Dissing the Dish

It's been a long time since I read "Silent Spring" but I seem to remember that it was about more that just birds' eggs. I understand there are still people who believe it was a mistake to ban DDT. They say that millions of people in third world countries have died needlessly from malaria because of it, but I don't know if I believe that or not. Living in the swamp, we have plenty of mosquitoes, and they are usually only bothersome for a few weeks in the early summer, but of course, it must be worse in tropical climates. We had one summer a few years go when we had to spray inside the house many nights because they would attack in force as soon as we turned out the lights, but that hasn't happened before or since. We used Raid house and garden spray, and it didn't take much, just a few little squirts, to knock the mosquitoes down for the night. I bought a couple of cans, and I think we still have at least one of them left.

I remember those monster satellite dishes, but I don't think anybody uses them anymore. Everybody around here has those small ones like Old Dog described. We have one for the TV and another one for the internet. They are mounted side by side on the roof, but they are each angled a little differently to point at different satellites. When we first moved here, I inquired about cable because my neighbor had it. The lady at the cable company said that they didn't go outside the city limits, and we are a quarter mile out, although my neighbor on the same road, maybe half that distance, had it. Rather than argue with her, I just went and got the dish. Since then, the cable company has expanded their outreach and is always trying to get us to hook up.

Last I heard, dish is at least as reliable as cable, maybe more so. The cable people make a big deal in their TV ads about the way you can lose the satellite signal anytime it rains, but they exaggerate. We only lose our signal occasionally, and it's usually back on in a matter of minutes. From what I've heard, when the cable goes out, it can be for hours or even days.