History rewritten

There's an iconic picture circulating around the web of a group of female firefighters at Pearl Harbor, supposedly taken on December 7, 1941. [It wasn't and here's an article about that.] Nevertheless, the picture, shown below, strikes me as amazing for a couple of reasons.

First, it's of female firefighters at a time when women were still considered the fairer sex. Sure the war changed things, and women who had to step into traditionally male roles proved they could do more than bake cookies and make babies. Nevertheless, it's humbling to see these courageous women at work doing something so few women even do today.

Second, the ethnic diversity strikes me. There is a black woman, a Hawaiin woman and several Caucasian women, all working together during a time when diversity wasn't embraced or mandated as it is today. There's another new perspective for me of a time when I thought things were a certain way, and it turns out maybe they really weren't.

The third thing I notice about the picture also tells me that some of the historical facts we're bombarded with today, just may not be true. The 'fact' I question is that all those years ago people were slim and healthy because they ate fresh whole foods and exercised more. I look at these women, and I see courage and strength, but I don't see bony physiques and slim silhouettes. They're not supermodel shaped, thus evidencing the fact that back before the standard "American diet" took effect and began making everyone fat, women still weren't skinny.

In this related photo you can see it clearly. None of these women is slender. At a time when the fashion was the cinched waist and flouncy hips, these women didn't have an hourglass shape. I wonder how Dr. Oz or all the other weight loss and "health" gurus would deal with them. Eat less and exercise more? Who's got time for that when you're busy protecting the country? Seriously.

I have no doubt there are plenty of photos from this time of the ideal woman with perfect measurements, but I have the feeling she was no more 'average' than the size 0 supermodel is today. This picture shows women living life as it should be lived, not munching rice cakes and sweating on a treadmill or dancersizing. That's how to stay healthy and be real - do what needs to be done. Stop counting calories and fat grams and striving for the perfect BMI and go put out some fires. 

Are you ready...

for RETAIL WEEKEND?

I mean Thanksgiving?

I've been a fan of Black Friday for years, but not because I'm one of those people who gets up at 4:00 AM to go stand in line at the mall and spend the day hunting bargains and trying to get all my holiday shopping done in one day. In fact, between Thanksgiving Thursday and Christmas Eve [whatever day of the week] I don't go near any of the malls in the area. And that's not easy to do where I live since there's a major shopping mall within five miles in any direction.

I like Black Friday because it's a non-holiday. Most offices and schools are closed, yet there's no federal or religious reason for it. It started out as just a nice way to get a much needed four-day weekend. Now it's a thing. It's become a day of sanctioned insanity, one that I avoid by purposely staying home.

But in case, like me, you opt out of Black Friday shopping hysteria, you can now particiapte in
Small Business Saturday for those of us who hate the mall any day of the year, and after Exhaustion Sunday [my own creation] you can enjoy Cyber Monday, the official on-line shopping holiday.

While all these special days are cute and quirky and they probably offer a much needed boost to the retail economy, I think they're mostly a symptom of our society's love affair with material wealth. We've venerated shopping to a holiday experience [holiday coming from the concept of holy day] - and turned days for shopping into traditions - and the beginning of a new type of holy week dedicated to that which we are cleverly manipulated in worshipping, money.

However you spend Retail Weekend, have a good one and I hope you enjoy your Turkey Day or whatever you plan to do with the next five days.

And Gays can't marry?

My husband told me this morning, there’s been a new measure of time established. It’s called the Kardash. Definition: a period of 72 days.


All the jokes at the expense of celebutante Kim Kardashian and her apparently unemployed basketball star soon-to-be-ex husband Kris Humphries are well-deserved, but I think there’s a darker side to this celebrity-marriage-go-round.

There’s so much debate and animosity about the issue of same-sex marriage. States that allow it are applauded, states that don’t are trying to say the people don’t want it. Religious groups want to convince us that same-sex unions somehow undermine the institution of marriage and family – and yet when celebrities spend millions on highly publicized nuptials, then months, weeks or even hours later decide they made the wrong decision and want out [or decide they haven’t gotten enough publicity miles on the wedding and need more attention] we’re supposed to just laugh it off.

I have to be honest. It’s not funny. If we’re supposed to care about the integrity of marriage so much that we need to stop any given set of two people who are in love and committed to one another from getting married just because they have matching chromosomes, why should we just blithely accept the uber-rich and dubiously famous will marry for fun and profit and divorce for the same reason even before the magazines bearing their wedding photos have been taken off newsstand shelves?

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten canned mechanical phone calls polling me about my stance on same-sex marriage. Should marriage be between one man and one woman?

No, I always say, but they never leave me space to add: Marriage should be between one grown up and one grown up [or two or three even – we can discuss plural marriage another time], but the operative words should be ‘mature individual’ and ‘mature individual’ – and not ‘Botox glory hound’ or ‘talentless publicity seeker’.

Maybe all those activists out there campaigning to deny same sex marriage should focus their efforts on something that does need to be stopped instead – ‘same celebrity marriage’. Two famous people shouldn’t be allowed to get married in any state of the union. Clearly they can’t handle it, and the effect on the institution of marriage is too devastating for us all to have to witness. Over and over and over again.

They should put that to a vote – in a Kardash and every Kardash from now on until we can change the laws and make marriage a safe and sanctimonious haven for people who are truly committed to more than having their airbrushed images plastered underneath the headlines.

Oh well...

Since the world, so surpisingly, didn't end on Friday, I thought this bill board, borrowed from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, might be appropro.

Maybe next time...

The take or leave it century

You hear a lot of speculation about how the world can recover from this global recession, and I have a bunch of my own theories but I’m starting to think we may never pull out of this if we don’t bring back some good old fashioned accountability all across the board.


How can anyone make money or forge a lasting business if they just don’t care?

I ask this because I’m so tired of seeing the laissez-faire attitude from businesses, banks, doctors, etc. No one has the gumption to put their best foot forward anymore. Is it any wonder no one’s making money?

A case in point, I hired a supposed professional several weeks ago to fix a leaky gutter on my house. After the work was done, for a reasonable $30.00, I was told if there were any problems to call the company and someone would come back to fix it. Well, the next rain storm produced a waterfall from the gutter which had previously only been dripping. I called. It took several phone calls to finally get someone to return, repair the leak a second time and leave. The next time it rained the gutter went back to dripping, so I was right back where I started. Several more phone calls only served to irritate the company manager who ended up telling my husband never to call again.

Naturally I did what I do best. I left reviews of the company wherever I could. We contacted the Better Business Bureau and put in a complaint. The manager called to complain to us about this because he couldn’t understand why we were making such a big deal over a $30 job.

Seriously?

Clearly the man has no business sense. No one ever told him that the $30.00 customer should be treated the same way the $30,000 customer is treated because you never know when one can turn into the other. His feeling was, we were supposed to excuse poor service, rudeness over the phone and a reluctance to fix the problem because, after all, we’d only paid $30, the price quoted to us by his own technician. Now the company is annoyed because the Internet reviews are out there tarnishing their reputation. Boo hoo.

Do a good job and you won’t have to worry about your reputation.

As a writer, I have to put my work out there and take the chance someone will give a trashy review. A bad review will hurt my business, it will impact my book sales. I know this because I’ve changed my mind about buying books after reading poor reviews. I don’t whine about those bad reviews. I don’t moan and say, what did they expect for a $0.99 book or a $4.99 book? If they’d been willing to pay $29.99 for it, I might have done a better job. That’s BS of the highest magnitude. My book sales are driven by the good reviews, the ones I get because I care about what I produce. In the information age, if you do crappy work, the world will know about it in a heartbeat. Welcome to the 21st Century, put on your big girl panties and deal with it.

Yet this attitude seems to prevail. I see it among writers who do whine about their bad reviews and engage reviewers in arguments. I see it in businesses that relegate small, inexpensive jobs to lesser skilled workers and provide less customer service to the ‘little guy’. I see it in banks that charge fees for low balance accounts and not for higher balances, in doctors and medical practices that give better service to patients who pay their own way as opposed to those relying on insurance [or sometimes vice versa depending on where they think they’ll get the most money]. I see it in government where budget cuts lead to lack of service which punishes the communities rather than the higher government that imposes the budget cuts to begin with. There seems to be a resentment of the everyday working person, the person who doesn’t just want to save money but HAS to in order to survive. We’re not supposed to complain about higher taxes, increased fees, lower compensation for health insurance, cuts in our salaries, higher gas prices, higher food prices, less service everywhere. We’re just supposed to shut up and accept that no one can go the extra mile anymore because we can no longer pay for it.

I guess the old adage is true: Money talks and bull shit is the new gold standard.

Get your finger off that button!

An open letter to door-to-door salespeople




Dear Representative of X Company,

I hate to be rude. I really, really do, but when you stop understanding nice, I have to bring out the big guns. While I appreciate that you need to make a living, and somehow you got the idea that working on commission will fill your coffers and allow you to pay the rent, I really don’t care. I’m sorry for that. I have no doubt the day will come when you realize all the hours you spent hiking through my neighborhood and neighborhoods like it are largely for naught. You do have my sympathy.

However, you need to understand that I’m not sitting in my house, twiddling my thumbs, just waiting for the doorbell to ring – any more than I’m sitting anxiously by the phone waiting to hear the voice of a telemarketer. When you show up on my doorstep at 5:45 PM, please don’t look disappointed or shocked or hurt or offended when I tell you, “I’m making dinner right now, I cannot talk to you.” I’m really not kidding. When I tell you, “I have something on the stove,” it is actually not a lie. Asking if you can come back in 15 minutes is…well…STUPID, because in 15 minutes I will be sitting down to eat that which I now have on the stove. Assuming it’s not burning while I’m trying to get you off my porch in the nicest way possible.

Please try to understand that I can’t just set up a future appointment with you while I’m hanging out my door trying to keep my pets from bolting outside to greet you or eat you as the case may be. I need a calendar to make an appointment and I don’t have one in my hand at the moment. I have no intention of inviting you in, so I’d have to close the door while you wait for me to locate my calendar, and the chances that I’ll open it again are slim. You must realize that if I wanted my driveway repaved, or my roof reshingled, or a better cable service, I would be calling a company [maybe even yours] and lining up a consultation, but I’m NOT, so chances are, I’m also NOT in the market for your services at this moment in time, while I’m making dinner, or taking a nap, or cleaning my kitchen floor, or working, or reading a book or talking on the phone.

If you want my attention, leave a flyer in my mailbox. I’ll probably throw it away, but the chances are better that I’ll glance at it and maybe even file it away for future reference.

So, for heaven’s sake, get your finger off that door bell button. Step off the porch and proceed down the walkway until you reach the sidewalk. Then GO AWAY. I don’t want any. I’m not interested. Don’t call me, I’ll call you. I’m busy. And while you’re at it, look for a different job, because there’s no future in door-to-door sales. Really. There isn’t.

Digest this bait [and switch]

Everybody, it seems, is out to get a hold of your contact information so they can sell you drugs.

I was reading Reader's Digest this evening and came across an add touting a Reader's Digest Health Survey. Completing the survey, the ad said, would not only help the venerable Digest to identify issues that matter most to its readers, but would also enter you into a sweepstakes for a $30,000 prize.

The ad notes that the information you provide will be helpful to the Digest's readers and advertisers. But what it really means is, the information will be sold to advertisers.

I found this out by going to the website listed in the ad figuring I'd be asked to fill out a health survey that might be providing results for a Digest-sponsored article. They do publish the results of a lot of surveys [most of which are useless] but what the hey...

It turns out the website 'survey' asks one question. They want you to check off areas of health concerns that you would like more information about, then they want you to agree to share your contact information with healthcare marketing companies.

So much for a survey.

I'm disappointed in the Digest, not because I think it has anything valuable to offer, it's no more interesting a read for me than the inspid People magazine, but luring readers to healthcare marketing mailing lists is about as low as standing on the street corner offering a hit of crack to passing school kids.

Shame you, Reader's Digest. I didn't take the bait.

FICO be damned

I know it might be considered financially unsound in this wacky economic climate to cancel a credit card. Any financial 'expert' will tell you that cancelling cards will have a negative effect on your FICO score - that all important made up number that tells everyone just what a high risk you are in the money game.

Everyone knows my policy is, whatever the banks want or prefer, is usually exactly the opposite of what I do, so today I cancelled a card, but I didn't do it just to piss off the FICO people who will now be forced to recalculate my score [if only they cared that much.]

I did it to make myself feel just a little bit better. Today I cancelled my BP credit card. You might think - so what? What's one lost credit card account to them? Probably nothing in the overall scheme of things, but it made me feel good nevertheless to let them know my family won't be doing business with a company that's singlehandedly destroying the planet.

The millions of gallons of oil bursting into the Gulf of Mexico are going to have an untold impact on the environment. BP is rushing around putting toxic Band-Aids on a gaping wound. What they need to do is pour all of their money, every last penny, into that spewing well, and then throw their Top brass in after it.

Unfortunately, it's not just BP who's to blame. We can also thank the world governments [not just the US.] Their sick insistance that we need to remain dependent on oil is what really caused this catastrophe. The fear of making the OPEC nations angry by taking away the only thing they truly contribute to the global community is at the root of this unspeakable tragedy. We have the technology to become an oil-free society, we just don't use it because it means people who have enough money to feed filet mignon to their pet tigers won't be happy.

Clean energy is available. Environmentally safe energy is available, it just doesn't put enough money in the right pockets to make it profitable.

I know there's a lot more I could do to take a stand against BIG OIL, in the mean time, why not start out in the simplest way possible? Send a message to BP - if you deal with them, stop. They don't need any more of our money or any of our support.

Some kind of nut

I’ve been trying hard to eliminate candy from my diet – not chocolate per se, which my research [and my own personal belief system] lists as a health food – but the readily available snack type candy that contains nothing more than empty calories.

That being said, I could not resist picking up a couple of single serving bags of Coconut M&Ms the other day. My husband has been talking about them since he first heard they existed so when I saw them at the local Walgreens, I couldn’t resist.

I ripped open one of the small bags as soon as I got home tried some. Cocunut M&Ms come only in white, green and brown – I imagine to evoke the tropical hues of the coconut – leaves, shell and meat. I’d have included a pale beige for sand and a bright blue for an island sky, but that’s just me.

As expected, the M&Ms are overly sweet, but they definitely taste like coconut. That’s quite an accomplishment considering that while the nutrition information warns they may contain both peanuts and almonds, there is no trace of real coconut anywhere in the package.

They’re good, but fortunately for me, not good enough to blow my new health-centric diet for. I could live without them. I wonder how could they might be though, if they actually contained coconut.

Ailment or evolution?

I struggled over finding the right title for this post – I really wanted to call it: Not racist? You’re sick … but I figured people would misconstrue that so I went with something a little less inflammatory.

Nevertheless, that is the real issue, apparently according to this article, which comes straight from the WTF Files.

Rare disorder erases all social anxiety – apparently a very rare genetic disorder is afflicting children with the inability to experience social anxiety and racist tendencies.
Can you imagine? NOT being shy, introverted, nervous in crowds or affected by the racial and cultural biases of your peers, parents and siblings is now a DISEASE.

Apparently, being predisposed to prefer people of your own color or ethnicity is normal. Kids who don’t feel that way automatically are somehow defective, as this study seems to point out.

The down side of this mysterious Williams Syndrome seems to be the following:

They will put themselves at great peril to help someone and despite their skills at empathy, are unable to process social danger signals. As a result, they are at increased risk for rape and physical attack.

So let’s break this down: They will put themselves at great peril to help someone

I guess all firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians, animal control officers, and general Samaritans who have risked their lives for others are all sufferers of Williams syndrome then.

despite their skills at empathy, are unable to process social danger signals.

So being caring and sympathetic and yet maybe a bit socially clueless is an illness.

As a result, they are at increased risk for rape and physical attack.

I guess the average kid walking on the street is in no real danger because they will instinctively run away from someone who is a different race than they are??

Then there’s this:

As a result, people with Williams syndrome are "hypersocial," Meyer-Lindenberg said. They do not experience the jitters and inhibitions the rest of us feel.

Good God, people. This illness must be conquered!! I’m off to find out if there is a fundraiser or something because those of us normal people who suffer constantly from jitters, inhibitions, shyness and fear of strangers MUST do something to help the less fortunate among us.

Let’s race for a cure. We must end Williams Syndrome before it’s too late.

Addendum:

I did some research on Williams Syndrome and actually it’s not the medical profession that screwed this up so much as the author of the MSN article, Robin Nixon, who failed to include the physiological symptoms of the disease and totally missed the point of the reason anyone would be studying it. Nixon, it seemed, wanted to go for the sensational value of a less than accurate headline rather than true scientific journalism.

Hook, line and sucker

Just like everyone else who has an e-mail account, I get SPAM constantly. The best junk-e-mails are those telling me I’ve won a lottery or asking me for help in getting buckets of cash out of impoverished Third World Nations. Those are a real hoot, especially for an editor since the grammar is usually atrocious.

The most insidious of the phishing scams, though, are the ones that seem to make every effort to really hoodwink someone. They provide convincing graphics and links to websites that look just like those belonging to businesses you may actually be dealing with. They tell you your account is suspended or will be shortly and you have to confirm your password in order not to lose access to your money, line of credit, etc.

I got one like that today that was so clever it screwed itself. Supposedly CHASE bank e-mailed to inform me that due to a software upgrade it was imperative that I update my customer information. The e-mail was emblazoned with the CHASE logo and told me my cooperation was ‘obligatory.’ Now right there they lost me – because in this economic climate, I’m predisposed to automatically NOT do anything a credit card company or bank wants me to do.

But I was bored and I was at work where none of my personal info is stored on the computer, so I clicked on the link and was taken to a very convincing facsimile of the CHASE portal website. The page was full of CHASE links, many of them active and looking very legitimate.

I decided to click on the ‘Learn more about online fraud’ link, which took me to a page listing types of on-line fraud including phishing. The phishing link took me to the page where CHASE lists all the phishing scams perpetrated on their customers and what did I come across? You guessed it, the EXACT e-mail I had received, supposedly from CHASE.

I’d just like to say kudos to the web-whiz cyber criminal who came up with this. Creating a phishing scam that actually links to a warning about the very phishing scam you’re perpetrating is sheer evil genius. You belong in the Super Villian Hall of Fame for this one.

Keep this up, and cyber crime will be extinct in no time.

None of what you hear

It's been a while, I know.

I wish I could say there hasn't been anything to write about, but it's more like there have been too many topics that could use a shot of reality that I've been overwhelmed.

Last night while watching TV, I came across something that irritated me enough that I decided I needed to blog about it. As a potential homebuyer/seller [hopefully this year] I have a marginal interest in the government's Home buyer's tax credit program.

The idea for this incentive was to make home buying more attractive [originally just to first time home buyers] in order to kick start the failing real estate market. Giving people money off thier tax bill - especially those who can now afford a home since prices are dropping and foreclosures are everywhere - seemed like a good idea to the current administration. You know, take from the poor and give to the rich type stuff - you lose your house to foreclosure and the people who buy it get a tax incentive. That's fair, right?

Well, then the rule changed, and people who were selling a home and buying a new one could also get some tax credit - not as much, but some. That made a little more sense. Draw people into the market, maybe those looking to downsize, or even up-size now that prices are more realistic. The whole plan is sort of like spitting in the wind, but hey, it makes people feel like the government is doing something to help. The problem is, the program expires on April 30th 2010, so if you don't have a contract by then, you're out of luck. The real estate industry is holding its collective breath hoping the program will be extended, but no word from Washington yet.

So last night, in the middle of prime-time there's a commercial touting in big letters and loud words, "The home buyer's credit has been extended and expanded!" Yay! Let's all rejoice, this is the news we've been wating for...

except, the fine print still says...Expires April 30, 2010.

Misleading much?

Surprised much?

Not me. All you potential home buyers out there, don't be fooled. Or better yet, don't be lied to and don't forget to read the fine print.

Get ready for the McDiet

I just came across this glimpse into the absurd – apparently Weight Watchers is planning on teaming up with McDonald’s to promo some of the fast food giant’s menu options as being health conscious.

Fortunately this is taking place so far only in New Zealand where the Weight Watchers logo will premiere on some selected menu items including Chicken McNuggets.

This one definitely has me perplexed. Weight Watchers certainly does advertise that you can successfully eat out and still lose weight, which I have to respect, since in the real world, you can’t [and don’t want to] always cook at home. Sometimes you need to go out, sit back, relax and let someone else serve you and clean up after you...but it does boggle my mind a bit that a company dedicated to teaching people how to eat right in order to achieve and maintain a healthy weight would endorse any type of deep fried fast food.

It’s not just calorie and fat content that govern whether a food is healthy or not – and anyone who’s seen Super Size Me in which a man literally endangers his life by eating nothing but McDonald’s food for 30 days knows there’s a lot more stuff in chicken nuggets than just chicken.

Granted McDonald’s has been jumping through hoops trying to convince the public that its food isn’t all bad, and that there are healthy options on the menu for those who know how to choose their meals carefully, but this just seems like a sell out on Weight Watchers’ part. Maybe things are different in New Zealand, but the battle of the bulge is fought daily here in the states and McD’s is a general in that war. In the world of healthy eating this strikes me as a bit treasonous.

My kingdom for a boot

Or actually a pair of boots.

It’s silly, I know – wanting to buy a pair of boots in the middle of the winter. I must be insane. The retail machine tells me so, but I have a hard time accepting that I can’t get a decent pair of boots in late February in the North east.

Here’s the dilemma. My son needed a pair of winter boots because the pair we had sequestered in his room back in the fall mysteriously disappeared. Well, one boot did. We assume it was thrown out. He claims they didn’t even fit him, but they did when he tried them on. Details, details. The long and the short of it was that with massive amounts of snow and slush on the ground, the kid needed some decent boots.

So Friday night, after the storming stopped, we went out in search of a good pair. I figured while I was at it, I’d pick myself up a new pair too, just because mine aren’t all that comfortable and I’ve had to wear them an awful lot lately.

Both the show store [Payless] and the department store [Wal*Mart] were not on board with this idea. You see, it’s time for sandals and shorts in retail land. No one is buying boots in February. That’s just nuts. It’s time to prepare for summer vacation. Apparently, if you want boots, you had to do your shopping well before Christmas. [I don’t mean December either, I mean retail-Christmas which now begins shortly before Halloween.] We were out of luck in the snow boot department.

We ended up solving the problem by going with a relatively expensive pair of all-weather work boots which are both water and oil resistant. Hopefully he won’t be in a situation where his footwear has to repel large amounts of oil, but if he is, he’s ready.

I now understand why so many stores are going out of business and the country is still in the grips of a recession. It’s because the stores insist on selling people things they don’t need when they don’t need them. Who’s buying shorts and sandals in February? Anybody? It’s sad to think of all those retail execs sitting around scratching their heads trying to figure out why they’re not making any profit on bathing suits and lawn chairs between New Years and Easter. Maybe if they worked a little harder on inducing global warming, they’d capture the summer attire market in the middle of winter. One can only hope they figure it out soon.

In the mean time, I could still use a new pair of boots. I guess I’ll have to mark my calendar start looking for boots in September.

Riding the Olympic vehicle

The other night I was skimming through channels and caught some of the Olympics [I know I shouldn’t admit this, but for the most part, I’m not a fan of any Olympic sport except curling. Curling rocks. No pun intended. Well, yes, actually it was.]

Anyway, the interesting thing about the Olympics was not the athletes, the costumes, the pageantry or even the dedication to excellence shown by the people from all over the world who come together to compete. What I find most interesting is the sponsorship. Let’s face it, the Olympics is big business and companies shell out a lot of dough not only for advertising spots but to be able to call themselves a ‘sponsor’ of the Olympics.

I thought the commercial for McDonald’s was most intriguing. McDonald’s, they tell us, is an official food/eating place of the Olympics. Well, yeah. You have to figure with McDonald’s restaurants all over the world, the people who come to see the Olympics will feel very much at home under the Golden Arches…but I had to ask myself, would a dedicated aspiring professional athlete [yes, Olympians are supposed to be amateurs – but aren’t they competing for world wide recognition that could land them sponsorships of their own?] be wise to chow down on a Big Mac and Fries?

Apparently I’m not the only one flummoxed by this. Blogger Brett Blumenthal at Sheer Balance asked the same question and answered it more eloquently than I.

At a time when health and wellness are such a hot button issue, you would think the Olympics might want to take the opportunity to promote food that is actually healthy. Of course I guess that would be hard to do with a lot less money in their pockets.

If you’re a fan of the Olympics, does it bother you to see McDonald’s ads during Olympic broadcasts? Do you feel the message is hypocritical or worse, damaging to aspiring athletes who may get the idea that their idols are sitting down to McNuggets and fries before competing and still managing to win gold?

The devil is in the details

I found this article put out by the Associated Press the other day proclaiming relief for the mortgage crisis. Apparently the number of homeowners who are late on payments has dropped sharply – heralding better times ahead.

The article also gives the grim truth about this supposed turnaround. The ‘sharp drop’ constitutes a change of 0.2 percent – from 3.8 to 3.6. That’s 2 tenths of a percent.

I imagine the author of the article has a different definition of sharp than I do. I also have to wonder how much of this sharp drop is a result of people having lost their homes to foreclosure. You can’t be late on a payment if you no longer own the house, right?

This quote from the article tells the rest of the real story:

However, more than 15 percent of homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment or were in foreclosure, a record for the 10th straight quarter.

I realize it may be the job of journalists like this and the Associated Press in general to paint a happy picture of the economy – after all, telling people things are getting better, will make them think things are getting better, and then perhaps by default, things will actually begin to get better. I just wish if they were going to try to snow the public with fuzzy facts, they worked a little harder at making them fuzzy. This is just blatant hogwash.

Chin up everyone, things are better! Two tenths of a percent less people were one payment late on their mortgages so we can all breath a sigh of relief. The fact that the article ends with the information that the number of homeowners who are more than three payments late has continued to rise is apparently notwithstanding.

I imagine the whole point of this article is not to convey any real information, just to dazzle people with peppy headlines.

Saturday

I'm taking Saturdays off too for a while. Don't worry, I won't be goofing off. I'll be cleaning, doing laundry and house hunting.

See you Monday.

Tips, Tricks and Rules

The Internet makes me insane on a daily basis. Why am I still here, you wonder? I refuse to answer that on the grounds it may tend to make me seem a little more insane.

Anyway, one thing that bothers me most about the Internet are the incessant ads. I have to wonder what makes some of these shady advertisers think anyone would be attracted by the nonsense they spout, but someone must be buying into this crap because the ads are always there.

The worst offenders in my opinion are the ones decrying “Obama asks Moms to Return to School!” – Seriously. Would the president be able to get away with being so sexist as to assume anyone who is a Mom automatically needs to return to school? Come on. No government spin doctor would allow the president to make such a request. It’s practically obscene in a feminist country to insinuate that being a mother precludes someone from having a complete education.

Ads in a similar vein promise better car insurance rates or help with refinancing a home loan. They’re usually accompanied by clearly Photo-shopped pictures of…well, let’s just say individuals who…people who seem…all right, I’ll just say it – weird looking people. Yeah, because a guy with a unibrow or a woman playing peekabo with a horrendous set of dentures makes me want to learn more about your product or your program. Are they kidding?

Other misleading ads are the ones hawking weird rules, cheap tricks and old tips. Ever notice how it’s always a mom, usually unemployed or unmarried from your town or a town near you who miraculously discovered how to lose weight, whiten her teeth or make tons of cash working from home? [Why should she return to school, pray tell, if she’s already so clever, I have to ask?]

Out of curiosity I followed one of these links and just as expected, it doesn’t take you to a Mom’s website where she shares her hard earned knowledge – no, invariably these ads take you to a mock up of a news article explaining how this crafty Mom sent away for free samples, or inexpensive kits or low-cost diet aids. They want your e-mail address and we all know what happens when someone gets a hold of your e-mail address.

So here’s one weird old tricky tip about rules – don’t believe them. If you feel inclined to do so, the president thinks you should go back to school…and I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

Ask a silly question

An ABC News health correspondent asks Why Do We Spend $34 Billion in Alternative Medicine? As if it’s a difficult question to answer.

The article written in July 2009 by Lauren Cox of the ABC News Medical Unit casts aspersions on alternative medicine, citing the common explanation that non-Western medical techniques are largely unproven. Scientific research doesn’t extend to many naturopathic cures, therefore people should be wary of them.

Of course, the money involved in conducting scientific testing makes it prohibitive to all but the high-earning pharmaceutical companies – so it’s a double-edged sword. No one can prove alternative medicines really work because no one can pay to prove it.

The article goes on to wonder why people are so willing to fork over cash for natural remedies to illness, then answers it’s own question. Money is a big issue – people without health insurance have to do something. Natural cures, food, vitamins, etc, are less expensive than medical cures – doctor visits with hefty price tags, never-ending prescriptions for drugs, repetitive medical tests than may actually cause the diseases they’re trying to detect, and emergency care bills that bankrupt the insured just as easily as the uninsured.

Why would it be a mystery?

The article also offers another view of alternative medicine as friendlier, more thorough and in fact often more effective than Western medicine. Is it any wonder patients opt for spending more time with a naturopathic doctor who has time to listen to their problems and prescribe a custom path of care, than those 8 minutes with a regular health care professional whose focus is on seeing as many people in a day as possible, prescribing drugs recommended by the pharmaceutical reps that clog their waiting rooms and churning out the insurance paperwork so they can be reimbursed for their time?

I think it’s elementary, Watson. Don’t you?

When more is less

I had a different post planned for today, but I scrapped it in order to vent on behalf of filmmaker Kevin Smith [Silent Bob of Jay and Silent Bob fame] who was recently ejected from a commercial airline flight for being ‘too large’.

Mr. Smith, fully aware he’s a plus-sized individual, had purchased two tickets for himself accommodating the airline industry’s money-grabbing tactic for overcharging people who cannot fit in the cattle-car type seating they prefer to foist upon their passengers.

In order to make his destination sooner, apparently Mr. Smith agreed to be put on standby and was placed on a different flight, given only one seat – not the two he paid for – and then was removed from the flight because the pilot insisted his size posed a safety issue. Mr. Smith contends he could fit comfortably in the torture device [er…seat], could lower his armrests and buckle his seat belt. Nevertheless he was asked to leave the flight. He was given the consolation prize of a $100 voucher [very likely not even close to the price of one seat, let alone two] and placed on yet another flight where he also fit comfortably into one seat, despite having still paid for two.

The airline has since offered a lame apology to Mr. Smith over the phone and on their blog and received hundreds of comments from the public. Some were like me, outraged that the airline could treat a paying customer this way. Others jumped on the bandwagon, blasting Mr. Smith for being overweight because it’s politically correct to do so.

They could not complain because of the color of his skin, or his religion. They could not take issue with his age, his inability to speak or understand English or his hailing from a region of the planet known to produce terrorists. That would be discrimination and it’s illegal in this country. But being fat, overweight, plus-sized, big boned…that’s fair game. I don’t necessarily blame the people who supported Southwest’s abuse of Mr. Smith – they can’t help themselves. Most of them have probably never been discriminated against and most would probably waste no time calling their lawyers if they were. I blame the airlines, the media, and the government for declaring war on anyone who is not the perfect height, weight or width. If you are bigger than the average person, you are somehow less. Less human. Less in possession of feelings and dignity.

Everyone believes it well within the power of an overweight person to become thin. Just stop being lazy, eat less and exercise more. How hard can that be, right? Celebrities especially do it all the time – one day they’re fat, the next day they’re thin and going on the talk show circuit to discuss how ashamed they were of themselves when they were closer to looking like a normal person than looking like a cadaver. It’s funny how no one can legally expect another person to change their religion even though it should be as easy as simply believing something different than you already believe. No one can legally expect a person to renounce their citizenship to a country that has declared war on freedom…all that takes is saying some words and signing a few papers, but it’s okay to legally expect someone to starve themselves in order to fit into an airplane seat.

I wonder what kind of discrimination will be legal next.