ustxtxb_obs_1976_02_13_50_00016-00000_000.pdf

Postmaster: If undeliverable, send Form 3579 to The Texas Observer, 600 West 7, Austin, TX 78701. `Specious logic’ Deck Yoes Jr.’s intellectual subjectivity concerning the Bell System’s electronic switching system \(“Ma Bell’s Latest For a few misgiving moments, I thought the execrable Mr. Yoes was striving for intellectual humor by illustrating how the Bell System seeks to achieve total reliability. Yet, quick as a gunslinger, he ridicules such effort as being wasteful, and prejudges the Bell System’s motive for designing super-reliable systems as an attempt to inflate its plant investment for rate purposes. Poor Yoes. Poor logic \(horrid While perhaps an experienced computer programmer and a whiz at computer logic, not excel when it comes to economics. No businessparticularly not the Bell System, which must go to the money-tight market year after year to borrow billions of highinterest dollarswould purposely design, manufacture, or install a $10 million piece of gear during these difficult economic times when, say, a $5 million or a $3 million jobbie would do. Fact is, the Bell System’s highlysophisticated electronic switching system most dynamic developments to lower operating costs \(thus hold down telephone rates when everything else including elecYoes. Instead, his sophistry compares the size of an ESS machine to the smaller-sized like comparing an avacado with an orange and saying the orange should cost more. IBM computers are one thing. ESS computers are anotherthey must function in an extremely complicated nationwide switched network capable of ten million billion separate operations. While certain IBM computers can operate at higher speeds, IBM is indeed envious of the ESS in what it can do programming-wise. Yoes also trips up on his economic logic Electric’s price tag to Bell companies is far higher than that of other competing manufacturers. Fact is, Western’s prices are 20 16 The Texas Observer IDialogue I to 40 per cent less than other manufacturers due to economies of scale that naturally comes from high volume. And finally, Yoes steps on his own toes when trying to pooh-pooh Ma Bell’s concern over open-field competition in a highly-regulated industry. What’s at stake is Yoes’ own home phone bill: While unfettered competition may lower phone bills for businesses, the opposite effect will result for residential service. Yep, the “little guys” like me and Yoes will have to pay more. That, of course, is another storybut one which, when studied carefully, is so folks like Yoes might understand Ma Bell’s position. Edwin S. Hughes, 105 Castleoaks Drive, San Antonio, Tex. 78213. The writer offered a footnote to his letter explaining that he is the area public relations manager for Southwestern Bell in San Antonio and he spent a tour of duty at Bell Laboratories where the ESS was designed and developed. Hughes is also a long-time subscriber to the Observer. -Ed. According to The Corpus Christi Caller of Jan. 16, 1976, more than 150 farmworkers have walked out of citrus groves throughout the Rio Grande Valley. The farmworkers, members of the Texas ing low wages and unsafe working conditions. Wages are an average of 140 per sack which, at 4 sacks per hour, is about 56 per, hour. Workers in these fields lack clean drinking water, safe transportation vehicles, and sanitary facilities. This campaign for better work conditions in the citrus fields is a continuation of the effort begun last May during the melon season. \(Obs., June 20, 1975, Aug. 22, who led the melon strike, incorporated and began a separate union for Texas farmworkers in August. The TFWU hopes that, in addition to bringing an immediate change in the wages and conditions of Texas farmworkers, the state Legislature will enact a farm labor law allowing collective bargaining. Texas farmworkers should not be denied their right to decent wages and working conditions. They desperately need food and money to continue this effort. Please send donations to the Texas Strike Fund, Box 876, San Juan, Tex. 78589. In addition, a benefit will be held in Austin on Feb. 13 from 7:00-11:30 pm in the UT Alumni Center. Your help will be greatly appreciated. Paula Waddle, 3106 Dancy, Austin, Tex. 78722. Yea, Briscoe There have been several articles in The Texas Observer recently concerning the inaccessibility of the governor of Texas to the press … It seems to me to be the responsibility of the press to cover the activities of the governor and be there when he is making speeches and be available if news breaks concerning him or his actions. Certainly the press is an absolute necessity in our fast-moving, ever-changing world today. However, I don’t think it is the governor’s responsibility to call in every day and advise the press of where he is going and what he is going to do, etc. I doubt that the press is advised when the president of General Telephone Company of the Southwest is going on a business trip or when he is taking a vacation. So why should the governor of the State of Texas have to report to the press every time he wants to take a trip? . Personally, as a taxpayer of this state, I would like to say thanks to Dolph Briscoe for taking time away from his busy life to serve our great state as its executive officer. He is a great man, and we are fortunate to have him as our governor. Bill Sims, 915 Live Oak, San Angelo, Tex. 76901. Why are there lately so many of those curtailed words in your journal? Leges for legislation or legislator, Soves for Soviet Russians, guv for governor, deseg for desegregation, etc. Is it to save ink and paper? Are those long words too hard for you? Do you want to tell your readers: “We don’t give ourselves airs, see. We’re just simple fellows. We’re with the people.” Do the “people” speak like that in Texas? Or is it just the latest fad? Well I wish you would move on to the next fad. I think it is silly, cheap, bad style, absolutely infra dig! H. D. Vos, Osler Library, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. Texas Farmworkers Silly style