Just one line excerpt from an e-mail I received from a friend in Weaverville, NC.

snip -----------------------------

"I hope all is well in your parts of the world. We have some brown outs about everyday."

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I wonder how long TPTB are going to be able to keep the lid on what's really happening out there?

-- elskon (elskon@bigfoot.com), January 13, 2000

Answers

can you come up with something a little more substantial?

I have kin in Marshall NC, which is just a few miles SOUTH of Weaverville. They have no electrical problems, or should I say, no more than normal.

It's winter, its cold, these people are in the mountains and there are lots of trees. lots and lots of trees. Fixing an electrical problem in the Blue Ridge Mountains area is a bit more tedious and time consuming than doing it in a metropolitan area.

Weaverville may be experiencing "brownouts" (which is lower than normal voltage) but it appears to be localized.

If it wasn't, I'd be getting these phone calls and emails from Marshall NC saying, "sumpthins wrong here, we've had to use that blasted generator 3 times already"

-- plonk! (realaddress@hotmail.com), January 13, 2000.

--as long as we as a society keep using mass media that is controlled by an ever growing smaller number of monopolistic multinationals with an agenda. As long as for the majority of people the college sports news takes priority. As long as Oprah-esque type shows and pro wrestling and pokemon are more important.

That's an answer. That's how long "the powers that be" can keep "lids" on any number of issues.

-- zog (zzoggy@yahoo.com), January 13, 2000.

zog...right on!!!!

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 13, 2000.

Great posts!

Thanks for that news about the brownouts. TPTB are slowly losing control over what is REALLY happening!!

-- ImSo (happy@prepped.com), January 13, 2000.

Libby here, reporting in from our nation's capitol. Experiencing brown-outs tonight -- two in the last half hour. Of course, we also have high winds tonight which may also account for it... But we've had high winds before and haven't had this problem. I've got my flashlight handy just in case...

-- Libby Alexander (libbyalex@aol.com), January 13, 2000.

NE Oregon-no brown outs or outages for a week. 1 black out for several hours during a high wind storm last week.

-- morgan (bitbybit@eoni.com), January 13, 2000.

China says war with US inevitable - there just aren't enough Pokeman cards to go around.

-- Me (me@me.me), January 13, 2000.

Please, could someone please tell me what TPTB refers to.

-- Sandi Harris (SaHarris77@aol.col), January 14, 2000.

The Powers That Be - - TPTB

-- Connie Iversen (hive@gte.net), January 14, 2000.