Credit Card Companies Charge More and Are Meaner, to boot

I was just on the phone FOR THE SECOND TIME questioning some stupid fee charged by a credit card company. The first time I had to endure a surly response from my customer service representative — customer service in the credit card industry being the definition of oxymoron. 

This time, I was greeted with serieuse attitude coming from the Mr. Customer Service who is not the mere definition of oxymoron but is the true personification of oxymoron.

Definitely a call center in the US because no one can fake that decidedly American accent. So, there’s a silver lining — the abusive person was a fellow American and his job was not outsourced. I don’t know if I would have remained as calm (a stretch) if an American job was lost so I could be berated in this manner.

The oxyMORON reminded me that the call was being recorded as was the call from my prior excellent customer service experience. I said that I was glad it was being recorded because I would love everyone and anyone to hear the tone and manner of the customer service representatives. We concluded our business and we ended the phone call. 

I did not break the phone, which I consider a tribute to my self control.

Funny how soon they forget . . .

Dick Cheney is laser sharp in his criticism of the current Administration and in his trumpeting of his initiatives during his 8-year Reign of Terror.  His memory for his accomplishments is uncanny.

Oh, wait, there is that inconvenient incident in which he outed an intelligence officer because her husband was critical of Cheney’s intelligence gathering and evidence supporting the Iraq War.  What was her name again?   He couldn’t remember anything when pressed by federal prosecutors.  He couldn’t “recall” 72 times

Dick, let me help you. 

Her name is Valerie Plame.  She worked for the CIA defending and protecting this country

But, her husband doubted on your fabricated evidence for war, so you exposed a patriotic American, a defender of our safety and way of life and, by extension, you put in harm’s way ALL OF THOSE AGENTS WITH WHOM SHE WORKED.  

And, you can’t remember.  Is it because you did it so often?  

 

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By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer Pete Yost, Associated Press Writer Mon Nov 2, 6:34 am ET

WASHINGTON – Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald famously declared in the Valerie Plame affair that “there is a cloud over the vice president.” Last week’s release of an FBI interview summary of Dick Cheney’s answers in the criminal investigation underscores why Fitzgerald felt that way.

On 72 occasions, according to the 28-page FBI summary, Cheney equivocated to the FBI during his lengthy May 2004 interview, saying he could not be certain in his answers to questions about matters large and small in the Plame controversy.

The Cheney interview reflects a team of prosecutors and FBI agents trying to find out whether the leaks of Plame’s CIA identity were orchestrated at the highest level of the White House and carried out by, among others, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff.

Among the most basic questions for Cheney in the Plame probe: How did Libby find out that the wife of Bush administration war critic Joseph Wilson worked at the CIA?

Libby’s own handwritten notes suggest Libby found out from Cheney. When Libby discovered Cheney’s reference to Plame and the CIA in his notes — notes that Libby knew he would soon have to turn over to the FBI — the chief of staff went to the vice president, probably in late September or early October 2003.

Sharing the information with Cheney was in itself an unusual step at the outset of a criminal investigation in which potential White House witnesses were being ordered by their superiors not to talk to each other about the Plame matter.

[rest of article omitted]

Cell YELLLLLLL

Cellphones are sometimes blessings but, most times, curses. 

When your 89 year-old father is running late because of city traffic, it is a blessing not to start calling emergency rooms around the city.  If you are on a bus and a teenager is talking about adolescent issues and her first visit to the gynecologist, well, then, it is a little like being in purgatory.

Recently, on a bus going uptown on the west side of Manhattan, a woman in her mid-to-late seventies was having a conversation on her cellphone.  To be more precise, she was YELLING into her cellphone as if she were hard-of-hearing or had never used a cellphone before (or both).  A man in his sixties turned around and told her he was very sensitive to noise and ask very politely if she would mind lowering her voice.

Her response was to tell her friend, “can you believe someone told me to quiet down? If you were next to me and we were screaming to each other, no one would say anything to us.” 

You can’t argue with that, mostly because all you would get out of it is a headache.

How come . . .

there are so many people reading the Bible (especially on New York City subways) and there is so much violence in the world.  Do you think they are reading the passages about how the Israelites slaughtered the Jebusites, the Hittites and some other tribes in Canaan?  Should we publish the Peaceful Bible that only has passages about communal laws, and lands flowing with milk and honey, and end it with the words to Kumbaya?  We can publish it in the University Press of No-Where-istan.

Just another deep thought on my commute on a typical day on my personal road to Utopia.

David Letterman, Senator Ensign, Roman Polanski

There are no parallels among these men.

David Letterman did get out in front of the “scandal”. That was smart media.  As long as the women with whom he was intimate were consenting adults — that means without fear for their jobs or career advancement — then it is just another philandering person.  What makes it news is that he is a TV star.  What is sad is that sexual harassment happens everyday and there is no famous star to blackmail to make it stop.  David Letterman has a lot of heartache ahead of him.  But he doesn’t need to apologize to me.

Conversely, Senator Ensign needs to apologize to his voters because he is a fraud — he is not the “family values” candidate that his constituency elected and he broke the public trust in the cover-up. His extra-marital affair was not criminal or actionable — consenting adults without any specter (so far) of harassment in the workplace.

Roman Polanski is, based on the information available, a scoundrel and a sexual predator.  A thirteen year-old is a child and is not capable of consent in sexual circumstances.  Justice delayed is justice denied.  Lock him up and throw away the key.

Let’s not lump these men and their actions together.  None is a shining star, but in only one case was there a sexual criminal.  In another, it was the cover-up that is criminal.  The third, well, unless we hear more, is just disappointing and ooky.

There is one guy, whose handle is TheFlaCracker on Twitter, who refers to all Libiots (liberal idiots) as defending Roman Polanski.  That’s unfair.  I am a G-d damn Democrat and liberal and a Hillary-lover.  I am proud of it.  But, child abuse is not a liberal or conservative issue.  It is solely about our expectations and demands for the safety of society’s and our children.

The true measure of our society is how we treat the children others have “cast off”and those who abuse them.

People forgive mistakes but not lies

To err is human, but to cover up inane.  Haven’t we learned that time and again?

Senator John Ensign promoted himself as Mr. Family-Values, which — must I say it? —  precludes extra-marital sex. Now, he is faced with three problems: (1) he had an illicit affair with a staffer; (2) he abused his office to give this woman’s husband access to corridors of power and decision-making in order to keep the affair quiet and (3) he breached the public trust.  In short, he is a fraud who broke the law and sold out his constituents to preserve his fraudulent image and, if karma is a boomerang, he will get hoisted on his own petard.

Compare Senator Ensign with former President Clinton.  No one had any illusions about Clinton’s lechery. People were angry that he lied under oath.  But, the GOP made the impeachment proceedings about sex and morality and, because of that, Clinton avoided conviction.  If the GOP had been less mesmerized by the salacious details, the outcome might have been different.  Clinton squeaked by because we elected him knowing about his infidelity and his morally-challenged ways and, right or wrong, his lie was in a private lawsuit.  He did not sell out his office.

What did Clinton pollsters say at the time?  The public will forgive mistakes but not lies.  Clinton told one lie; Senator Ensign IS a lie.

Politics is making my head explode, so I am watching cartoons

It doesn’t get more stupid than this:

Glenn Beck’s attempt to co-opt Yom Kippur as a national day of fasting for the health of the Republic, a large, government-paid, medical providers’ sending scary letters to disabled and senior citizens, GOP’s sending out questionnaires implying that race will have an effect on who gets health insurance, the president’s heavy handed approach with the NYS gubernatorial race (I agree with the sentiment but not how it was handled), the ACORN debacleFOX News’ orchestration of 9/12 march on Washington, leaking the CONFIDENTIAL Afghanistan report, the ideologues on both sides of the aisle in Congress not seeing that some reform is better than no reform . . . I could go on and on and on.

But, I won’t go on and on and on and on (today). 

I will go home tonight and watch cartoons on the PBS kids.  Because in the land of PBS kids, people learn to work and play and get along with each other.

Buying Challah can be a Contact Sport

Tonight is the start of Rosh HaShanah and the ten days of introspection, reflection, repentance and atonement, culminating in Yom Kippur.

But today, today, is the day when frantic Jews push and shove to get the ingredients of the holiday meals.

The rule is:  tonight, we start atoning for what we did at the store today.

I went out to get a challah (special bread for Sabbaths and holidays) from the neighborhood bakery on the upper, Upper West Side.  I stand in a long line winding its way outside this adorable store front.  All is seemingly calm until I move into the store as my turn comes up.  I hear in a booming voice:

“I put my order in DAYS ago!! Last name FERNberg. F-E-AWR-N-B-E-AWR-G.  FernBERG.  5 plain, 2 raisin challahs!!!  Do I have to call my husband?”

One woman is so upset that she isn’t being paid attention that she refuses all bakery workers’ efforts to assist her.  She needs to feel oppressed.  This is the kind of stuff that should happen in the privacy of a psychiatrist’s office.

Then a rumor rages rampant that only raisin and whole wheat (oy) challahs were left.  Now, comes the pushing and the shoving.  People step out of line, disgusted.  Then we find out there are plain challahs.  Now people want to step back into line.

Now comes a Talmudic question:  when a person voluntarily steps out of line but under false pretenses, does the person get his or her place back?

Great for Talmud, not for the hand-to-hand combat of pre-holiday upper, Upper West Side.

As everyone climbs over each other (vowing internally to start repentance tonight), I get my challah and leave quickly and, thank G-d, intact.

Karma is a boomerang

When all financial hell started breaking loose last year, fear was the prevalent mood.  Then, fear turned to despair, turned to anger, turned to dog-eat-dog mentality.  It seems to me, unencumbered by knowledge, information or expertise, that instead of working together toward the common good, we are scrambling to get ahead of the pack. 

Now, it is acceptable to demand unconscionable discounts on things because vendors and service providers are struggling financiallyand will make the deal even at a loss because they are cash-strapped.  There is a word for this behavior: stealing.  Shame on those who do this. 

And for those of you who do this, be forewarned, Karma is a . . . .

boooomeraaaaaaang

 

 

The Shonda Chair has become a Couch

What is SO crazy is that these ideologues get tripped up by the very things they rail against. 

Move over Governor Sanford and Senator Ensign, we need to make room for Mike Duvall, a GOP legislator in California on the Shonda Chair.  Maybe we need a Shonda Couch.

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By JULIET WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer Juliet Williams, Associated Press Writer – 40 mins ago SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A pro-family values California lawmaker who resigned after being caught on tape boasting about his sexual conquests denied Thursday that he had extramarital affairs, saying “my offense was engaging in inappropriate storytelling.” Mike Duvall stepped down Wednesday after a videotape surfaced in which he was overheard telling a lawmaker about having sex with a lobbyist and another woman, including salacious details about how one mistress wears skimpy underwear and likes to be spanked. The 54-year-old Republican is married with two adult children. Duvall said Thursday his “decision to resign is in no way an admission that I had an affair or affairs.”

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The lawmaker had received a 100 percent rating from Capitol Resource Institute, a conservative advocacy group, for his votes on legislation considered pro-family during the 2007-08 legislative session.