From: digest-replies@telecomdigest.net   
      
   On Tue, May 23, 2023 at 05:31:07AM +0000, Fred Atkinson wrote:   
   > > From: submissions@telecom-digest.org on behalf of John Levine   
   > >    
   >   
   > > It appears that Garrett Wollman  said:   
   > >> And guess what? Your phone gets the same emergency alerts as the radio   
   > >> stations do.  That excuse simply doesn't hold water any more.   
   >   
   > > I'm guessing you don't spend a lot of time driving around out in the   
   > > boondocks.   
   >   
   > > As soon as you get off main roads in a hilly area, cell signals are   
   > > hit and miss. Here in not particularly rural upstate NY I can show   
   > > you places on state highways where there's no cell signal at all.  I   
   > > expect western Mass is the same way.   
   >   
   > The problem is that if our Internet goes down, we won't get those alerts.   
   >   
   > The entire AM band is not going down all at once.   
      
   The entire AM band is not going down at all: in 1971(1), the Emergency   
   Alert System was accidentally triggered when a U.S. Government   
   employee ran a paper tape to send a teletype message which should have   
   been a routine weekly test, but turned out to be an emergency alert.   
      
   The tape which was used was right next to the one which was supposed   
   to be sent; the employee picked up the wrong tape. The Pentagon   
   expected there to be widespread panic, immediate mass stampedes toward   
   "Fallout Shelters," and that all but "Conelrad" AM stations would   
   cease operation.   
      
   None of it happened. The few people whom heard the alert shrugged   
   their shoulders, kissed their loved ones goodbye, and settled down in   
   their living rooms to await their deaths - or decided that it was a   
   mistake, and went about their business. By and large, no one showed up   
   at any "Fallout Shelter:" in the first place, very few citizens knew   
   where they were or what they were intended to be used for, and in the   
   second, they were almost all aware of the impossibility of surviving a   
   nuclear war, and just decided that they'd be dead in a few minutes and   
   should enjoy the time they had left.   
      
   As for the "Conelrad" system, it didn't work. Radio station managers   
   demanded that their employees stay on the air and keep running the   
   oh-so-profitable ads for soap that they'd been running before the   
   alert was sent out. The whole episode was quickly dismissed and   
   explained away by the new and improved generation of blow-dried   
   airheads that has taken over from the real reporters of the World War   
   II era, and the populace was reassured that nothing was wrong and they   
   could go back to buying soap and being obedient.   
      
   It was a repeat of the "Duck and Cover" drills my generation of   
   youngsters was forced to undergo during our grade-school years, until   
   a few exceptional young students (including Joan Baez) told their   
   teachers that they didn't want to play the government's game and   
   didn't want to pretend that ducking or covering would make any   
   difference.   
      
   In other words, the whole edifice of the "Civil Defense" network and   
   its alerting system crashed of its own weight, in the face of bluntly   
   stated evidene from oh-so-onery free thinkers that it was all   
   psychological warfare, following a military map left over from the   
   days when "right thinking" Americans were expected to do what they   
   were told without question.   
      
   The current version of the emergency alert system has been redesigned   
   to carry warnings of tornado, floods, missing children, and (of   
   course) immenent nuclear destruction. That was a clever move, since it   
   both provided some actual benefits to a jaded public, and convinced   
   that same public to actually pay attention to the alerts in the first   
   place. Until, that is, 2018: in Hawaii, a government employee   
   accidentally tripped a warning of an impending missile attack, and   
   caused yet another generation of blow-dried airheads to swing into   
   action and snap to attention and explain it all away again.   
      
   Bill Horne, who believes in Ghod and Senator Dodd and keeping old Castro down   
      
   1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Emergency_Message   
   Copyright © 2023 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)