What people are saying about the switch. Excerpts from The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, California:
"This is just wrong," said Riverside resident Kristin Brennan, 59, after repairman Pat Delahunty hooked up her bedroom converter box to a 19-inch Sylvania set with a rabbit-ears antenna. The procedure took 5 minutes. "I'm not happy at all," she said. "Some poor and elderly people don't have money for this."
She and her husband, Kerry, 62, have been content living in their Woods Streets home since 1971 with their trusty analog televisions. "I'm a procrastinator," Kerry said. "I didn't want to wait until the last minute, but I kept putting it off."
Alejandro Quintero, 60, of Perris, said he will forgo television in his home for now because work for the day laborer is scarce and the little income he gains is quickly spent on rent and food. For important events, like soccer matches between Mexico and other national teams, Quintero said he plans to watch at his neighbor's house.
Perris resident Isabel Coronel-Mora, 63, who occasionally picks up housekeeping and cooking work to pay the bills, said she also lacks the money to purchase a box and will have to save up. In the meantime, she plans to listen to the radio and sing along rather than watching her favorite soap operas and televised Catholic Masses.
"A lot of people are very upset," said Delahunty, owner of Pat's T.V. Sales in Riverside. "They don't want to upgrade their sets and think it's a conspiracy. I keep hearing, 'Why is the government doing this to us?' "
William Price, 77, who lives alone in the Juniper Terrace mobile home park in Hemet said "For me this is sort of turning into a grand experiment, I'm going to try going it without any TV. I just didn't feel like messing with it."
Read the entire article here:
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_digital13.3dcbf18.html
Posted on June 14, 2009 - 01:54 AM
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