teeveedub.com
Rants, ramblings, vitriol & occasional subversive venom
Ouch!
Nov 22nd
Here’s an ingenious medical idea:
Police: Fake Doc Injected Cement In Woman’s Rear
I think the lesson to be learned is that you probably shouldn’t get your medical referrals from anyone at Home Depot.
No Thanks, BofA
Oct 17th
Last week Bank of America announced it would be charging customers a monthly fee to use its debit cards to use their own money to make purchases. Today, Citibank announced it would be increasing its fees for its checking accounts. The news media are buzzing and the public seems to be bristling at these developments. This should come as no surprise.
By way of background, let’s take a trip down big-bank memory lane.
It used to be that you could walk into a bank and make your deposit or withdrawal with a teller. Even if you were a small account holder, the tellers generally made you feel like you had some kind of relationship with the bank. (I even remember doing some banking in Beverly Hills about 30 years ago in a bank that had nice comfortable chairs that you could sit down in while you were transacting your business with the teller.) But banks soon discovered that it was cheaper for these transactions to be executed at ATMs, so that technology proliferated.
Who benefitted financially? The banks.
A number of banks, to encourage force their customers to do business with ATMs instead of tellers, even started charging to transact business with a teller.
Who benefitted financially? Again, the banks.
So. To the debit card issue.
Banks used to encourage people to open checking accounts. Remember the free toaster they’d give you when you started a new account? They wanted your checking account business because it meant that, for the wholesale cost of a small kitchen appliance, they essentially had free use of your money. Your money was way more valuable to them than was the blender or hand mixer or toaster they’d pawn off on you. They could combine the money in your checking account with the money in everyone else’s checking accounts, and they’d have a whopping big amount to invest, earn interest and receive dividends. (If you’re not familiar with this practice, read more here.)
Who benefitted financially? Once again, the banks. (I’m sensing a pattern here.)
But that wasn’t enough. The banks soon started charging fees for checking accounts. Perhaps they’d waive the fees if you adhered to some rule or other, like a minimum balance or direct deposit of your paycheck. For many, it wasn’t possible or practical to meet those requirements, so the fees were inevitable. Add to that huge increases in overdraft fees, as well as a whole host of fees the banks concocted over the years.
Lots more money to the banks.
Somewhere in there, banks started issuing debit cards along with or instead of their ATM cards. Depositors could make purchases with them in places where credit cards were accepted, but the real benefit was to the bank. Merchants paid fees to the bank for each transaction for which their customers used their debit cards. A few cents might not be much, but a few cents times millions of transactions starts to add up to some real money.
Additionally, the costs associated with processing all those paper checks was virtually eliminated and replaced by computerized tracking of purchases. This has been in addition to the popularity of online banking, which also streamlines banking processes and theoretically reduces costs.
And still, that’s not enough. Now Bank of America (and others) are starting to charge for the privilege of making your purchases with your own money.
Wouldn’t it seem that, with all of the jockeying that the banks have done over the years to stack the deck in their favor, they would be solvent by now?
It seems like there are only a couple of explanations. Either they are grossly incompetent in their management of our money (which I doubt they would fess up to being), or their cost of doing business has raised substantially.
Pumpkin Sonnet
Sep 1st
When trolling Twitter, rarely do I see
A tweet with hints of literary skill
Or fondness for the art of poetry.
‘Tis barely prose! ‘Tis such a bitter pill!
A tweet with hints of literary skill
Or fondness for the art of poetry.
‘Tis barely prose! ‘Tis such a bitter pill!
Now lost is knowledge of the structured verse
And unappreciated wit that’s keen.
‘Tis all but absent now and what is worse,
Were all that to appear, ‘twould go unseen.
But, lo, a tweet scrolls by! Did I just sight
A post that seems Shakespearean in tone?
Methinks it’s true! At once, my heart takes flight!
A message clearly meant for me alone.
Five iambs pure in form, yet quite grotesque:
“I need a tiny pumpkin for my desk.”
Shopping for Groceries at the Hardware Store
Jan 27th
When it’s really clear that one is looking for the right thing in the wrong place, I often use the metaphor of shopping for groceries at the hardware store. Your intentions might be good, but no matter how hard you look, you’re not going to find ketchup in the plumbing aisle (except, perhaps, as a stain on the shirt of the hardware store clerk).
The most recent example of this disconnect is documented in today’s New York Times. The gist of the article is that a considerable number of influential Conservative Republicans are boycotting the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) because the unfortunately-named GOProud political action committee was co-sponsoring the event. Although I’m sure including gay people chafed, this breach of Republican tenets was somehow able to be overlooked by the other more conservative participants of that conference for GOProud to participate in the conference. After all, there are all those supposed gay dollars to be raised. But, for venerable institutions like Concerned Women for America, the Heritage Foundation, and all those other rabid right leaning groups whose names sound like they were created by some Internet conservative organization name generator, the fact that GOProud participated in the planning of the conference was too much for their weak little hearts to take and, thus, the boycott.
What’s the Spanish Word for ‘Verklempt’?
Nov 7th
It’s hard not to get choked up watching the rescue of the Chilean miners. The video images say it all, so I’m not going to try to comment. I’ll let the emotion of the moment speak for itself.
What I will comment about is the technology that’s involved in this rescue. We’ve learned to take so much for granted in this day and age, but I’ve been thinking what this rescue attempt would have been like even 10 or 20 years ago. Think of it:
- The miners have had audio and video contact with loved ones, medical personnel, and counselors on the surface through much of the time they have been trapped.
- We had live international video feed from within the mine so that the world could watch as the first rescue worker entered the mine and the first miner was raised to the surface.
- The world has tweeted about this event over the past several weeks and it’s unlikely that anyone in the world hasn’t learned something about these trapped men as the result of our techology.
Next time I’m cursing about how much faster our lives have gotten as the result of too much technology, perhaps I’ll have a moment of gratitude for what all that geek stuff has provided during these events.
Desperation Politics in New York
Oct 11th
It’s probably risky making a judgment about something that’s going on 3,000 miles away. But that’s never stopped me before.
I’m referring to the governor’s race in the state of New York. What it looks like from the other coast is a multi-faceted story of desperation.
On the one hand, it looks like the Republican candidate — Carl Paladino — is engaging in some pathetically desperate moves to garner a few votes and possibly inch forward in the polls. His event yesterday during which he rubbed homophobic elbows with Orthodox Jews is only one such shameless attempt to align himself with people with whom he seems to have nothing else in common but their mutual distaste for gay people. I’m sure his anti-gay invective appealed to that particular audience. But I’m guessing that these so-called religious leaders were not recipients of his racist emails. Did they get to see the horse/human sexual interaction?
Then there’s the desperation of the Republican party. They’re clearly attempting to balance their undying desire to reclaim political power against the very real truth that the candidate that voters chose in the primary is extreme even for them. That part is kind of predictable, but it’s still fun to watch.
The part that’s not so much fun is the poll numbers. Cuomo still has a pretty commanding lead, according to just about every poll out there. But somewhere in the vicinity of 37% of New York voters are still supportive of Paladino. What kind of desperation leads voters to support someone as hateful and out of control as this candidate? And what does that say about the voters of New York? Do 37% of them truly share his extremist views? Or is that 37% of voters simply are willing to overlook the kind of bigotry and insanity that this man presents to us? Either way, it’s pretty scary.
We always hear politicians say how much they “trust the intelligence of the American people.” (It’s kind of a standard answer when a candidate is behind in the polls and they can’t think of anything else to hang their hopes on.) This election clearly brings that trust into question.
A Snapshot of Gay History
Sep 30th
Despite the progress that has been made in the struggle for the equality of GLBT Americans, these past couple of weeks provide a stunning reality check:
- A Senate defense authorization bill is filibustered by Republicans because it included the provision that would have overturned the U.S. military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. Republicans choose to indulge in their bigotry (either for its own sake or for some sense of political advantage) rather than fund the very troops they claim to be so supportive of.
- A gay blogger gets a not-so-veiled death threat posted in his comments; a little investigation reveals that the threat comes from the office of one of the Senators who championed the filibuster that blocked the passage of that Senate bill.
- A 13-year-old self-identified gay boy in Texas commits suicide by shooting himself in the head after seemingly endless bullying by his classmates at school.
- A talented young violinist leaps from the George Washington Bridge to his death after the public humiliation he faced after his college roommate broadcasts the man’s private gay sexual encounter on the internet.
- A 15-year-old boy in Indiana hangs himself after merciless anti-gay taunting by fellow students.
- A 13-year-old boy in California dies after an extended period on life support following hanging himself. He had been subjected to bullying and teasing about his sexual orientation.
- An Ohio boy has his arm broken by the football players on the team for which has become a cheerleader. The football players continue to threaten him because he has reported the injury to authorities.
- An Assistant Attorney General in Michigan
continuesescalates his bizarre campaign against the openly gay student body president, picketing outside the young man’s home, blogging obsessively about his activities, and appearing on national TV, apparently to extend the scope of his insanity. Michigan’s Attorney General (so far) defends the Assistant AG’s actions and refuses to terminate his employment. - Another ardent right-wing homophobe, Bishop Eddie Long, is accused of taking sexual advantage of his young male parishioners under the guise of mentorship and pastoral counseling. (While all the facts on this have not yet come out, there are now four young men who have come forward with similar highly plausible stories.)
We might still have some work to do. I’m just sayin’.
The Bigotry-Driven Life
Dec 19th
When Barack Obama spoke in August at the Saddleback forum during the presidential campaign, something smelled really stinky to me about Rick Warren. He had all the smarmy earmarks of a latter-day Elmer Gantry. I remember speaking with friends and predicting that we’ve not heard the last of Rick Warren.
Despite my prediction, I had no idea we’d be facing the firestorm that we’re currently facing.
I am so insulted at the choice of of Rick Warren to give the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration, I could spit. The gay community and other true progressives are still reeling from the passage of Proposition 8 in California. How can Obama start his term in office with a position of prominence for someone who is so overtly homophobic? Rick Warren is so out of touch with the issues that gay people face that he laughs people ask him if he’s homophobic. He clearly has no understanding of the separation of church and state.
This guy is clearly the heir-apparent to Jerry Falwell. He’s just learned how to package his bigotry a little more slickly to make it a little more palatable — and profitable.
Gay Connecticut, Past and Present
Nov 13th
I couldn’t let the first day of gay marriage in the state of Connecticut pass without a bit of reflection.
Having grown up in Connecticut (run-down mill town Connecticut, not Bette Davis movie Connecticut), it’s astonishing to see the progress that’s been made in the decades since I’ve lived there. The town I grew up in, Winsted, was only about 125 miles from both New York and Boston, but culturally, it was as far away as Wasilla.
My existence there was so sheltered, I grew up literally not knowing that there was such a thing as a gay person. In junior high school, I remember stumbling upon a definition of “homosexual” in a dictionary I had and and feeling that shameful sense of self-recognition. I literally had no information — no Ellen, no Will and Grace, no Advocate. Where I came from, the “love that dare not speak its name” didn’t even know it had a name. I didn’t exactly pretend to be straight, but rather I simply didn’t know that there were any other viable options.
In my late teens, I met someone who was openly gay and whose gaydar was well-tuned. I pretended that my curiosity was purely sociological when he asked me to accompany him to a meeting of the Kalos Society in Hartford, which at the time was equal parts social group, political activism, and group therapy. Afterwards, my eyes were agog when members of the group went to The Warehouse, a gay club that I remember being snugly and discreetly nestled under an entrance ramp to Interstate 84. Until that night, not only did I not know that there was such a thing as a gay bar, I also didn’t know that there were enough homosexuals in the world to keep a gay business of any type afloat.
In the wake of Prop 8′s passage in California, it’s easy to think that we haven’t come very far. But, over the long haul, we’ve made huge progress. Witness Connecticut.
Republican Soul Searching: A 9-Point Plan
Nov 11th
In the wake of the drubbing they took in the election last week , the Republican Party is now in the process of doing some long overdue self-examination. The media have been trying to determine the whereabouts of the soul of the Republican party. So I thought I’d offer my unsolicited 9-point plan for Republican soul searching:
- Get one. In order to search one’s soul, one actually has to have a soul.
- Stop lying. This is the 21st century. We have technology. We will find out that you’re lying. The only ones left to believe your lies will be stupid people. And you don’t want stupid people in your party. (I know this is an unfamiliar concept to Republicans, because you’ve benefited for a couple of decades from the stupid people who you’ve drawn to the party and who have believed the lies that you’ve told them.)
- Have principles, and follow them. Strategy and tactics are the necessary evil of a political campaign, but they’re not what people vote for. We’re drawn to noble, clear ideas. We’re looking for leaders who inspire us to make our nation and our world a better place.
- Get smart. That’s not to suggest that you should be more tactical, but rather that you should actually value education more. That also means valuing the educated more. You’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of “no child left behind,” but you continue to run people (like Michelle Bachman) who seem like the children who were left behind. The nation and the world are facing unbelievably difficult issues, and it will take intelligent, educated people to come up with solutions.
- Ostracize the corrupt. Especially when they’re in your own party. The fact that Tom DeLay is still somehow perceived as someone who can go on national television and represent the positions of the party is laughable. Marginalize persons of his ilk or the nation will marginalize the entire party.
- Stop elevating and rewarding wackos. Believe it or not, people are looking to you for leadership. When you put subnormal or even just mediocre people on the ballot and expect that the public is going to go along with it just because you have previously enjoyed unquestioning party unity, you do your party and the nation a grave disservice.
- Separate church from state. You can have still your religion. Knock yourselves out. But why not put your faith into action by doing good works, instead of blurring the boundaries between pulpit and politics in an attempt to force the rest of the world to believe the same dogma that you choose to believe?
- Distance yourself from the ditto-heads. Admit it. You’ve spent the last 25 or so years building and fostering the multi-billion dollar right-wing media empire — of the Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hannity/Bill O’Reilly variety. But now you may be realizing that you’ve created a monster that is incapable of moderating itself. Cut ‘em off before they eat you alive.
- Quit blaming the media. How can you be focusing on what you need to be doing when you’re whining about how badly you’re being treated? Besides, you don’t win votes with shame and blame.
One more thing you might want to take into account. I’m sure there are Republican campaign professionals who are right now dissecting examining every aspect of Barack Obama’s campaign, searching for clues as to what was done to win an election and how they might replicate those things. What those strategists seem to be failing to take into account is that, while some of the campaign strategy might be replicatable, the candidate cannot. Obama is a once-in-a-lifetime candidate with transformative ideas and, by all accounts, an uncanny ability to inspire and bring people together.
