This morning Qwest, my telephone company, had the gall to inform me that both my mother's maiden name AND the name of my childhood pet were invalid answers to my security question for my online account. Now, mind you, this was during the process where I write a security question and answer of my own choosing that only I would know the answer to.

Nowhere did they indicate WHY these items of my personal history were invalid. I suspect corporate America of putting research dollars into better and more efficient ways of pissing off customers and the public at large. How dare they say my mother's maiden name [5 letters] is invalid or that my dog's name could not have been [6-letter name]! Maybe they should just specify my security question and answer for me, since I obviously can't be trusted to do it correctly.

So first, I determined that Qwest has help for everything except its website. I then spent 10 minutes of my life that I will never get back screwing around with Qwest telephone customer service. They couldn't answer my question, but they did verify for the third time this week that I am not working, I have no cell phone, and that there is no other number at which I can be contacted and finally informed me that I should use the online chat function.

Now, I hate these "chat with a live person" options (while wondering when their "chat with the dead" will become available) because so many businesses appear to use insufficiently sophisticated Artificial Intelligence scripts instead of "live" people, figuring, I guess, that live customers won't be able to tell the difference. These "live chat" scripts, in my experience, try unsuccessfully to identify your problem by parsing your complaint looking for likely words. Then they generally give you the solution to some other problem while parroting back your original complaint. I find this unspeakably irritating. I prefer this to the alternative theory, that the person with whom I'm "chatting" is a living, breathing incompetent.

Anyway, after waiting in line (Why do they think it will mollify people waiting in line to hear that they can't talk to you because they are serving other customers? "There are 15 people who are more important than YOU!") they informed me that, although nowhere on the website do they actually say this, the answer to your security question (of your own choosing, mind you) must be 8 to 14 characters. It's like "bank security" now, they said.

I don't care what it's like. Telling me to choose a question and answer without the common courtesy to inform me that I must meet other conditions and parameters is yet another feature of modern life that enrages me and makes no sense to anyone other than a money-grubbing, common-sense-free, corporate spreadsheet jockey. Fie on the lot of them! Come the revolution, well, you know.

doctors

I have a longstanding love-hate relationship with the medical profession. Lately I have noticed that the first conversation I have with female doctors is usually about why I'm visiting today. The first conversation I have with male doctors is all about whether or not I'm an idiot, and what kind of idiot I am.

Why are Senate Democrats so easily pushed around? We are trying to replace a Bush-appointed Attorney General who resigned in disgrace after many episodes of using the office and public money to advance Republicans and harass Democrats. Now Bush is accusing Senators of taking too long to rubber stamp yet another of the President's good ol' buddy appointees. It's fruitless to ask where Bush gets his nerve from, but what I want to know is why Senators Feinstein and Schumer are not rejecting Mr. Bush's pettish fingerpointing and defending their reticence to confirm yet another tame Republican. It's easily answered. "Mr. President, we're taking a good long look at this appointee because so many of your appointees have been inept, inexperienced, crooked as a dog's hind leg, and/or stupid. None of these attributes are what we want in an Attorney General, and we're going to investigate this guy until we are satisfied that he is none of the above."

So many Democrats just roll over at the slightest hint that they might not be completely and absolutely fair, while the other party is running around like a bunch of rogue elephants, violating laws, spending public funds on private and partisan vendettas and generally enriching themselves at the public trough. C'mon folks, stand up for yourselves and us!

Good luck, Ernie

I have a great deal of fellow feeling for Nebraska Senator Ernie Chambers in his effort to sue God for "death, destruction, and terrorization of millions." So much, in fact, that should the senator actually win a settlement, presumably monetary, but, considering the assets and capabilities of the Defendant (or is it Respondent?), I suppose anything is possible as redress, court calendars in all jurisdictions eligible to administer this matter will suddenly be booked solid for centuries.

But while I'm waiting for resolution on this litigation, I'll get on with other things, such as actually dealing with the admittedly sometimes crummy hand dealt me by the Deity in His, Her, Its, or Their wisdom, as the case may be.

police and deaf citizens

As the parent of a deaf child, I worry. My son has no hearing, so if, like they do on TV, a police officer ever yelled, for instance, "Stop or I'll shoot," if he was standing behind my son, my son would not stop. Not because he's a criminal, but because he can't hear the command.

I wrote, several years ago, to ask our police department what steps they were taking/had taken to prevent this sort of tragedy. I got a lukewarm and unspecific assurance that it probably wouldn't happen. Cold comfort, that.

The NAD newsletter came today, with a disturbing story of an encounter between police and a deaf man. Here it is:

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) reaffirms its commitment to effective communication between people who are deaf or hard of hearing and police officers. Recent incidents involving police officers and individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing remind us that our commitment must be ongoing.

For example, in November 2006, Douglas Bahl of Minnesota was pulled over by police for failing to stop at a red light. Bahl is deaf. Bahl tried to use gestures and paper and pen to communicate with the police officer. The police officer used physical force. Bahl was arrested. After being treated at a hospital for his injuries, Bahl was taken to a jail where he spent four days without access to a TTY to make a phone call and without interpreter services, despite repeated requests for these accommodations. On September 14, 2007, Bahl was convicted of obstructing the legal process without force.

Sadly, Bahl is not the first deaf or hard of hearing person to encounter communication problems with law enforcement officers. The NAD has represented deaf or hard of hearing individuals in disability discrimination complaints against law enforcement agencies when those individuals were arrested and held in jail without access to a TTY to make a phone call or interpreter services to communicate effectively with police. As a result of those complaints, the NAD has obtained favorable legal rulings and settlement agreements requiring law enforcement agencies to provide appropriate auxiliary aids and services, including qualified interpreter services and TTYs.

I am glad that the National Association for the Deaf (http://www.nad.org/) is taking some action on this situation. Deafness may not be that widespread a disability, but even one fatality from ignorance and failure to take action is too many.

Senate tries to censure people who disagree with Bush

Well well, that's a nice headline. And it's true. Our taxpayer dollars are well spent on this measure in the Senate to censure MoveOn.org, who has, apparently, been telling the Senate, often and at length, that many people in the US do not like things the Bush administration has been doing.

I think this is just the beginning, an opening salvo. I predict that soon Senators will be bringing in selected pieces of their mail and introducing measures to censure particular offensive letter-writers. "This lady doesn't like my voting record on health care!" "No! Give her contact info to my staff, and we'll add the old bat to our censure-everyone-who-hurts-our-feelings measure!"

Ah, our government in action.

religious books removed from prison shelves

Today's NYTimes tells me that the Federal Bureau of Prisons is removing "religious" books from its shelves. The stated purpose is to make it harder for militant Muslim and other groups to recruit there.

Wow, a single directive demonstrating both smaller government in action, and the religious tolerance that my grade school teachers claimed was the hallmark of the United States (aka the greatest country in the world).

And, instead of a list of prohibited materials, prisons are to limit their religious sections to titles from a list of approved works. Thus, the Federal Prison Camp in Otisville, NY, which had "a very extensive library of Jewish religious books, many of them donated," has removed 75% of those works. Because, as we know, a key recruitment tool of militant Islamic fundamentalists is a library of Jewish religious titles.

The fun thing about this is that, while the public is not entitled to see the list of approved books, religious folk who have gotten a peek at it are bemused by the omissions and inclusions.

Timothy Larsen, who holds the Carolyn and Fred McManis Chair of Christian Thought at Wheaton College, an evangelical school, looked over lists for “Other Christian” and “General Spirituality.”

“There are some well-chosen things in here,” Professor Larsen said. “I’m particularly glad that Dietrich Bonhoeffer is there. If I was in prison I would want to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” But he continued, “There’s a lot about it that’s weird.” The lists “show a bias toward evangelical popularism and Calvinism,” he said, and lacked materials from early church fathers, liberal theologians and major Protestant denominations.

The Rev. Richard P. McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame (who edited “The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism,” which did make the list), said the Catholic list had some glaring omissions, few spiritual classics and many authors he had never heard of.

“I would be completely sympathetic with Catholic chaplains in federal prisons if they’re complaining that this list is inhibiting,” he said, “because I know they have useful books that are not on this list.”

While I suppose it's counterproductive to have a library full of inflammatory religious literature in a place where violence is all too common, limiting religion to a skewed list of 150 titles seems excessive.

Craig

What happened to Larry Craig is what the Republican Party is all about: hypocrisy and hatred. This is family values? So many things about this story to comment on, but first, how do I get a job on the sex police force? I keep reading everyone applauding the arrest because they want their children to be able to go into public restrooms unmolested. Well, good luck with that. What are they doing sending their kids alone into public places anyway? Last time I looked, it is possible, even probable, that you will be exposed to something objectionable any time you leave the house (or when you simply stay home and turn the TV on). I am so sick of people hiding behind values and child welfare in their relentless and neurotic quest to eliminate every conceivable risk.

Shit happens people. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Wake up now, because if you stay asleep much longer, you'll have no freedoms, no human rights, and no Constitution. Apparently, the Soviet Union collapsed only to resurface here in the States.

nothing says "welcome to the U.S." like a credit card solicitation

A friend sent me a link to a Snopes report on one of those alarmist emails. This one happened to be true, sort of. It was calling for the populace to rise up and get out their pitchforks and tar and storm the nearest Bank of America branch and cancel their accounts because apparently BoA and other banks (Wells Fargo is cited, but I bet this applies to all those semi-sleazy credit card companies that fill my mailbox with usurious credit card solicitations) will issue credit cards to anyone with an ITIN number (as opposed to a Social Security number). Of course, the email did not refer to "anyone with an ITIN number." It said they're handing out credit cards to illegal aliens. I don't imagine it was referring to the influx of white people from England or Sweden; I believe the people in question are Spanish-speaking and brown.

Boy howdy. I can't think of a more appropriate welcome to our lovely scapegoatist, racist nation than an invitation to apply for a credit card at enormous interest rates with outlandishly huge fee structures. Please empty your wallets before exiting the country.

Why I never post in the personals

You, me, starry nights.
You, liar. Me, termagant.
It would never work.

You, me, endless love.
But…men are pigs. I’m no prize,
myself. Never mind.

Wanted: my soul mate.
You are married. I’m just sad.
Fie, sir. Get thee hence.

idiot-proofing the presidency

The most deplorable effect of President Bush's term in office is that when it ends (assuming it ends) no one will ever again be able to call the U. S. Presidency "the world's most difficult job."

education loan shenanigans

I have a Sallie Mae education loan. It's in forbearance. Sallie Mae keeps sending me mail that says, (IN ALL CAPS) "PLEASE CONTACT US IMMEDIATELY REGARDING YOUR FEDERAL STUDENT LOANS AND YOUR FORBEARANCE DEADLINE. CALL TOLL-FREE AT 1-866-439-0985."

I call this number and surprise, it's Sallie Mae's consolidation line. Of course, I am greeted by a recorded message, and I press 1 for English and am given 3 options, none of which mentions the word "forbearance." Instead, I can apply for a student loan consolidation or check up on a consolidation loan or application for one. This mail purposely gives the impression that I need to take some action or my forbearance is up; instead, they're doing a little bit of social engineering, trying to make it look as though I need to consolidate.

I am not even going to bother to look up whether the law has changed. When I last checked, a couple of years ago, consolidation loans were not eligible for any type of forbearance whatever. If you have no job, if you are unemployable, if you have disabled dependent children or are in the hospital with a dread disease, it will not matter; you will have to start paying your loan right away, and if you default, too frigging bad. So, if Sallie Mae can trick me into consolidating my student loans, I will lose my forbearance status. Slick.

I wonder how much of a bonus the executive who thought this up got.

TV

Lately, I suppose as a side effect of acclimating (sort of) to my 6th decade, I have found myself increasingly irritated by the high frequency of foreplay, if not actual intercourse, on TV. It's all pretty much gratuitous too. The slobbery, tongue-brandishing, face-engulfing kiss has become such a cliche that the only reason to waste minutes of plot time depicting the mutual redistribution of saliva can be that television writers are convinced that we'll forget to be preoccupied with our sexual impulses. So they remind us every 12 seconds. I'd say "Don't forget sex!" is the subtext of 90% of what you see on TV. (Interestingly, the other 10% is given over to food. "Don't forget to eat! Mmmm! Food is good! Better get some now!" And, coincidentally, we are, I believe, the world's fattest nation, those of us who aren't starving anyway.)

It's almost become a chore. You're going about your business, cleaning the toilet or mowing the weeds or going through the day's mail in case it contains something that isn't an exhortation to buy still more stuff, and you realize, guiltily, "Oh my gosh, I have not thought about sex for five minutes! Am I coming down with something?"

I wonder why TV is so industriously pressing upon an unsuspecting populace a preoccupation with bodily necessities. I like to imagine aliens, here to observe the species, collecting TV data and extrapolating results.

Day 1. Started up data collection efforts. Electronic signals apparently intended for amusement and edification of species.

Day 2. Must find different position in which to recline while absorbing data. Yesterday my grin!fkckl very sore. Humans (as they call themselves) devote considerable portion of signal to mysterious face-sucking activity.

Day 4. Data absorption, phase one, complete. Began reviewing, analyzing, and correlating.

Day 5. Hmm. Must check to see if human population declining, as much TV content comprised of exhortations to engage in reproductive activity. Oh and must investigate significance of popular face-sucking exercise. Collecting additional data.

Day 8. Human population appears to be on rise, probably due to high frequency of reminders to consume nourishment. Have noted large amount of electronic signal content devoted to instruction of females on correcting flawed appearance. Must investigate percentage of imperfect females. Still puzzled on face-sucking front.

Day 12. Collected physical data on females, extrapolated female ideals from signal content. This must be wrong. Initial figures seem to show 95% error rate in female physical construction. Will review numbers again tomorrow.

Day 14. Can find no error in calculations. Wonder why defective humans allowed to live. Must investigate why humans fail to make use of simple program of selective breeding to weed out 95% imperfection rate.

Day 17. Decided to examine male physical construction. Can find no difference in variety of male appearance. Wonder why this species is so finicky about appearance of females. What is it with the face-sucking?

Day 25. Face-sucking apparently activity leading to reproduction. Am forming theory that reproduction is simple process, hence hardly ever detailed in generally available signals, but face-sucking activity highly complex and difficult motor activity, hence the need for extreme frequency of repetition. Have noticed that historical signals devote much content to demonstration of sucking on small white tubular apparatus ablaze at one end. If calculations correct, populace mastered this activity in only 30 earth rotations or so, hence current signal content devoted to this activity is comparatively minimal. Wonder how long it will take humans to master face-sucking. Am looking forward to its disappearance from the signal content, as I have just been informed that I will be here for several hundred earth rotations, and f-s activity already tedious in the extreme.

FAT - it's catching. Run for your lives!

Well, Gina Kolata wrote an article in yesterday's NYTimes about a study that shows that if your friends or family are fat, you are 171% more likely to gain weight and be fat. So now fatness, a terrible, horrible condition, is contagious.

Here's what I don't understand. Why aren't we exporting fat people in droves? We need to be sending our fat (that's what we're going to be called now, the fat, like the homeless, or the poor, or the ugly, or the ill-mannered) to nations suffering from huge numbers of starving babies? If you are likely to gain weight as a result of the weightiness of your close friends/relatives, then all we need to do to combat emaciation in babies is to hook them up with our fat. Let's ship the fat to them. I'm sure they'll bond instantly, I mean, fat people are jolly, right? And soon the formerly starving infants will plump right up into Gerber-baby status. Sheesh, look on the bright side, people. We can always kill our fat, or at least deplore them to death, later.

feeding Fluffy

I just read in an alert today issued by EmergencyEmail.org indicating that, in addition to melamine, botulism is now a component of dog food. Okay, some dog foods, presumably canned. The alert named the following brands:

Natural Balance Eatables dog food varieties:
Irish Stew with Beef Dog Food	15 OZ	23633-59860
Chinese Take Out with Sauce with Vegetables and Chicken Dog Food	15 OZ	23633-59861
Southern Style Dumplings with Gravy with Chicken and Vegetables Dog Food	15 OZ	23633-59862
Hobo Chili with Chicken Pasta Dog Food	15 OZ	23633-59863

While I deplore (as does everyone else, I'm sure) the laxity with which food safety regulations are being enforced, I was riveted by the names of the dog food flavors. Irish Stew with Beef. Chinese Take Out with Sauce, Vegetables, and Chicken. Southern Style Dumplings with Gravy, Chicken and Veg. I am not too enthused about the Hobo Chili with Chicken Pasta. I have never encountered Chicken Pasta, and hope never to do so.

As a nascent elderly person with no pension or income, I'm going to look more closely at the dog food section in my grocery. Chinese Take Out. I mean, they can't all contain dangerous ingredients all the time. Hmm. Wonder how much it costs.

ghosting

Among today's Craigslist offerings for writers were two interesting opportunities. One person wanted to hire a ghostwriter to assist him in writing his "next bestseller," and another wanted someone to write his op ed piece (650 words) for him. (I wonder if they charge extra for coming up with opinions to ghostwrite.)

Oh my, what possibilities proliferate here! Let's see... I'm sure I can benefit from this whole new ghosting thing. Hmm, I do want to be known far and wide for my housekeeping skills. I wonder if I can get someone to ghost-clean my house? I also want to have a reputation as the world's best mom, so perhaps I can engage someone to ghost-nurture my children? Oh, and I want to be beautiful but alas, nature did not endow me with the requisite body, so I wonder if Craigslist has people who can ghost-represent me in all my appearances in public?

Of course, getting into a good college is key to a successful life, so perhaps it would be possible to advertise for someone to ghost-take my SAT and ghost-write my college admission essays? After my ghost-undergraduate ghost-graduates on my behalf, perhaps I can even hire a ghost-lawyer to ghost-sit for my bar exam or a ghost-doctor to pass my medical licensure exams should the ghost-law/medical student I've hired not be up to the task?

Perhaps I can engage a ghost-churchgoer to carry out my duties to God and a ghost-soldier to carry out my duty to my country? And I certainly have no desire AT ALL to die myself, so, I'll see you all later -- oh wait, someone-to-be-named-at-a-future-date will see you all later! I'm off to advertise for a ghost-corpse!

of COURSE they want to end residuals

I have been stewing about a piece in the NYTimes Media and Advertising section (link here).

The press briefing was conducted by Barry M. Meyer, CEO of Time Warner, Anne Sweeney, president of Walt Disney-ABC TV Group, and J. Nicholas Counter, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, an industry bargaining group. The press conference was held as a kind of opening salvo in the upcoming contract battles with the WGA. Media companies are proposing to end the way residuals are calculated, in a manner designed to reduce residual payments almost to nothing. I imagine that directors, actors, and anyone else who receives residuals is next. Perhaps we'll begin to see ads on Craigslist for writers for vehicles for big stars, paying $12 an hour, or a dollar a script page. (None of these figures appear in the NYTimes article; they are my extrapolation from watching remuneration for regular writing jobs plummet.)

Well, this clears up a question that has been mystifying me for a while now: Why are the networks so eager to thrust "reality TV" on the public? I know it's cheap, that's a powerful reason, but I didn't realize until I read this article that it's part of a concerted effort to lower the standard of television and develop in the TV audience a tolerance, even a craving, for complete crap. Which, of course, is what we'll see more and more of, if they cut back on residual payments.

It looks like what has happened to the rest of us over the last decade -- showing up for work one day and finding that either your job has been eliminated entirely or that your company only wants to pay you a half to a third of your salary for the work you've been doing, while the top executives of your company are paid vast amounts of money for their work -- is happening to the enormously profitable media industry. Of course they don't want to pay writers. That is money out of some CEO's compensation package and golden parachute fund.

campaign speech disguised as Homeland Security Warning

When I got my alert email from emergency.org with the subject "Breaking Item: NEW Homeland Security Warning," I thought maybe there was something substantive. Then I went there and found it was Chertoff stumping for his boss.

Boy, these folks in the executive branch stop at nothing to foist themselves and their viewpoints off on everyone at every opportunity. I would expect a release from Homeland Security to be a serious warning of some impending danger, but if they are just going to be vague potshots at the opposition, I'm going to quit reading these things. I don't enjoy Republican campaign literature.

on the function of journalists (and bloggers)

I'm posting this here so I shall be able to consult it every time I find myself taking things too seriously.

My various solutions to the problems which beset the nation are intended as suggestions to be thrown around in pubs, clubs and dining rooms. If the Government adopted even a tenth of them, catastrophe would surely result ... The essence of journalism is that it should stimulate its readers for a moment, possibly open their minds to some alternative perception of events, and then be thrown away, with all its clever conundrums, its prophecies and comminations, in the great wastepaper basket of history. (Auberon Waugh quoted by his son, Alexander, in his book Fathers and Sons: Autobiography of a Family)

Alexander Waugh expands on this in the next paragraph:

If journalism was not 'important' to him he nevertheless held it, as a profession, in high regard. It was only when journalists took their jobs too seriously, when they tried to play an active part in shaping events, that he began to lose his enthusiasm for the press. The sole purpose of political journalism, he always insisted, was to deflate politicians, the self-important and the power mad: 'We should never, never suggest new ways for them to spend money or taxes they could increase, or new laws they could pass. There is nothing so ridiculous as the posture of journalists who see themselves as part of the sane and pragmatic decision-taking process.'

I was tempted to write a long jeremiad on the state of argument today, but I think I'll just sit back and consider Waugh's view of the function of journalists, and try to notice if anyone is doing that anymore.

The market is silent on this one

"Finding a way to keep diethylene glycol out of medicine, particularly in developing countries, has confounded health officials for decades. “It is preventable and we have to figure out some way of stopping this from happening again,” said Carol Rubin, a senior C.D.C. official." (NYTimes article "F.D.A. Tracked Tainted Drugs, but Trail Went Cold in China," June 17, 2007)

I keep hearing ambient conversation in the very conservative state where I live about how terrible government regulation of anything is. People forget why so many things are heavily regulated until the regulation goes away and greedy criminals swarm out from under rocks and start killing people in their quest for money.