SAVAGE
SATURDAY
17) Sunday, February 2nd
– “NATIAP!”
Corkers was a fairly typical Georgetown bar bustling somewhat
more than usual due to the bollixed administrative transition and the
Conference championship (down to the fourth quarter commencement) so, when
Kristi Chaine lit her
cigarette, David Lee looked down, thinking to say something, but failing to
find words as she turned, winking at the bartender…
“They understand
who I am, here,” she assured him, “and how the game is played. I play with both sides, and the District, too.
I say the word and they’re shut down…”
“But what if
someone else important objects…” David squirmed, “this sort of place attracts
Congressmen, Ambassadors…”
“Look around,”
she said, with a sour laugh. A
weak-chinned bureaucrat raised his Ray-Bans, catching the full force of the ice
queen’s stare, stammered… and then, picking up his cocktail, hastened
away. “Most Congressmen would know
better… a few committee chairs, some Senators, if any of those were around, I’d
wait. Former Congressmen... George
Santos, maybe A few Ambassadors… most of them smoke, themselves… freedom does
still exist, just in other parts of the world.”
“Santos! Thought he was in prison...”
“Out on bail,
appeals... him and Menendez,” Kristi shrugged, inhaling deeply.
“So! This is getting to be habit,” David said,
“you call me, practically order me to meet you here and do your level best to
get us thrown out, meanwhile pretending that you have to pick my brains where
we both know that, even if you saw the light, you’d never be able to do
anything because of Vern and the Commission…”
“That’s a complicated allegation…”
“So which of our findings do you want to try shooting down,
this time?”
“You get to the point, which is probably why I tolerate you,”
Kristi blew smoke across his face while raising something clear and frosty to
her lips. “Now that you mention it, all
this… this brewhaha,
is that a word…”
David raised his glass, smiring:
“Brew, ha! Ha!”
“Stop that!” and the Research manager kicked him under the
table, hard. “I meant to say that all of these farmers out in nowhere-land,
complaining ‘bout their itty-bitty stations…”
“Well, it’s a serious concern.
When NATITRAP….”
“NATIAP!” Kristi
snapped.
“When… they…” David
compromised “designed conversion specifications, somebody didn’t realize that
there were still a couple thousand low-power stations, mostly rural, but a few
urban-like college TV stations which continue broadcasting analog because
otherwise, they’d have to buy new equipment and go out of business, they… vertantly
or inadvertently… let digital to analog downconversion
utility override the remaining analog signals.
So if this town in North Dakota can get, for example, NBC and Fox out of
Fargo, but relies on low-power for CBS and ABC, they’re in an either/or
situation. Use the box, lose two
stations. Don’t, and lose the other
two…”
“Well, that’s just stupid.
These are farmers we are talking about, farmers who are rich,” Kristi
blew another cloud of smoke. “It’s the
ethanol and China… I thought the prices on bread, milk and eggs were bad last
year? Just wait! Don’t they have oil up there, or coal, or tar
sands, something? Let the good
countrymen of Frostbite Falls buy satellite dishes or get up off their fat
asses and manually change the feed… and vertantly
isn’t a word, David…”
“Well, some might not be able to, bread and milk
notwithstanding…” he answered, choosing to ignore her grammatical correction.
“Then fuck ‘em.” Kristi Chaine snuffed out her cigarette on a tabletop napkin which
briefly smoldered before expiring.
Leaning towards her most senior researcher, she added: “The Constitution grants us life, liberty…
which is the free enterprise system, David… and the pursuit of happiness. Not “Bowling with the Stars” every Thursday
night…”
“Maybe… but try selling that in North Platte during Nebraska’s
football season…”
Above them, Biff and Puson had been
following the action on the field as the players returned, following the bevy
of commercials after the injury time out for another Washington player. Six minutes remaining.
“Comman... Football Team’s second and ten on the Packers’
eighteen, down six… the give is to Carrington, maybe two yards and Green Bay
takes another time out,” Biff narrated…
“Field goal won’t
do the job for
“Third and eight,
they’d better pass now and worry about the clock later…”
¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾
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