Rebecca, my wife, is the only Raven Mistress in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's unfriendly capital city. She convinced a pair of huge ravens to occasionally visit our roof-top feeding platform. It really surprised me when I saw it. When the wilely ravens are up in the old maple keeping sentry, Rebecca has a squirrel which grazes at the feeding platform. Rebecca calls the squirrel "Melissa" and talks to her, scolding for pilfering all the peanut butter bread and millet. Of course, Rebecca gets a variety of city birds, large and small, even a cardinal. We have a tiny color video camera surveilling the roof in order to be entertained by the creatures. It's very surprising to watch. Even more surprising than Rebecca's ravens and squirrel has been her ability to adapt to the hostile environment of Harrisburg. Like an exotic species, she's managed to adapt to the harsh neighborhood of Harrisburg, the Unfriendly City. Mrs. Good calls the place "Harass-burg!" It's a deadly predatory place, overflowing with thugs, whores, drug pushers, noise, thieves and cruelty. Harrisburg is a good place to be from! The Unfriendly City is every different than what it was in 1975 when I was hauled off to prison. When, after more than 30 years, I returned to Harrisburg to pickup with my remarkable wife, I was surprised by almost everything. Harrisburg is a dump, a jungle. It's the worst parts of Africa and every bit as dangerous as prison. The thugs are pistol-toting bullies who care nothing for human life and are obsessed with welfare, stealing anything that's not chained down and making pointless noise. It's all night-time prowlers and alley dope dealing - an angry, unhappy people. It was a great surprise to see the place and the changes. Almost as startling were the machines that I was expected to talk to. When I made a phone call to Verizon, there were no humans there, only inquisitive machines - "push one" the computer voice ordered me, "for billing, push two for repair." It was dehumanizing, insulting and demeaning. I had to listen to an ordeal by synthesizer before I could get to Verizon's human harassment. Don't deal with Verizon if you can avoid it. They've sent the human jobs overseas and abuse their customers. But Verizon wasn't the only culprit. It is an epidemic. Phone the Hershey Medical Center and the machine chatters at you like one of Rebecca's grackles. It's the same with all the stores, government buildings, offices and factories. Everybody expects me to do their job for them. There was a time when some nice receptionist would try to help. Now, everyone expects me to be my own operator and decide for myself if I want door number 2 or door number 3. Worse even than the number pushing is the quiz. No matter who you phone, they feel that they some how have a right to your personal and private information - "what's your account number? what's your address? what's your age? what's your shoe size?! When after a nosy woman at Comcast insisted on my address, I asked her what her address was, she became seriously miffed. She was allowed to cross examine me about personal matters, but I was only supposed to reveal whatever she asked without protest. I was amazed that nowadays people simply go along with the probing. They blithely tell strangers on the other end of a phone line what their bank numbers are and what their Social Security numbers are. I had one guy ask me what was the name of my first girlfriend. No way that's anybody's business! I've gotten into the habit of simply lying - "first girlfriend, why, that would be Margaret Thacher..." When presented with "phone-pad hopscotch," I now ignore the "menu." Why should I be doing Walmart's work for it? I just push-in whatever comes to mind. Most often I just keep pushing "1." It drives the machines nuts. When Verizon's damnable machine demanded that I key-in my 10 digit phone number, I just kept tapping 1. The machine responded with a disgruntled complaint that "I'm having trouble accessing your records," I responded to the disembodied robot voice that it wasn't an "I," it was an "it." Finally it relented and let me talk with a dismally unpleasant woman with the personality of month-old-milk. She was a nosey bitch, but at least she was human. That's a giant leap from talking to a machine. At least I could rant and rave at the woman and express my anger and frustration. She decided that I was a beast. Another alarming machine habit I discovered was the computer. We have this Dell (not a wise choice) running Microsoft (an even worse choice). Microsoft is a public enemy of the first order. It expects me to conform to the computer instead of the computer comforming to me. Who's the master and who's the tool? I dislike being the servant to Microsoft's bad programming. It's a bad system. Well, on the Dell we get email, a lot of email! It's not unusual for us to receive thousands of pieces a day. Rebecca tolerates it. She excused the nuisance observing that the website attracts the spam like slimy spitballs. One of the things that really surprised me was how obsessed the spam is with the size of my penis! What's wrong with the size of my penis? It made 8 babies. So far, except for the occasional prostate reluctance, it succeeds in emptying my old bladder. Why should I want a bigger dick? What's the advantage of a bigger dick? It sounds like serious male insecurity to me. Dick doesn't make the man. If the spam isn't harping about the size of by peter, it's trying to get me to buy hard-on pills. The machine promises that, for a hundred bucks I can get a boner. Well, I'm 68 and boners have lost a lot of their charm. They aren't quite so important as when I was 15. Frankly, I care a lot more about healthcare - universal helthcare. Google happily shows me a satellite view of my rooftop and in the next instant is playing WQED or revealing the aerial view of the prisons where I lost so many years. Google can find things I need on the computer and an awful lot of things I never asked for. It knows the way to Washington and where the best coupons can be downloaded. While it seeks the address for a roofer, it plays old classical music and I hum along, talking to the machine. I'm certain the cops have the phone lines tapped and the computer bugged. What else do cop have to do? Nothing constructive or helpful. They're worse than Harrisburg's thugs, and better armed. It surprises me that nobody seems to rebel against the cops or the machines and how they've intruded into our lives. There's a central computer attached to Verizons' lines which wants to know the amount of my credit card debt and get me a new credit card. Nobody seems to care that the Microsoft and the synthesized voice has taken over. I say, just hammer on the "1" key until we bring down the empire of talking machines. I wish the cops were as easy to get rid of as their wiretaps. Nobody makes anything anymore. Where are the plants and factories, the welding shops and the shoemakers? Everything is a government agency or a "service," or a vendor. I think all the real production jobs have been sent to China or India or Korea. It's beneath the dignity of the Harrisburg rabble to manufacture dolls or windmills or even socks. The talking machines have become their soul. The women don't cook. Their guilty pleasure is to collect cookbooks. They don't sew. Their guilty pleasure is to patronize the evil empire of Walmart. The men don't repair the plumbing or the toaster or the squeaking Dodge. It's beneath their dignity to soil their hands. Rebecca, my wife, can fix her car and figure out the conundrum that is Microsoft. She makes cookies and knits socks from ugly variegated yarn. She's the only Raven Mistress in the Unfriendly City, but who else is making anything? I think talking to machines has mesmerized them.