OPINION: Can't Anyone Here Be Accurate and Knowledgeable?

My most recent column here was on Wednesday June 5 2019 ... seven weeks ago.

Let's say I've been on summer vacation from the hard work I do here at Hyde Park Patch ... :)

What did I learn on my summer vacation?

1. Online forums allow vitriol and name-calling to flourish much more than in the pre-online days of yore. And the sometimes complete-lack of accuracy of communicating and writing contributes greatly to the existence of the name-calling and insults.

2. Among Hyde Parkers, for example in the "Good Neighbors" forum in Hyde Park, the level of insults and name calling, for a seemingly innocuous topic such as "is the number of birds in Hyde Park shrinking? If yes ... why?" ... the level of anger, insults, name-calling and such ... almost approaches the name-calling and such you can see when an online website has both "Trumpians" and "non-Trumpians" discussing the President.

So, what specifically are the questions and possible answers that comprise "The Great Bird-Debate of 2019 in Hyde Park"

a. Is the number of birds in Hyde Park shrinking over the past five to ten years? Or not?

b. If the number is shrinking ... why is that?

c. There are about two pair of Peregrine Falcons living in Hyde Park now. How much, if at all, have the Peregrines contributed to the shrinking in the populations of birds in Hyde Park ... that is, if you agree that the number of Hyde Park's birds has been shrinking.

3. It is extremely unlikely that more than 10% of the staff (including doctors, residents, and nurses) of The University of Chicago Hospitals can communicate successfully with their patients. The support staff frequently has no idea what the doctors and residents and others are writing in their directives and instructions and into the patient's online record; and to each other and to other staff, on behalf of their patients.

My own example!: In medicine and cancer treatment, a new technique requires that the doctors and staff must have the ability to use the phrase "probe via the anus to the prostate" for this new technique of prostate-cancer detection. I can directly state that the staff has not at all been trained to write a non-ambiguous word or sentence to describe this particular technique of image-taking, which is essential to determine if cancer treatment is needed for the prostate ... so that the patient (in this case, me) knows what in fact is scheduled and will happen in one of the three UofC Radiology sites on the medical campus here. (And it also is difficult to establish which of the three radiology sites one needs to appear at for your appointment!!!). This is a huge failure to communicate.

4. The most publicity has landed with the "failure for Facebook" to communicate within itself and to others successfully. If Facebook employees had been taught and had been able to communicate successfully with each other, there is no way the Russians would have had fake news sites and fake news appearing in 2016 on behalf of ... candidate Donald Trump. The result of the election could have been a win for Hilary Clinton if Facebook merely did a minimal amount with its billions in income, to see what was happening on the sites it made possible. They didn't do this because the employees did not know how to talk or write to each other.

5. Most of us have had the occasion these days to interact with both our cellular provider, and with our home internet provider. If I were to get a transcript of any of about 90% of those interactions, it would almost make a script for a news satire program, with no need to edit or change anything. I hardly need to describe one of my recent examples with Comcast/Xfinity, for my (eventually successful) attempt to end my tv-internet-landline package, and re-start an only internet service. About 80 to 90% of every important detail that the Comcast customer service representative said to me on the phone when I was cancelling my package ... was completely false. You likely have a similar story for your interactions with either Comcast or AT&T ... who have a virtual "duopoly" on wired / non-satellite internet and cable-tv service.

When there are only two providers of an essential service (home Internet is now clearly essential) ... there must be much more public regulation of the two companies, to make sure the public interest is able to be asserted.

For cellular service, which heretofore has had many more than two possible providers, the situation has not been as bad, because there has been more competition. Everyone should contact your favorite federal legislator or member of the Executive Branch, or the Federal Trade Commission, to speak up against the proposed approval by the Federal Trade Commission in the news this week, of a merger of Sprint and T-Mobile ... in this case the number of companies that share 90% of the market will shrink from four to three, and there will be that much less incentive for these now-three companies to provide good service to us, their customers.

In summary: Whenever you see something that affects your health, your life, your essential services ... that too-much allows our large institutions to behave poorly ... it is essential that each of us speaks up as loudly and clearly as possible; and you should feel sufficiently empowered to use this line from the 1976 movie Network:

“I'm mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” *

*[See: http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2009/11/im-mad-as-hell-and-not-going-to-take-it.html ]