When Cincinnati Bell wasted your money (a blast from the past)

Art enriches lives.

I like listening to music, because it's a form of art that enriches my life. Others like tattoos, because it enriches their lives. Yesterday, I discussed how rich right-wingers on YouTube attacked a poor person because she has a tattoo. I suspected the tattoo is a do-it-yourselfer that didn't cost any more than the ink that was used to make it, and I defended the tattoo because it was art - and art makes life better. With the violent alt-right doing everything it can to make the lives of the poor rotten, the poor must do more and more to make their own lives bearable.

You owe it to yourself to enjoy your favorite forms of art. I've spent money on music, but if your life is inspired by visual art, literature, or other art, don't let the 1% try to richsplain how you don't deserve it - when they have everything. If we want life without art, why don't we make the whole country a prison?

If you want to assail any party for spending money on art, start with Cincinnati Bell - the local telephone giant known for terrible service and wiretapping Gerald Ford because they thought he was "communist." In the mid-'90s, The Last Word ran a piece about Cincinnati Bell charging exorbitant rates for inferior service and spending its revenues on ridiculous items. This was in the same era when Cincinnati Bellyache ran huge newspaper ads gloating in plain sight about yet another rate hike. Remember, this was before cellphones were popular, so Cincinnati Bell was a monopoly. Why do monopolies advertise? They already have a captive customer base.

One of Cincinnati Bell's dubious expenses was art for executives' offices. It's dubious because they spent customers' money on it, and it didn't improve Cincinnati Bell's product. It only enriched the executives' lives - as if their lives were so horrible.

The way the alt-right yells that they're for "lower taxes hawr hawr hawr!", you might think they'd have been at the forefront at blocking Cincinnati Bell's rate hikes and wastage. But it's naive to think that, because we've seen how they fall suspiciously silent when any utility company raises rates. In fact, the Far Right isn't even for lower taxes: The Tea Party explicitly endorsed the FairTax, a double-digit federal sales tax. So they lie.

Cincinnati Bell wonders why I don't use them for any services anymore.