
[18:03.690 --> 18:04.530]  I hear you just fine.
[18:05.150 --> 18:05.450]  Okay.
[18:05.910 --> 18:16.610]  We had a fantastic turnout, not only by 2,600 members in the local community, but we had a fantastic turnout by the hotel staff as well.
[18:17.270 --> 18:22.630]  Bell boys, office staff, all got out and made their fantastic speeches.
[18:23.870 --> 18:32.310]  Pretty much blasting Vernado, wanting to know why they're doing this and who's going to take care of them when they come and rip down their hotel.
[18:32.490 --> 18:35.650]  Now, Vernado, the company that actually owns the space right now.
[18:36.070 --> 18:36.410]  Correct.
[18:36.690 --> 18:38.070]  And they own a lot of the space.
[18:38.190 --> 18:40.550]  I found out last week how much they actually own.
[18:40.550 --> 18:41.350]  Give us an idea.
[18:42.470 --> 18:53.690]  A great deal of Herald Square, including all the property that the hotel resides on and everything behind it to Herald Square, including the Manhattan Mall.
[18:54.070 --> 19:01.750]  They also own a great number of buildings in the mid-town area, including 1 Penn Plaza.
[19:02.350 --> 19:04.590]  It happens to be one of their buildings.
[19:05.470 --> 19:08.430]  Buildings on 7th Avenue, buildings on 42nd Street.
[19:08.430 --> 19:12.970]  They own Virgin Mobile stores, or Virgin Megastores rather.
[19:13.650 --> 19:18.790]  They own a tremendous, tremendous, not only in New York, but New Jersey, Virginia, all over the country.
[19:18.790 --> 19:21.130]  Might it be quicker just to list what they don't own?
[19:21.350 --> 19:22.030]  Yeah, really.
[19:22.330 --> 19:22.970]  Pretty much.
[19:23.110 --> 19:26.190]  This is amazing because I think a year ago I'd never even heard of them.
[19:26.250 --> 19:28.110]  Of course, I don't really pay much attention to what's going on.
[19:28.410 --> 19:34.570]  But it seems like these guys have just come out of almost nowhere and are purchasing things left and right.
[19:34.570 --> 19:37.950]  And they have some kind of big master plan for that part of town, do they not?
[19:38.470 --> 19:39.050]  Yes, they do.
[19:39.050 --> 19:49.490]  They're tagging or tacking the hotel pen onto the whole midtown Farley Post Office New Penn Station project.
[19:49.870 --> 20:03.390]  And that's been one of the biggest concerns with the community board leaders is because they fear that, you know, this is going to disrupt all the current plans that are not in place.
[20:03.390 --> 20:08.990]  And I don't use that word incorrectly because the point is nobody has filed anything.
[20:08.990 --> 20:13.250]  So far, everybody's just in discussions with, oh, we want to do this, we want to do that.
[20:13.270 --> 20:22.510]  And it takes literally a request for the Freedom of Information Act just to get some idea of what it is that they're actually planning.
[20:23.930 --> 20:25.230]  So it's tremendous.
[20:25.590 --> 20:25.830]  Mm-hmm.
[20:26.130 --> 20:28.990]  Okay, so tell us what happened at the actual board meeting last week.
[20:28.990 --> 20:43.930]  We had a fantastic turnout, as I said, and we got a vote of 21 to 8 to pass the resolution on to New York City's Landmark Preservation Commission or committee.
[20:44.590 --> 20:47.250]  We were very surprised by that.
[20:48.550 --> 20:53.690]  And it was just too much to, you know, to take in at that one particular time.
[20:53.870 --> 21:00.630]  And, you know, as the day following progressed, it actually sunk in what we had accomplished.
[21:00.950 --> 21:04.650]  I mean, this has truly been a David and Goliath situation.
[21:04.890 --> 21:05.630]  Oh, it's incredible.
[21:05.750 --> 21:06.510]  It's not over yet.
[21:06.650 --> 21:07.630]  We should caution people.
[21:07.950 --> 21:14.530]  While this is definitely good news, the battle is going to be long and torturous and it's ahead of us.
[21:14.530 --> 21:17.870]  But definitely getting this group of people.
[21:18.130 --> 21:22.990]  And they really seem to appreciate the actual importance of the structure.
[21:23.610 --> 21:26.130]  True, it may not be in the best shape inside.
[21:26.410 --> 21:28.590]  There's all kinds of renovation work constantly going on.
[21:28.630 --> 21:30.610]  But the history is the important thing.
[21:30.690 --> 21:35.590]  And that's, I think, what people concerned with preserving history in New York City should look at.
[21:35.590 --> 21:38.530]  And certainly so much has happened inside the place.
[21:38.530 --> 21:40.430]  And so much more can happen there.
[21:40.850 --> 21:53.210]  And the other thing is, the people that are interested in the Moynihan Station, the New Penn Station, or maybe even a new Madison Square Garden they're talking about, that's a whole other issue.
[21:53.250 --> 21:58.970]  And in fact, an existing hotel can actually be good for that kind of a thing.
[21:58.970 --> 22:10.270]  They don't have to tear that down and replace it with what we call Times Square Jr. And I think you can fight one thing and not necessarily have to fight the other.
[22:10.350 --> 22:12.070]  Although you can fight all of them, as far as I'm concerned.
[22:12.370 --> 22:17.830]  The important thing is to not let any more of New York's history be destroyed forever.
[22:18.270 --> 22:26.750]  One of the things I thought was interesting is that Fornado has actually hired a lobbyist firm, apparently, to try and get permission to knock down the hotel.
[22:26.930 --> 22:27.570]  That's interesting.
[22:28.270 --> 22:29.630]  And they're going to lobby...
[22:30.230 --> 22:31.110]  Who are they going to lobby?
[22:31.230 --> 22:31.590]  I don't know.
[22:31.670 --> 22:31.990]  Albany.
[22:32.350 --> 22:33.070]  I'm sorry, go ahead.
[22:33.610 --> 22:34.010]  Albany.
[22:34.470 --> 22:34.830]  Okay.
[22:36.030 --> 22:48.310]  Apparently, if you can get enough pressure from the governor, you can then put pressure on the mayor, who then in turn puts pressure on the rest of the city.
[22:48.630 --> 22:48.850]  All right.
[22:48.890 --> 22:52.710]  Well, obviously, we've got to do similar things, too, and reach out to people.
[22:52.870 --> 22:54.170]  Do we have a game plan on this?
[22:55.030 --> 22:55.730]  We're trying.
[22:55.730 --> 22:58.030]  We are currently...
[22:58.030 --> 23:11.350]  The game plan is for everybody to get in touch with the community board five members and join the efforts that they've done to process this moving... move this process forward, rather.
[23:11.990 --> 23:20.050]  Also, contact any and all of your local elected officials, regardless of whether you live in New York City or not.
[23:20.050 --> 23:21.750]  It can't hurt.
[23:22.030 --> 23:23.330]  It can only help us.
[23:23.410 --> 23:32.870]  And we also, most importantly, need to pretty much flood the city's office with requests for evaluations.
[23:32.870 --> 23:43.590]  And what that is is it's a form that gets filled out stating what piece of property or area that you want evaluated for a landmark designation.
[23:43.590 --> 23:48.690]  You provide as much possible history with it and facts that you can.
[23:48.910 --> 23:56.150]  And you send it off to the LPC, and they process it there once they meet with their board members.
[23:56.150 --> 24:01.350]  Can you tell us how to do some of these things, how to contact them and send them out?
[24:01.350 --> 24:05.550]  You can go to SaveTheHotel.org, forward slash news.
[24:05.730 --> 24:09.290]  It's www.SaveTheHotel.org, forward slash news.
[24:09.450 --> 24:13.330]  And there is a link for the New York City RSE form.
[24:13.630 --> 24:28.550]  Once you've filled it out, you send it in to Mary Beth Betts, Director of Research at the Landmarks Preservation Commission, 1 Center Street, 9th Floor, New York, New York, 10007.
[24:29.230 --> 24:39.390]  And if you want more information on the designation process, there is a link on that page also that takes you to the frequently asked questions of the LPC.
[24:39.730 --> 24:41.670]  I believe Bernie has a question for you, Pyro.
[24:41.950 --> 24:43.190]  Pyro, I just wanted to thank you.
[24:43.230 --> 24:44.230]  It's a lot of great information.
[24:44.490 --> 25:05.550]  One thing to look out for, if Vornado has a lobbyist trying to push this through in Albany, they might be trying to do what was done here in Philadelphia with the casino, the gaming companies, who managed to lobby Harrisburg, our capital, to pass a special piece of legislation,
[25:05.950 --> 25:16.430]  taking local control of development projects out of the hands of the citizens, specifically for particular projects.
[25:16.430 --> 25:39.810]  So, in this case, it's conceivable that Vernado's lobbyists could convince or bribe or otherwise talk into New York legislators into passing some obscure piece of legislation in the middle of the night, saying that the Hotel Pennsylvania decision on its fate will be decided in Albany.
[25:39.810 --> 25:40.750]  Absolutely.
[25:40.750 --> 25:42.370]  So, that might be worth looking at.
[25:43.150 --> 25:49.490]  One of the things we definitely do need is as much support for this as possible.
[25:49.910 --> 25:52.390]  We need people from all walks of life.
[25:52.490 --> 26:00.610]  We're a small group of people trying to, you know, take on a large New York City government and other large organizations.
[26:00.750 --> 26:08.470]  And if anybody can help us with the ins and outs of the legal system, it would be greatly appreciated.
[26:09.910 --> 26:20.110]  And there's an email address that you can write to if you want to participate or if you want to also share stories or pictures or whatnot about the hotel.
[26:20.150 --> 26:24.690]  So, that would help in the fight to preserve it, to have all this documentation.
[26:25.610 --> 26:28.450]  And I got to say, we've been asking for this for some time.
[26:28.450 --> 26:31.550]  And we've gotten some very good replies, but we haven't gotten enough.
[26:31.610 --> 26:32.430]  We need more.
[26:32.510 --> 26:33.390]  We need a lot more.
[26:33.390 --> 26:44.310]  So, if you ever had a story about the Hotel Pennsylvania, if you stayed there, if your grandparents know something about it, if you have pictures or letterhead or anything like that, we want to hear from you.
[26:44.410 --> 26:47.190]  The address is hotelat2600.com.
[26:47.210 --> 26:49.970]  That's hotelat2600.com.
[26:50.390 --> 26:55.490]  Please write in with whatever statements or comments you'd like to make.
[26:55.490 --> 27:00.190]  If you have an opinion one way or the other, if you think the hotel should be demolished, we'd like to hear that viewpoint.
[27:00.430 --> 27:02.550]  It might be very helpful for us to know how you think.
[27:04.010 --> 27:14.250]  And various other... if you want to get involved in the fight, if you happen to be, say, a cousin of the governor or something, and you think you can help out, then by all means, hotelat2600.com.
[27:14.350 --> 27:19.230]  Or even if you're not, any person helping us is a giant help.
[27:19.230 --> 27:23.990]  And I think, Pyro, you've demonstrated that because you've taken on this project from the beginning.
[27:24.130 --> 27:27.650]  And I have to say that we've gotten this far because of your efforts.
[27:28.290 --> 27:28.970]  Well, thank you, gentlemen.
[27:29.190 --> 27:31.530]  I mean, it's been a group effort by all.
[27:31.770 --> 27:40.430]  You know, I helped start the process, and I got as far as I did with the help of everybody else that joined the cause.
[27:41.130 --> 27:41.650]  All right.
[27:41.710 --> 27:48.130]  Well, let's hope that the hotel is preserved and the home of Hope Conferences will last a very long time.
[27:48.130 --> 27:50.090]  And Pyro, I want to thank you very much.
[27:50.210 --> 27:53.730]  Any other final words or addresses or information you want to give out?
[27:54.290 --> 27:56.050]  Just a real quick update.
[27:56.610 --> 28:13.090]  I found out recently that the LPC has made an informal decision on the hotel that it, quote, did not merit landmark status, adding that in this case it is unlikely that they will change their minds.
[28:13.090 --> 28:20.990]  However, the LPC commission can be, or I'm sorry, the LPC can be overruled by the mayor's office.
[28:21.610 --> 28:34.610]  So if anybody happens to be close friends with Mayor Bloomberg, please, you know, bend his ear our way to our cause, and let's try and get this hotel saved as soon as possible.
[28:34.610 --> 28:41.050]  And it's also important to point out that while this is a New York City location, this fight is not limited to New York City residents.
[28:41.050 --> 28:53.830]  If you're outside the city, outside the state, outside the country, this hotel could conceivably mean something to you, especially if you take part in our conventions or Westminster Dog Show or whatever else they have at that place.
[28:54.370 --> 29:02.970]  by all means, write in anyway, because your words are very important as anyone who would benefit from a place like that.
[29:03.150 --> 29:04.970]  So definitely want to hear from people.
[29:05.070 --> 29:09.050]  Hotel at 2600.com, website save the hotel.org.
[29:09.710 --> 29:13.950]  Pyro, I want to thank you very much, and I'm sure we'll have many updates in the future as this fight progresses.
[29:14.830 --> 29:15.310]  Thank you, gentlemen.
[29:15.570 --> 29:16.110]  All right, take care.
[29:17.330 --> 29:22.390]  That was Pyro joining us, updating us on the fight for the hotel.
[29:23.370 --> 29:25.010]  And that's pretty inspirational, don't you think?
[29:25.490 --> 29:25.850]  Yeah.
[29:25.990 --> 29:27.250]  We're actually getting somewhere.
[29:27.370 --> 29:28.190]  It feels like we're getting somewhere.
[29:28.270 --> 29:32.350]  Of course, it could all fall apart, but I think that's up to us.
[29:32.390 --> 29:42.470]  That's up to us as to how strongly we want to fight this thing, and if we want to hand out bumper stickers and T-shirts and buttons and things like that and actually get a movement started.
[29:42.470 --> 29:46.410]  I think this is something worth doing, really worth doing.
[29:47.190 --> 29:52.950]  Okay, we have a couple other interesting items, and we're going to make a special...
[29:53.610 --> 29:54.850]  We're going to drop in on somebody.
[29:55.030 --> 29:55.670]  Put it that way.
[29:55.910 --> 29:56.350]  That's rude.
[29:56.530 --> 29:56.670]  Yeah.
[29:56.810 --> 29:58.170]  Well, I think they expect us.
[29:58.810 --> 30:00.270]  But here's an interesting case.
[30:00.410 --> 30:01.810]  In fact, you wrote in about this, Mike.
[30:02.350 --> 30:02.590]  Uh-oh.
[30:02.730 --> 30:04.810]  Yeah, it has to do with Hushmail.
[30:05.890 --> 30:12.150]  You found a fairly routine affidavit in a case involving the illegal purchase of some kind of steroids.
[30:12.370 --> 30:13.430]  I'm reading your words here.
[30:13.430 --> 30:27.450]  The interesting thing is that the affidavit references some emails of the alleged steroid seller, and that these emails were stored on the servers of Hushmail, which asserts that they don't know your password and can't read your emails even in cases of subpoenas like this.
[30:27.590 --> 30:35.870]  So obviously, this claim is false, at least for some subset of their customers' emails, and there is no real clear answer as to which subset that is.
[30:36.430 --> 30:39.710]  Well, Mike, you certainly have given us something to worry about now.
[30:39.710 --> 30:50.690]  Yeah, well, Hushmail advertises that they don't know your password, they don't read your email, and I at least thought, you know, if they weren't telling the complete truth, that there was something to it.
[30:50.890 --> 30:56.710]  But there's this case, United States of America versus Tyler Stumbo.
[30:56.990 --> 31:10.910]  Tyler Stumbo apparently sold steroids or something and thought he would be safe if he used a Hushmail email address, and there's just this clause in the affidavit which they use to sort of bring the charges.
[31:11.810 --> 31:18.710]  And it basically says, hey, we called up Hushmail and asked them for this guy's emails, and hey, we got them.
[31:18.790 --> 31:21.870]  So there seems to have been no problem whatsoever.
[31:22.890 --> 31:25.410]  So I no longer recommend using their services.
[31:25.410 --> 31:27.050]  How do you think they got the emails though?
[31:27.170 --> 31:28.310]  How were they able to access?
[31:28.450 --> 31:33.070]  Because what Hushmail says, they say that we don't have the password, it's all encrypted.
[31:33.070 --> 31:37.170]  So are they completely lying about this or is there some backdoor?
[31:37.810 --> 31:41.210]  Well, there's a number of theories, none of which can really be proven.
[31:41.730 --> 31:56.710]  One is that there is a backdoor that at least is optional, that if they know they have to get the emails of some person, then they can backdoor that person's, you know, email web program thing and get it.
[31:57.650 --> 32:00.030]  Another point is that they have now two interfaces.
[32:00.250 --> 32:06.410]  They have their Java interface, which is the one that people have analyzed and at least has some interesting security properties.
[32:06.590 --> 32:13.850]  But they also have this new JavaScript interface, which is much easier to run on computers, but has a lot fewer of those security properties.
[32:14.030 --> 32:15.970]  All the encryption is done on their server.
[32:16.270 --> 32:18.010]  So you have to trust their server.
[32:18.210 --> 32:20.610]  And in this case, at least you shouldn't trust their server.
[32:21.230 --> 32:21.590]  Wow.
[32:21.930 --> 32:23.970]  So no one really knows exactly what's going on.
[32:24.050 --> 32:37.070]  There was an interview in Wired, their website, with one of the heads of Hushmail, in which he is basically, yeah, I can't say exactly how this happened, but you'd be a fool to trust our services if you're doing anything illegal.
[32:37.970 --> 32:38.330]  And...
[32:38.330 --> 32:39.030]  He actually said that?
[32:39.110 --> 32:39.290]  Yeah.
[32:39.990 --> 32:46.430]  I mean, it doesn't sound good to say you can trust our servers if you're doing something illegal, but to say that you...
[32:46.430 --> 32:50.390]  I mean, that means you can't trust our servers if you're not doing anything illegal, right?
[32:50.490 --> 32:50.890]  That's...
[32:50.890 --> 32:52.270]  That's how I interpret that.
[32:52.330 --> 32:53.030]  It seems pretty clear to me.
[32:53.370 --> 32:59.990]  Well, also, as we've discussed many times on the show, the definition of illegal is so broad that it's about meaningless.
[33:00.230 --> 33:00.950]  Just like privacy.
[33:01.450 --> 33:02.410]  Definitions can be changed.
[33:02.670 --> 33:02.770]  Yeah.
[33:03.070 --> 33:04.270]  All right, Mike, thanks very much for...
[33:04.270 --> 33:13.290]  Just one last point about this affidavit is that they don't want us to know Tyler Stumbo's date of birth and social security number, so they blacked it out.
[33:13.350 --> 33:16.490]  You can see these nice black bars if you happen to be in the studio with me.
[33:16.490 --> 33:17.070]  Isn't that considerate?
[33:17.070 --> 33:17.330]  Yeah.
[33:17.510 --> 33:18.970]  That's some level of privacy.
[33:19.130 --> 33:27.390]  It's good to see that privacy is being respected in this country and that information such as that is kept from prying eyes such as our own.
[33:27.510 --> 33:30.370]  So that's a bit of good news to end this story on, Mike.
[33:30.530 --> 33:30.690]  Yeah.
[33:30.870 --> 33:37.130]  Except that the people who did the blacking out obviously did not read the NSA's wonderful work redacting with confidence.
[33:37.330 --> 33:45.210]  So it's pretty easy with some programs to remove the black bars and then you'll learn the information behind it.
[33:45.210 --> 33:45.790]  Uh-huh.
[33:46.950 --> 33:49.750]  Well, that's not good news then.
[33:49.750 --> 33:50.370]  That's bad news.
[33:50.790 --> 33:51.490]  Well, no.
[33:51.490 --> 33:51.810]  Thanks, Mike.
[33:51.890 --> 33:52.730]  Thanks for the bad news.
[33:53.090 --> 33:53.330]  Anytime.
[33:54.130 --> 33:54.530]  All right.
[33:55.810 --> 33:56.770]  And now...
[34:08.040 --> 34:10.620]  It's time for a new sustaining feature of the program
[34:18.790 --> 34:20.990]  entitled, While the Army Sleeps.
[34:24.340 --> 34:37.260]  And for those who don't know, uh, we have, um, um, one of our staff members here, one of our off-the-hook, uh, co-hosts, uh, went and left the country and wound up joining the Finnish Army.
[34:37.840 --> 34:40.300]  Uh, Redhakt, his phone is now ringing.
[34:41.160 --> 34:41.460]  What up?
[34:41.720 --> 34:43.700]  Uh, Redhakt, is that you?
[34:44.280 --> 34:44.720]  Yeah.
[34:45.040 --> 34:45.620]  How you doing?
[34:45.840 --> 34:50.320]  Uh, we're calling you in this first installment of our new series, While the Army Sleeps.
[34:50.320 --> 34:51.420]  You have joined the Finnish Army.
[34:51.580 --> 34:54.440]  It's, uh, it's currently, what, about 2 in the morning over there in Finland?
[34:54.720 --> 34:55.460]  2.30, yeah.
[34:55.780 --> 34:56.160]  2.30?
[34:56.640 --> 35:01.080]  Uh, and, uh, the whole army is asleep, you're awake, and you're going to tell us what's going on over there.
[35:01.960 --> 35:02.720]  Yeah, sure.
[35:03.080 --> 35:03.240]  Okay.
[35:03.480 --> 35:05.260]  Uh, what would you like me to start with?
[35:05.260 --> 35:14.940]  Well, uh, don't wake anybody up because we don't want to start an alert of any, any sort, but basically, well, Redhakt, uh, used to be here every week, and you might have noticed where, you might have wondered where he has gone.
[35:15.560 --> 35:17.540]  Uh, you're, you're a part of the Finnish Army now.
[35:17.600 --> 35:20.300]  Now, people might ask, well, uh, Redhakt, you're an American.
[35:20.320 --> 35:22.040]  What are you doing joining a foreign army?
[35:23.100 --> 35:23.500]  Right.
[35:23.840 --> 35:27.240]  Uh, well, the answer to that would be, I'm an American, but I'm also a Finn.
[35:27.880 --> 35:41.300]  And, uh, although it's not, well, here in Finland, there are two things, you, you have, you're required to either join the army or be, um, in, do some civil service, um, as a citizen, or as a male citizen.
[35:41.640 --> 35:44.460]  So, most people join the army because the time commitment's a lot less.
[35:44.620 --> 35:48.640]  I think the civil service is maybe 13 months or something.
[35:48.780 --> 35:51.240]  And the army is anywhere from six to 12, depending.
[35:51.520 --> 35:56.980]  And the people who are here for 12 months are the ones who want to be officers anyway, so they would have wanted to do the army in any case.
[35:57.200 --> 36:04.000]  But, uh, anyone who's just kind of here for the ride or has to be here, they, they usually, they'll put like six months usually.
[36:04.320 --> 36:08.140]  Well, now you easily could have just not done this at all by not going over there, right?
[36:08.880 --> 36:14.280]  Yeah, I could have done that, uh, by a not coming over here and be, uh, not living here at any point.
[36:14.280 --> 36:27.300]  So, um, because I'm a, uh, uh, citizen of a, another country, um, actually I can just say I want to serve in their army and then I don't have to, if it's not required in the other country, but I can say I'm opting to serve in the American army or the Finnish army.
[36:27.580 --> 36:29.160]  And then, uh, that would be that.
[36:30.220 --> 36:31.860]  I wouldn't have to go to the American army.
[36:31.960 --> 36:33.220]  I could just say that I opt.
[36:33.520 --> 36:36.380]  What if the other country is one of Finland's sworn enemies?
[36:38.120 --> 36:38.960]  Uh, I don't know.
[36:38.960 --> 36:41.020]  I don't know what Finnish law is about that.
[36:41.260 --> 36:45.120]  If I, if Finland was one of America's sworn enemies, I would be out of the citizenship.
[36:46.180 --> 36:50.080]  Well, that, that could happen, I guess, because I don't think Finland has any sworn enemies, do they?
[36:50.340 --> 36:51.340]  I don't think they do either.
[36:51.600 --> 36:52.180]  Maybe Russia.
[36:52.320 --> 37:00.580]  We were talking about this on Off the Wall a few weeks ago, and, and you revealed some things about the, um, the Finnish army that, um, are very different than the U.S.
[37:00.700 --> 37:05.320]  army, mainly that it's, um, it's an army strictly for defense, right?
[37:06.360 --> 37:06.720]  Right.
[37:06.860 --> 37:10.480]  It's the name that they translated to English as Finnish defense forces.
[37:11.440 --> 37:15.940]  Um, and, yeah, I mean, we don't, the Finnish army doesn't attack anywhere, right?
[37:15.940 --> 37:19.320]  We don't have any troops deployed except for, I believe, with peacekeeping missions.
[37:19.520 --> 37:20.380]  That's, that's separate.
[37:20.520 --> 37:22.520]  That would be kind of a volunteer thing.
[37:22.520 --> 37:26.680]  So you'd say, I want to go, you know, on some peacekeeping mission, whatever that might be, I guess, with the U.N.
[37:26.880 --> 37:32.120]  So you actually don't go out, you actually don't go out and visit other countries and change their governments or things like that?
[37:32.380 --> 37:42.080]  Uh, the most I've heard of visiting other countries is sometimes the, um, the Navy will send a ship somewhere, but that's just kind of practicing driving a ship to another place.
[37:42.200 --> 37:42.520]  Ah.
[37:43.020 --> 37:43.180]  Okay.
[37:43.180 --> 37:43.960]  Not attacking them.
[37:44.380 --> 37:46.500]  Um, but other than that, yeah, we don't go anywhere.
[37:46.620 --> 37:47.420]  What kinds of things have you done?
[37:47.480 --> 37:49.640]  Have you driven a ship or flown a plane?
[37:50.560 --> 37:55.380]  Uh, no, I'm actually a medic, so I'm not going to be driving, flying anything.
[37:56.480 --> 37:59.760]  Um, but, uh, we've done, we've had a bunch of practices.
[38:00.200 --> 38:07.980]  Um, we start, last week we had our first kind of, quote unquote, practice war, uh, where we had one group as the enemy in one group is defending.
[38:08.860 --> 38:13.660]  Um, and so, I mean, obviously, it's a defense force, but we still have to attack, right?
[38:13.740 --> 38:17.280]  Because if the other group takes over some territory, you have to attack back.
[38:17.700 --> 38:24.900]  But, uh, in general, most of the stuff we've concentrated on learning is, you know, like digging foxholes and stuff, which is your basic defense, uh, techniques.
[38:25.180 --> 38:29.460]  And you've spent plenty of time in foxholes and in tents and in cold weather and things like that?
[38:29.460 --> 38:31.420]  Yeah, it's getting actually bad now.
[38:31.740 --> 38:38.620]  Last, last, the last camp last week was, um, the first time where it was below zero that I remember.
[38:38.900 --> 38:42.700]  I mean, I remember we basically, I travel around in the back of a truck.
[38:43.340 --> 38:44.680]  Most, all, most of us do.
[38:44.840 --> 38:49.500]  And I remember hopping out of the truck at our camping location and there was just snow on the ground everywhere.
[38:49.740 --> 38:54.340]  And, uh, let's just say I, I muttered a curse in Finnish as I jumped out the back.
[38:54.340 --> 38:55.420]  And that's another thing.
[38:55.420 --> 38:58.180]  You've learned how to curse quite fluently in, in Finnish.
[38:58.420 --> 39:00.900]  In fact, I think your finish has improved quite a bit, hasn't it?
[39:01.160 --> 39:02.880]  My, my cursing has definitely improved.
[39:03.360 --> 39:04.520]  Well, I meant other words.
[39:05.200 --> 39:07.780]  Other words as well hopefully have come along with that.
[39:07.980 --> 39:08.760]  Everything has improved.
[39:08.920 --> 39:12.300]  I mean, it's, you know, being, being immersed in the language helps a lot.
[39:12.520 --> 39:15.040]  You know, in New York, I don't get a lot of practice speaking it.
[39:15.520 --> 39:22.000]  Um, it's somewhere there because I didn't come here as like a blank slate where I didn't know anything and I had to learn the language.
[39:22.160 --> 39:23.360]  It was definitely buried in there.
[39:24.040 --> 39:26.520]  But, um, but I'm learning new words all the time.
[39:26.780 --> 39:28.160]  Um, and, and slang too.
[39:28.280 --> 39:28.960]  There's a lot of slang.
[39:29.180 --> 39:34.980]  I mean, the, the way I just answered the phone where I said, Moro, that's like a greeting I never heard before this summer.
[39:35.280 --> 39:36.240]  You said it well.
[39:36.440 --> 39:37.020]  That's something new.
[39:37.160 --> 39:38.020]  That's something new.
[39:38.100 --> 39:39.100]  It sounded convincing to me.
[39:39.800 --> 39:40.160]  Yeah.
[39:40.320 --> 39:42.220]  I thought I might have woken up the wrong person.
[39:42.980 --> 39:43.340]  Yeah.
[39:43.660 --> 39:48.460]  And on that subject, that, that, that, that, now, everyone around you is asleep as the whole army's, uh, shut down?
[39:49.020 --> 39:50.680]  You caught me at a lucky point right now.
[39:50.800 --> 40:00.360]  I'm actually, um, as a medic, uh, what part of my responsibility is to work in the, the, the health clinic or the clinic called like the, the hospital of the base.
[40:00.360 --> 40:01.480]  It's really like a health clinic.
[40:01.780 --> 40:06.380]  Um, and I happen to be in a room by myself right now, sleeping here, so.
[40:06.380 --> 40:07.080]  Yeah.
[40:07.080 --> 40:08.320]  That doesn't happen often, I guess, right?
[40:08.860 --> 40:10.480]  That, that's never happened before.
[40:11.740 --> 40:12.180]  Oh, yeah.
[40:12.300 --> 40:12.460]  Wow.
[40:12.620 --> 40:22.400]  Well, is there anything, since, since we are doing a technology show here, is anything of a technological nature that you can share with us that, uh, maybe the listeners would be interested in hearing about Finland or the army or anything like that?
[40:22.940 --> 40:23.620]  Yeah, sure.
[40:23.900 --> 40:27.240]  Um, as far as the army goes in general, most of what we do is very low tech.
[40:27.480 --> 40:35.640]  Uh, we ride around in trucks, you know, we have guns that are, are gas powered, is how they reload, you know, from the, the, the bullet itself.
[40:36.080 --> 40:39.700]  But, um, there are some, some higher tech things that we've used.
[40:39.960 --> 40:44.960]  There's a really interesting kind of laser tag system, uh, used for, for training.
[40:45.180 --> 40:52.440]  We haven't gotten a lot of use out of it yet, but it'll be used a lot more when we get towards, like, the, the practice wars towards the end of the, of the service time.
[40:53.260 --> 40:55.280]  And that's actually, I think it's made by Saab.
[40:56.020 --> 41:08.480]  And, um, it, it basically has a, a portion that attaches to your combat belt that covers your upper body, and has a bunch of lenses on it, and then a portion that attaches to the gun, near, near the end of the barrel.
[41:09.100 --> 41:27.680]  Um, and the portion that attaches to your gun, basically, whenever it hears, uh, a loud noise, a bang, uh, it fires a laser, not like a laser pointer laser, not, not a beam, but a very wide beam, um, with two different portions, the center portion being somehow indicative that,
[41:27.840 --> 41:34.700]  of a direct hit, and then the surrounding area being indicative of the bullet going close to the person.
[41:34.960 --> 41:38.640]  Uh, and the vest itself has different beeps indicating what's happened to you.
[41:38.780 --> 41:43.120]  So, you know, one beep means that a bullet has gone near you.
[41:43.120 --> 41:46.700]  That way you know, okay, somebody's shooting at me, I better hit, hit the deck.
[41:47.160 --> 41:54.500]  Uh, and then, I think a little off, two long beeps, something, there's another thing that indicates you're injured, and then a third that indicates that you're dead.
[41:54.500 --> 41:56.500]  Um, that's convenient to them.
[41:56.600 --> 42:08.200]  All computerized, and, and, the one I saw was an older model, but they told us there's a newer model that even has GPS stuff in it, so that later, they can download all the data and, like, reconstruct what happened, who shot who, et cetera, et cetera.
[42:08.340 --> 42:12.000]  Maybe sell you a DVD of it or something, so for your memoirs.
[42:12.240 --> 42:14.720]  Uh, Bernie, any, any questions for Redhack over there in Finland?
[42:14.720 --> 42:15.360]  Yeah, hi, Redhack.
[42:15.660 --> 42:16.920]  Good to hear your voice.
[42:17.180 --> 42:18.700]  When are you due back to the US?
[42:19.300 --> 42:27.160]  Uh, I'm due back in, er, mid-April, because I'm a medic, so that extends my time to nine months instead of six months.
[42:27.360 --> 42:41.340]  Uh, do you get to, were you given any, uh, kind of a training on, uh, on, uh, sewing up wounds and that sort of thing with, uh, with, with sort of artificial flesh or animal flesh or anything like that?
[42:41.540 --> 42:41.800]  No.
[42:41.800 --> 42:42.960]  What kind of a question is that?
[42:43.240 --> 42:44.340]  No, I mean...
[42:44.340 --> 42:44.920]  No, this is done.
[42:45.100 --> 42:45.720]  I've read about this.
[42:45.760 --> 42:46.300]  Oh my God.
[42:46.660 --> 42:55.240]  Yeah, I'm sure, well, one thing is that definitely the US has a lot more technology that it puts to use, but then again, it has a lot more injuries in general than this, this country.
[42:55.620 --> 43:07.800]  Um, but no, a lot of the medic training is fairly basic here, um, because in, when you're in the field, um, you don't have access to a lot, uh, you get access to more equipment as you get moved farther up the kind of the chain of care.
[43:08.360 --> 43:18.880]  Um, so in the field you basically have bandages and, and, um, even the person on the very front lines, if you're, if you're a medic on the very front lines, you don't even have casts or, or, or, or splints or anything.
[43:19.400 --> 43:21.180]  Um, you have an axe and you make them out of wood.
[43:22.180 --> 43:28.060]  Or, or, or you use a shovel, um, something like, you know, a battlefield shovel that each soldier carries.
[43:28.320 --> 43:31.520]  So, yeah, it's, it's very low-tech as far as the medical side goes.
[43:31.960 --> 43:40.320]  Um, the idea is that to get to a hospital, um, preferably within an hour, but, um, within six hours minimum.
[43:40.320 --> 43:43.940]  Um, and of course that depends upon what kind of conditions you're working with.
[43:44.080 --> 43:47.780]  So if you're under heavy fire, you're not going to get them to a hospital within an hour.
[43:48.420 --> 43:48.800]  So.
[43:48.800 --> 43:49.660]  All right.
[43:49.660 --> 43:54.420]  Uh, we're on the phone with, uh, Red Hacked, uh, former co-host here at Off the Hook.
[43:54.880 --> 44:01.140]  And, uh, he joins us from Finland, where he's currently serving in the Finnish Army at 2.30, 2.45 in the morning over there.
[44:01.460 --> 44:10.800]  Uh, we're taking phone calls 212-209-2900 on this and any other topics that we might have discussed or any other topics that you have on your mind.
[44:10.800 --> 44:15.440]  Uh, anything that you'd like to say to the, uh, to the listening public that you haven't spoken to for a while, Red Hacked?
[44:16.220 --> 44:16.660]  Me?
[44:16.960 --> 44:18.540]  Uh, no, I don't have anything specific.
[44:18.860 --> 44:25.280]  Um, oh, one thing that actually I did find interesting last week when we were, we were camping or we were out practicing playing war, basically.
[44:26.040 --> 44:30.600]  Um, is that we did a lot of our practice through different towns.
[44:31.100 --> 44:35.660]  Um, so I, I, again, I, um, I'm actually with the mortar launching company.
[44:35.660 --> 44:45.220]  So a lot of what we do is kind of behind the scenes, but there would march through like a town, uh, a random town, you know, somewhere.
[44:45.220 --> 44:46.380]  I don't actually know where we were.
[44:46.440 --> 44:48.260]  You marched through a random town somewhere.
[44:48.980 --> 44:49.100]  All right.
[44:49.680 --> 44:54.300]  Basically, we'd have all of our guns and equipment and stuff, and we'd, we'd be practicing in this town.
[44:54.460 --> 44:55.960]  Does the town know you're coming?
[44:56.260 --> 44:58.180]  Do they know you're coming when you march through their town?
[44:58.500 --> 44:59.460]  I have no idea.
[44:59.960 --> 45:01.500]  This does sound a lot like the U.S.
[45:01.500 --> 45:01.720]  Army.
[45:01.820 --> 45:02.220]  Yeah, it does.
[45:02.480 --> 45:04.020]  Except we march through towns in other countries.
[45:04.160 --> 45:04.580]  Well, you know.
[45:04.720 --> 45:04.860]  Right.
[45:05.380 --> 45:06.880]  By we, I don't mean we're part of it.
[45:06.960 --> 45:08.120]  I mean, yeah, okay, never mind.
[45:08.500 --> 45:14.420]  And I mean, it makes sense because we have to kind of practice working with, you know, if you were in a war, you're not just going to be in the woods all the time.
[45:15.160 --> 45:20.980]  But, but I just thought it was, it was strange that we were walking through a town carrying all of our, you know, guns and stuff and full gear.
[45:20.980 --> 45:26.280]  And, you know, we walked past people and they just kind of looked at us for a minute, like, oh, that's interesting, and then went back to work.
[45:26.380 --> 45:28.560]  That typical low-key Finnish approach to things.
[45:29.280 --> 45:29.680]  Yeah.
[45:30.140 --> 45:36.440]  Well, but I, you know, again, in Finland, you know that the army is not there doing anything that would bother you.
[45:36.640 --> 45:39.260]  It's just a bunch of kids practicing playing war.
[45:39.520 --> 45:41.680]  Do people treat you any differently because you're American?
[45:43.360 --> 45:45.100]  Um, not really.
[45:45.320 --> 45:49.260]  But again, I have a little easier way of integrating because I can speak language.
[45:49.780 --> 45:55.860]  Um, but, uh, no, I haven't, I haven't, I haven't got any flack about it, per se.
[45:56.440 --> 46:05.620]  Um, I have read some articles in the paper about how, you know, uh, America is doing stupid things, but I haven't, I haven't personally received any kind of, um, backlash.
[46:06.280 --> 46:06.740]  All right.
[46:06.820 --> 46:09.260]  212-209-2900 is our phone number.
[46:09.260 --> 46:09.960]  This is off the hook.
[46:10.480 --> 46:11.440]  Let's take a phone call.
[46:11.580 --> 46:12.000]  Good evening.
[46:12.580 --> 46:13.840]  You're on off the hook.
[46:14.920 --> 46:15.660]  Speak up, please.
[46:16.020 --> 46:16.300]  Yes.
[46:16.380 --> 46:16.580]  Hi.
[46:18.840 --> 46:19.180]  Good for you.
[46:19.680 --> 46:19.840]  Yeah.
[46:20.000 --> 46:20.640]  Somewhat, yeah.
[46:21.400 --> 46:22.220]  What's on your mind?
[46:23.060 --> 46:23.940]  I'm frustrated.
[46:23.940 --> 46:26.420]  I have an, uh, email through Optum Online.
[46:26.640 --> 46:28.440]  They say that, uh, the email is free.
[46:28.900 --> 46:29.340]  Mm-hmm.
[46:29.340 --> 46:32.900]  They just throw that in with the service, which I think is a, a hook in itself.
[46:33.440 --> 46:43.700]  But, uh, somehow, by fault of mine, I had my gal's email as the default email when I go onto a website, and they say contact us.
[46:43.980 --> 46:44.120]  Mm-hmm.
[46:44.120 --> 46:45.440]  It would flash up her email.
[46:45.640 --> 46:50.420]  So I called, uh, customer service to help me change that over to my email.
[46:50.620 --> 46:55.040]  In doing that, they erased all my emails off Optum Online.
[46:55.220 --> 46:55.660]  Oh, dear.
[46:56.220 --> 46:56.440]  Yeah.
[46:56.600 --> 47:00.360]  But it's stuck in my Outlook Express, so I do have it somehow.
[47:00.700 --> 47:00.940]  Uh-huh.
[47:01.120 --> 47:07.020]  And I can get it back over to Optum Online, one email at a time, and I have 399 of them.
[47:07.460 --> 47:08.840]  But they won't do it for me.
[47:09.300 --> 47:09.460]  Wow.
[47:09.460 --> 47:12.860]  I'm not calling and asking you to give me all the answers.
[47:12.880 --> 47:17.460]  I'm just communicating that this is how they treated me, and I don't like that.
[47:17.580 --> 47:24.800]  And I said to them, you know, I have a career, and you have your career, and I'm paying you to do your job, and you messed up my email.
[47:25.000 --> 47:25.300]  Mm-hmm.
[47:25.820 --> 47:26.840]  Just put it back.
[47:27.400 --> 47:33.860]  I said, if I try to put it back, and I call you and say I had a problem, where would I stand then?
[47:33.860 --> 47:34.800]  What would you tell me?
[47:35.000 --> 47:35.180]  Mm-hmm.
[47:35.200 --> 47:35.920]  Oh, it's gone.
[47:36.860 --> 47:38.120]  You can't get it back now.
[47:38.120 --> 47:43.520]  Yeah, you know, I would try to escalate this, speak to a supervisor, because we all know that you can get things back.
[47:43.600 --> 47:47.720]  Imagine if you were a criminal of some sort, and the government wanted that information, they'd get it.
[47:47.840 --> 47:48.600]  They'd get the information.
[47:48.600 --> 47:51.180]  So they should treat their customers with the same sense of urgency.
[47:51.620 --> 47:53.600]  Yeah, they get a premium rate, I'll tell you that.
[47:53.740 --> 47:55.080]  And I'm not complaining about the rate.
[47:55.220 --> 47:56.160]  They have quite a package.
[47:56.300 --> 47:57.100]  There's a lot there.
[47:58.340 --> 47:58.980]  Mm-hmm.
[47:59.380 --> 48:03.160]  And I did get to the supervisor, and then I called back and got to the next supervisor.
[48:03.160 --> 48:04.560]  They say they will not do it.
[48:04.560 --> 48:08.320]  I said, you know, whatever you have on your shift, I've supervised.
[48:08.700 --> 48:17.920]  You should get a guy to sit there and return them, instead of getting people to tell me how to do it wrong, because that's another thing they were doing, and so on and so forth.
[48:18.280 --> 48:22.400]  And I asked them for the email address to log in a complaint.
[48:23.180 --> 48:23.540]  There.
[48:23.800 --> 48:24.400]  So I will.
[48:24.780 --> 48:25.020]  Okay.
[48:25.400 --> 48:26.200]  You know, but...
[48:26.200 --> 48:27.060]  Well, good luck with that.
[48:27.460 --> 48:29.400]  It's a challenge, I know, but...
[48:29.920 --> 48:31.120]  You're doing the right things, at least.
[48:31.680 --> 48:34.280]  Yeah, you know, I'm just standing up for my own self.
[48:34.640 --> 48:37.760]  They made the mistake, and if I made it, I wouldn't put it on them.
[48:37.760 --> 48:38.880]  I'm not one of those, you know?
[48:39.060 --> 48:39.240]  Right.
[48:39.700 --> 48:40.740]  So, that's that.
[48:40.840 --> 48:41.660]  All right, thanks for calling.
[48:41.880 --> 48:42.440]  Hey, thanks.
[48:42.700 --> 48:43.780]  All right, let's see.
[48:43.780 --> 48:51.680]  A lot of these ISP-run email services, especially with the really big ISPs, are very poorly run.
[48:51.800 --> 48:53.040]  They lose people's mails.
[48:53.140 --> 48:54.380]  They won't accept mails.
[48:54.640 --> 48:55.540]  It's very...
[48:55.540 --> 48:59.640]  It's often better to have your email separate from your ISP.
[48:59.660 --> 49:00.280]  Oh, I agree.
[49:00.580 --> 49:01.300]  Strongly, I agree.
[49:01.500 --> 49:02.360]  All right, let's take another phone call.
[49:02.480 --> 49:04.740]  212-209-2900.
[49:05.180 --> 49:05.840]  Good evening.
[49:06.140 --> 49:07.220]  All right, you were on the air.
[49:07.380 --> 49:07.840]  Good evening.
[49:08.800 --> 49:09.240]  You're...
[49:09.240 --> 49:09.600]  Hang on.
[49:09.860 --> 49:10.580]  Button doesn't work.
[49:11.280 --> 49:11.900]  There we go.
[49:12.000 --> 49:12.300]  Good evening.
[49:13.800 --> 49:14.900]  Hey, how you doing, Emmanuel?
[49:15.200 --> 49:15.560]  What's up?
[49:16.380 --> 49:16.620]  Nothing.
[49:16.800 --> 49:32.500]  I was just wondering if you guys heard about the AT&T releasing, you know, they have this thing for small businesses where you can just buy these things and put video cameras and temperature sensors and access it online via JavaScript.
[49:33.380 --> 49:34.940]  I hadn't heard about this specifically.
[49:34.940 --> 49:36.260]  You want to tell us a little more about it?
[49:37.480 --> 49:39.660]  Yeah, I mean, that's basically they just opened it up.
[49:39.760 --> 49:42.580]  I just read it in the Times and they just put it out in the small business...
[49:42.580 --> 49:44.000]  in the small business section.
[49:44.280 --> 49:44.800]  So...
[49:44.800 --> 49:44.920]  And that.
[49:45.120 --> 49:55.860]  So you can literally go on and be able to change, be able to move these certain cameras that they make available and you can adjust lighting and other security features.
[49:55.980 --> 49:59.520]  These are cameras that you're setting up or cameras belonging to somebody else?
[49:59.760 --> 50:00.840]  That you set up.
[50:01.100 --> 50:01.320]  Right.
[50:01.400 --> 50:08.940]  And then it goes along with the service that allows you to go online and whatever through JavaScript to be able to mess with them.
[50:09.100 --> 50:09.500]  And...
[50:09.500 --> 50:17.440]  Okay, so basically you set up cameras all around say your house or something like that and then you can access this using their particular software from anywhere in the world.
[50:18.060 --> 50:18.460]  Exactly.
[50:18.640 --> 50:21.360]  And then they're pitching it as a small business feature.
[50:21.700 --> 50:24.700]  And then of course so can anybody else who gets the right information.
[50:24.840 --> 50:25.780]  They can access this as well.
[50:26.140 --> 50:26.520]  Right.
[50:26.640 --> 50:27.200]  Well, I'm interested.
[50:27.400 --> 50:28.220]  I'm definitely interested in that.
[50:28.240 --> 50:28.960]  I'd like to know more.
[50:29.460 --> 50:29.880]  Yeah, yeah.
[50:30.280 --> 50:30.720]  All right.
[50:30.860 --> 50:31.720]  Well, thanks for letting us know.
[50:31.820 --> 50:32.380]  We'll look into that.
[50:32.380 --> 50:33.120]  Yeah, definitely.
[50:33.380 --> 50:33.580]  All right.
[50:33.660 --> 50:33.940]  Take care.
[50:34.480 --> 50:37.200]  And let's see if we can squeeze in another call.
[50:37.320 --> 50:37.700]  Good evening.
[50:37.900 --> 50:38.660]  You're on off the hook.
[50:38.940 --> 50:39.420]  Oh, boy.
[50:40.200 --> 50:40.920]  Good evening.
[50:41.120 --> 50:42.000]  You're on off the hook.
[50:42.840 --> 50:43.500]  Speak up.
[50:43.800 --> 50:44.400]  Hi there.
[50:44.660 --> 50:44.840]  Hi.
[50:44.860 --> 50:48.000]  I'm calling for two issues.
[50:48.400 --> 50:50.120]  One is Verizon.
[50:51.140 --> 50:54.220]  Verizon has me in a catch-22.
[50:54.780 --> 50:56.620]  They have the new Fios.
[50:56.900 --> 51:05.780]  And because they're bringing Fios to the building and not to each unit, I can't get the DSL provider of my choice.
[51:06.400 --> 51:09.120]  And I'm not sure how to resolve it.
[51:09.200 --> 51:13.360]  They don't seem to be certain about how to resolve it.
[51:13.740 --> 51:14.960]  So that's one.
[51:14.960 --> 51:18.500]  I'm without internet service for almost a month.
[51:18.500 --> 51:25.780]  And the reason I'm without it is I ordered it again from Verizon.
[51:26.120 --> 51:28.120]  But the same thing happened.
[51:28.320 --> 51:35.880]  Because Fios has been brought to the building and not to each individual unit, they canceled it without notice.
[51:35.880 --> 51:46.620]  And they canceled my DSL because they changed the terms of the contract.
[51:46.620 --> 51:50.180]  Or the contract ended and they didn't send me notification.
[51:50.630 --> 51:53.440]  They just changed it and increased the price.
[51:53.720 --> 51:55.980]  So there was an issue about that.
[51:55.980 --> 51:57.120]  Any suggestions?
[51:58.540 --> 52:01.040]  This sounds like something for the Public Service Commission.
[52:01.300 --> 52:08.140]  It sounds like they need to explain what the rules are and what they should offer and what they can't withhold from you.
[52:08.200 --> 52:12.780]  It sounds like you're the victim of something that's being overlooked in the system.
[52:12.780 --> 52:14.180]  I've never heard of this before.
[52:14.360 --> 52:15.620]  Isn't that interesting?
[52:16.120 --> 52:18.240]  I really am in this catch-22.
[52:18.240 --> 52:22.080]  I don't have an internet provider and it's almost a month.
[52:22.260 --> 52:25.360]  And I pay my bills and things online.
[52:26.040 --> 52:34.520]  Well, if you have Fios or if there's Fios sort of involved in the provision of your connectivity, then you can't get DSL.
[52:34.660 --> 52:35.860]  It's a separate technology.
[52:36.240 --> 52:39.040]  But they should be able to provide you with some sort of internet.
[52:39.200 --> 52:41.080]  I don't really know the details.
[52:41.080 --> 52:44.260]  Well, so you're suggesting I go to the FCC?
[52:45.320 --> 52:50.000]  Well, you're suggesting the Public Service Commission may be able to tell you what your options are.
[52:50.180 --> 52:51.300]  And so what do I do?
[52:51.440 --> 52:53.220]  Just define the two issues?
[52:53.760 --> 52:56.240]  Yeah, I think if you explain it the way you explain it to us.
[52:56.240 --> 52:56.900]  You're in New York?
[52:57.180 --> 52:57.960]  New Jersey.
[52:58.100 --> 52:58.720]  New Jersey, okay.
[52:58.720 --> 53:00.520]  So it would be the Public Utilities Commission there, right?
[53:00.580 --> 53:00.840]  Yeah.
[53:01.260 --> 53:09.240]  If you explain it to them, call their hotline and I'm sure they can at least point you to somebody that would be able to address the issue.
[53:09.240 --> 53:09.800]  Hmm.
[53:10.060 --> 53:11.080]  That's a good suggestion.
[53:11.280 --> 53:11.560]  All right.
[53:11.660 --> 53:11.880]  Good luck.
[53:12.020 --> 53:12.420]  Thanks.
[53:12.660 --> 53:13.000]  Bye-bye.
[53:13.120 --> 53:13.640]  Thanks for calling.
[53:14.340 --> 53:16.960]  And that's all the time we have as far as phone calls.
[53:17.480 --> 53:20.980]  I do want to give an update on our colleague Jim's condition.
[53:21.320 --> 53:23.000]  Mike and I visited him on Sunday.
[53:24.140 --> 53:31.580]  Actually, Mike, maybe I should ask you what your impressions were since this was the first time you had seen him based on what we talked about.
[53:31.640 --> 53:35.540]  Well, he's clearly suffered some neurological damage.
[53:35.740 --> 53:38.280]  He's having trouble putting sentences together.
[53:38.280 --> 53:41.100]  But on the other hand, he is putting sentences together.
[53:41.300 --> 53:41.520]  Mm-hmm.
[53:42.340 --> 53:45.460]  So I hope that he'll continue to get better.
[53:45.900 --> 53:46.260]  Yeah.
[53:46.360 --> 53:54.860]  Now, what I noticed, because I had seen him the week before, it seemed like he was succeeding more at saying things.
[53:55.180 --> 54:00.700]  But I don't want to give the wrong impression and say that, yeah, everything is progressing nicely, because I'm not sure it is.
[54:00.900 --> 54:04.320]  You know, I'm not going to sit here and lie and say that, yeah, everything is going great.
[54:05.020 --> 54:05.880]  I'm not sure.
[54:06.080 --> 54:07.840]  I'm not sure if he is getting better.
[54:07.980 --> 54:12.460]  I would love to be able to talk to somebody there who knows something about his medical condition.
[54:12.660 --> 54:14.780]  And unfortunately, that doesn't seem to ever be possible.
[54:14.960 --> 54:16.940]  There never seem to be doctors around when I'm there.
[54:17.120 --> 54:19.840]  And they won't talk on the phone about this.
[54:20.000 --> 54:21.540]  And of course, I'm not family.
[54:21.780 --> 54:24.500]  So it's rather difficult.
[54:24.760 --> 54:28.760]  Now, Bernie, you were talking about this quite a bit over the last couple of weeks.
[54:29.840 --> 54:31.940]  What do you think we can do about this?
[54:33.160 --> 54:36.140]  Well, there must be a case manager he has.
[54:36.240 --> 54:38.220]  We should probably try to find out who the case manager is.
[54:38.300 --> 54:45.020]  I was talking with his sister up until a couple of weeks ago before she went back to Australia, and I haven't been able to get a hold of her since.
[54:45.140 --> 54:49.340]  But she advised me that he does have a case manager there at the Lutheran Medical Center.
[54:49.360 --> 54:59.540]  If we could find out who that is, that might be a central point of contact to find out more about who is treating him and how, and medically that is.
[54:59.540 --> 55:03.120]  And just get more information about his progress.
[55:03.720 --> 55:03.860]  Yeah.
[55:04.000 --> 55:06.780]  And then again, medical records are fairly private in general.
[55:06.780 --> 55:10.900]  So if you're not directly related to him, it might be tough to get any kind of information.
[55:11.460 --> 55:13.660]  But if he's there, he could grant permission, I'm sure.
[55:14.580 --> 55:16.420]  Well, that's easier said than done.
[55:17.160 --> 55:20.120]  It's easy to have some kinds of conversations with him.
[55:20.220 --> 55:21.240]  It's harder to have other kinds.
[55:21.520 --> 55:26.700]  One thing he was very clear about was that he wanted to get a copy of the Daily News every day.
[55:26.740 --> 55:29.620]  And I'm trying to figure out how to make that happen inside a hospital.
[55:29.740 --> 55:31.540]  I'm sure it's possible.
[55:31.540 --> 55:32.700]  I'm sure there's a way to do it.
[55:33.720 --> 55:36.780]  And again, visits are something that are very important.
[55:36.980 --> 55:42.540]  I don't think there are many people insofar as family that are able to visit him because there just aren't that many people.
[55:42.540 --> 55:45.240]  So I think friends are going to make the big difference here.
[55:45.460 --> 55:50.860]  And again, if you want to, if you know Jim, if you've met him in the past, a visit probably would be a good thing.
[55:50.860 --> 55:53.120]  And I encourage people, yes, it's kind of traumatic.
[55:53.120 --> 55:56.300]  It's kind of scary to see somebody like that in that condition.
[55:56.300 --> 55:58.880]  But it's also a very beneficial thing for him.
[55:59.140 --> 56:03.820]  Write to us, OTH at 2600.com if you'd like to be added to the list.
[56:04.160 --> 56:06.100]  Bernie, do you have his actual address on you?
[56:06.360 --> 56:06.900]  Yes, I do.
[56:07.220 --> 56:09.560]  Just give me two seconds here to pull that out.
[56:09.700 --> 56:10.080]  Here it is.
[56:10.960 --> 56:17.280]  Yeah, people, I really urge people to send him cards and letters, which he will get.
[56:17.440 --> 56:18.100]  He will see them.
[56:18.100 --> 56:21.560]  And if he has trouble reading them, we will read them to him.
[56:21.880 --> 56:28.000]  His current address is at the Lutheran Medical Center.
[56:28.880 --> 56:39.800]  Attention, Jim Vicente, V-I-C-H-E-N-C-H, at 150 55th Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11220.
[56:40.840 --> 56:46.640]  Actually, you should put in room 3220 in that address if you can to make sure he gets that.
[56:46.640 --> 56:48.700]  But please send him your cards and letters.
[56:49.320 --> 56:51.720]  Any bit of intellectual stimulation can help.
[56:52.180 --> 56:55.100]  Yeah, when we came in the other day, he was actually reading the newspaper.
[56:55.300 --> 56:56.660]  I assume he was reading it.
[56:56.800 --> 56:59.460]  It's hard to say for sure if he was able to understand it.
[56:59.540 --> 57:01.920]  But the fact is, he's definitely trying.
[57:02.080 --> 57:04.800]  And that's something I think we need to help with as much as possible.
[57:05.100 --> 57:07.300]  All right, that's another edition of Off the Hook in the can.
[57:07.700 --> 57:09.500]  Thanks, Redhack, for joining us from Finland.
[57:10.240 --> 57:10.800]  No problem.
[57:10.960 --> 57:11.620]  Thanks to Pyro.
[57:11.820 --> 57:12.380]  You've been my best.
[57:12.560 --> 57:13.520]  Yes, we certainly will.
[57:13.660 --> 57:15.820]  Thanks to Pyro for all his efforts with saving the hotel.
[57:15.820 --> 57:16.760]  Thanks, Bernie, Mike.
[57:17.280 --> 57:19.000]  And stay tuned for the Personal Computer Show.
[57:19.140 --> 57:20.380]  This is Emmanuel Goldstein for Off the Hook.
[57:20.580 --> 57:21.340]  Have a good night.
[57:22.220 --> 57:22.440]  It's
[58:45.700 --> 58:46.620]  a good night.
[58:48.280 --> 58:49.400]  That was great.
[58:50.660 --> 58:51.380]  All right.
[58:51.880 --> 58:55.040]  Maybe I'll put all that direct work there.
[58:55.200 --> 58:55.940]  Bruce, you weren't there?
[58:56.840 --> 58:58.260]  Let's see what we've got here.
[59:00.540 --> 59:00.980]  Oh.
[59:00.980 --> 59:06.760]  You're listening to WBAI New York 99.5 FM.