RANTS: WHAT’S GOING ON WITH RT?

"Russia! Russia! Russia!"

I just wanted to write a short note on something I’ve noticed over the last few months. I live in Ontario, Canada and for my television addiction I have one of the major cable providers as my pusher. Service is fine, reception great, etc., etc. I’ve even mastered the menus and PVR. So, all is good-good—waaay too expensive, but that’s another post. My beef, today, is about one particular station: RT (that’s Russia Today, for all you comrades out there.) I don’t know if anyone else has this problem, but I often find RT’s volume is set at least 1/3 lower than the rest of the stations and now and then there is this flickering of the signal that causes the screen to go blank for a second or two.

At first, I thought it was age catching up to me, and that I was going deaf or blind or something. But no, I notice there are no similar problems with any of the other stations, sound-wise or visually. It’s just with RT. My first thought was that RT must be operating with outdated Soviet era-tech, and just wasn’t up to the high standards of my cable provider; the whole East meets West interface-thingy must be a little wonky. (It's no wonder they lost the Cold War!) Then another possibility occurred to me: the wonkiness might be because CIA spy-bots are monitoring the mind-warping propaganda emanating from Moscow’s media machine.

I tried wearing a tin-foil hat and lined the walls of my apartment with thick coats of lead paint, but nothing seemed to help. RT’'s volume was indeed lower than the rest and its picture still flickered. Now, I don’t want to seem paranoid or anything—or any more paranoid than I am already—but is it possible that news programs, TV stations, websites, social media forums, etc. which offer alternative information and points of view  that are different from “main-stream media” are being discouraged by the powers that be, are being de-platformed,  or secretly interfered with or even shut down? Are western gremlins attacking the Kremlin?

Naw! That’s nutts! Who ever heard of such a thing in this age of mass communications? Information about anything is open-sourced and open to everybody, right? Censorship is so old-school. Still, my signal problems persisted. At first, I thought to complain to Hi I’m Dave—my Cable Provider representative, but I thought: Where will my complaint go? Whose desk might it land on? What processes might that stir up? Would it get to the point where I could be anally probed for what I know about something?  Was I being watched right now by cameras hidden in my PVR? Oh, my god! I panicked. (Q: “Siri, am I alone, right now?” A: “There are approximately one hundred and twenty billion-billion earth-like planets in this iteration of space-time; so no, you're not alone.”)

Mixing tranquilizers with alcohol, I mulled over the possibilities and what, if anything, I could do about finding out whether CSIS or CIA Security-bots were surveilling me. As long as I had RT on my scroll-menu, with its Moscow mindset a mere button-push away, they would be watching, for they did not approve of those pesky Ruskies, it seemed. So, after more pills, some pizza and the better part of a bottle of Jack Daniels, I came up with a plan.

In the early morning hours, when RT shuts down for maintenance (or to data-mine our souls), I took my tool box out to the street where the old-fashioned cable box was still in use. If there were any national security trolls in the system, they’d be there, I reasoned. I used a Robertson screwdriver #5 to remove the rusted outer covering. With my military-grade flashlight, I delved into the inner workings of the box. Lo and behold, behind wiring and transistor blocks I discovered a mouse—a robot mouse with horrid, red, beady eyes! It sat astride the connection that led into my house, and I knew its tail was a WiFi antenna.

I must have tripped an alarm because, almost immediately, the mouse started to give off a warning noise that grew louder and louder. The only thing I could think to do was get a pair of wire cutters and snip off its tail. I did it and the mouse began to vibrate. Within a minute there was the smell of burning plastic and a thin trickle of smoke came out its cindered eyes. It was dead.

I quickly put the cable box cover back on and went inside. I fell asleep and woke up to RT on at full volume. There was some show on about "Russia Gate", and the presenter was saying it was important we shouldn’t believe everything we see or read. He said we should be skeptical and check our sources, ask questions, keep an open mind, and get a variety of opinions before making up our minds on things like internet trolls and the like...and then the picture went black and the volume dropped....OMG! The security-bots were back! Don't think! Quick! It's time to grab our tinfoil hats, comrades!

Cheers, Jake.

“I can’t think for myself.

I'll need someone to confirm that, please.

Hello?”