Happy Halloween

 

Special pleading

The truly egregious Philadelphia Inquirer suggests people smoke because they are hungry:

Many people smoke after they've eaten. Lindell Harvey smokes because he hasn't.

"You smoke out of anxiety because you don't have the food you need," said Harvey, 54, who lives alone in Crum Lynne, Delaware County. He receives disability checks from the Navy that keep him $2,000 below the poverty line.

Harvey relies on his Newports to see him through his hard days. "In my mind, the smoking becomes a comfort as I try to create ways to get food."

In lives where people endure a dearth of nearly everything important - food, jobs, medical care, a safe place to live - the poor suffer an abundance of one thing:

Nicotine.

This is deplorable in so many ways: 1) He get $2,000 less than the poverty rate. This is poorly worded, but I think it means his income is below the federally defined poverty rate for one individual, so that he is eligible for SNAP, the federal food stamp program. 2) a pack of cigarettes costs $5-6, an amount which will buy you a meal at McDonalds or Burger King, a meal laden with calories but cheap, tasty, and filling. 3)No-one is forcing this man to smoke, he has free will just like the rest of us. Let's just skirt the issue of why a 54-year-old man is on disability, I will concede that his disability is valid, although everyone I know who is in their fifties has at least one job. .

Unsubscribe me!

D

on't Get me started about unwanted e-mail offers. I keep trying to unsubscribe from their solicitation. Though sorry to see me go, they will respect my wishes and unsubscribe me. But it will take 10 days.

Why? Isn't this done by a computer? Why 10 days,when amazon.com will deliver a new house, fully assembled and furnished, in 5?

Well maybe they won't, but still...it's the principle of the thing.

I keep picturing the headquarters of these sleazy outfits as being old and rackety like the newsroom pictured in the Front Page, circa 1955. People are sitting at typewriters, smoking cigars.

There's only one computer, a Wang original. Only one person understands the arcane computer system-a middle aged woman named Flo,*and she only comes in on Tuesday, every other week. When she shows up she opens her Starbucks cup and wearily unsubscribes the 11,974 accounts that have come in since her last visit, but never is able to get the list up to date, because she is only there for 5 hours. Picture the back-up on the VA claim system and you get the idea.

* On the other hand, she might be called Mildred or Bessie.

So good luck, flo, or Mildred or Bessie, and remind your bosses that i have no need for more insurance, or for my credit score and I sure don't need those penis extenders

Reading dr Johnson

I was looking for a quote I've heard repeated numberless times. It goes something like this: "No one but a blockhead ever writes for anything but money"--no, no, that's not it "Only a fool would write except for money"--also wrong, wrong, wrong. But anyway you want to put it, it does not sound right. Dr Johnson put it much better--, If he did, I can't find it. And I'm not going to go through his books, or read Boswell from cover to cover. The Internet exists to answer questions like that. Or else why did Al Gore bother to invent it? I found a few other quotes which are just as good if not better.The quotation, recorded by Boswell in his book, A Tour to the Hebrides, and again in the great biography, goes on: “. . . for being in a ship is being in jail, with the chance of being drowned . . . a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.” This is what I tell my cousin who wants me to go on a cruise, anyway. All this is leading up to an apology, or justification, for the many faults of my blogging. I don't revise much, because I'm not getting paid. When I write for publication, I spend more time revising or searching for the mot juste, because someone is paying me. When I am blogging, I try to avoid egregious mistakes and to use correct spelling and punctuation, but that's all. This stuff is ephemeral, after all. My greatest hits are about English towns with silly names or Mercedes Benz being the car favored by dictators. How important could that be?

Light hearted

Some of my neighbors really go overboard decorating their houses for the season--any season. Already two of them have charming Halloween decorations up, and it's not even October. I envy people who go to so much trouble and expense to celebrate these events. Clearly they are light hearted, joyful folks who enjoy every occasion to the max. I wish I were more like that.

Halloween was the holiday Mr Charm liked best, involving as it did candy and little kids, both of which he enjoyed. But dressing up or carving a pumpkin--certainly not.

I looked forward to Christmas when I first got married and wanted to decorate something---- but Mr Charm would have none of it. He loathed Christmas so intensely that the Grinch could have profited by taking his tutorial on the subject. He hated Christmas trees, lights, decorations, angels, Christmas carols on the radio, and all the rest of the collateral damage. Since Christmas is ubiquitous everywhere from Halloween on--stores decorated, feeble-minded songs about Mommy kissing Santa Claus, this was the time of year he hated more. He is the only person I know who longed for the bleak days of January.

About those charter schools...

New York City parents of school children have to choose between deteriorating public schools and charter schools. Once upon a time, parents had another choice. Catholic schools in urban areas served lower class and middle class children, doing a more than adequate job of educating them to be citizens and even to aspire higher. Lately the Catholic Church in its wisdom has closed many of those schools, particularly in urban areas. My impression, which is based on nothing but gut feeling, is that Catholic schools remain only in affluent areas. Urban kids are shit out of luck. Of course, we can all still sent our kids to Sidwell Friends School, where the presidents' children are enrolled. Can't we? Actually no. The Democrats in Congress eliminated a program whereby a few fortunate Washington DC poor kids were allowed to attend private schools on the government dime, even though these programs were popular, with hundreds of parents applying to the program, although only a small number were actually able to participate. Teddy Roosevelt sent his children to Washington DC public schools, back in the day when public school was for everyone. Nowadays they are for the desperate and the choiceless.

How to tell if someone is getting a divorce without actually asking them

Now that I have so many friends on Facebook, some of whom I have actually met in the flesh, I am seeing more of a trend among divorcees. I first noticed this trend when I was still in the library biz, because so many librarians are women. But I notice it more now that I have so many friends all over the country.

No-one wants to flat out inform their friends, one by one, that a marriage is over. But there is a tell which shrewd observer will pick up on 90 percent of the time. Say a woman's birth name was Susan Smith, and she married a man called Andrews a long time ago. She got tired of Mr Andrews, threw him out, and is getting a divorce. But she doesn't want to give up the Andrews surname right away, maybe because they have children. So she calls herself Susan Smith Andrews, or Susan Smith-Andrews.

After a while she doesn't want to be called Andrews any more. She wants a whole new life. Maybe she wants to date, or to meet new people. So she reverts to Susan Smith.

Usually, about this time, she buys a new car.

Girl on couch

 

A chat with Amazon

Me:I ordered a car cleaning service from something calling itself Amazon Local. They did not offer the service but billed me. Is this a swindle?

Vinit:Hello Miriam, my name is Vinit I'm sorry to hear about that. I'll be happy to help you today.

Me:So, is it a swindle or not. It doesn't show on my open orders, but they billed me all right.

Vinit:In order to access your account, I need to verify some information. Can you please confirm the complete name, e-mail address, and billing address on your account?

Me:Miriam xxxxx

Vinit:There you go, Thank you for providing me the details Miriam. Could you please hold for a minute or two while I look into this for you?

Thank you for being on hold Miriam. I've checked your order history and I couldn't find any order placed for the item which you had mentioned above. In this case, I would request you to contact Amazon local as they will be in a better position to assist you in locating your order.

You could contact them on: E-mail: Send a message via this online form: https://local.amazon.com/help Phone: Call 866-395-2090

Me:Well, I wish you'd inform Mastercard. They billed me and I paid it. $89! An expensive lesson.

Vinit:I understand Miriam, but since the order was placed through Amazon local we won't be able to take any action regarding this. I would request you to contact Amazon local on the above given number and they will be able to issue you a refund for the order which you've been charged for.

Me:Don't you stand behind Amazon Local? They are using your name to swindle customers. This means your name is not worth anything.

Vinit:We definitely stand by Amazon Local, Miriam. I'd request contact Local team regarding this issue and we will help.

Me:Why doesn't this appear on my orders? I think it's a swindle and you should be ashamed of yourselves for selling something you don't back up I wonder how many other people fell for this.

Vinit:I'll inform the concerned department as well regarding this, they will take appropriate action on the seller. Orders placed on Amazon local will there on that website, Miriam. As the website works independently, the orders will be present in that account. So I requested to contact them.

I hate healthy food.

I don't really go for the whole healthy food vibe. There are too many cars in the parking lot with "Coexist!" bumper stickers on fancy cars that I could never afford. Also I am a great fancier of genetically modified food. I go to Whole Foods weekly because I like Brown Cow yogurt, the unhealthy, bad-for-you full fat kind with cream on top. Yum! It's probably the most unhealthy thing you can buy in the place.

I needed bread, so with great trepidation I checked out the bread department. The bread department is where the health food fanatics really let themselves go. The selections were awful. None of them were anything my ancestors would have recognized as bread. No challah! And no rye bread! I could understand this if the store were in Utah, but we're talking Philadelphia suburbs here. Anyway, I was too lazy to go elsewhere, so I bought some 7 grain stuff.

This bread--I was going to say it tastes nasty, but that would be unjust. It doesn't taste nasty; it doesn't taste like anything. It is the anti-taste. If you make a tuna fish sandwich out of it, it kills the taste of the tuna fish. Likewise with egg salad. You can't taste the butter on your buttered toast. And you can't taste the bacon on a blt. Criminal!

But what does it really taste like, you ask? Well, when I was a child in school I used to chew on Faber #2 pencils. This bread tastes sort of like that. Without the lead, of course.

Boring polticians

I'm reading the new biography of Margaret Thetcher, and I must admit it's heavy lifting, in more ways than one. For one thing, the author doesn't particularly like Thatcher; he believes she has no interior life. He can't comprehend a somewhat colorless lower middle class woman who, if I'm reading it correctly, was smart but not sensationally so. So, if she did not master any material or pass a test, she redoubled her efforts and slogged through the work required until she had done her absolute best.

A true Englishwoman with a stiff upper lip you could bounce bullets off, she was the diametric opposite of the lip-biting Bill Clinton, who shared his pain in Macy's window for all the world to see. She seems to have been temperamentally a true conservative by nature. Even in her youth, she never entertained liberal views. She appears to have been honest; there were no scandals or corruption in her administration. She made her husband breakfast every day that it was humanly possible to do so, and if her marriage was not happy no-one knew, and they will not find out now. She took her secrets to the grave.

She was a true straight arrow who apparently analyzed the problems of her country with dogged determination until she decided what was the right course, and then followed that course. She was not one to waste her time and energy on wishful thinking but preferred to face facts. The most dramatic event of her administration was the battle with Argentina over the Falklands, which seemed to excite her and revive patriotism among the British.

It's tough to read about such a colorless, and basically boring person, especially after reading about a colorful and flamboyant character like Winston Churchill. The American politician she most resembles is Calvin Coolidge, a man of great reserve from a New England which had not yet embraced the emotional virtues of the Kennedy family. Neither of these made a parade of compassion, or said anything particularly witty or memorable. Both, however, presided over periods of great prosperity.

News, or maybe it's not news at all

While Mr Charm was in the nursing home I missed the evening news, to my great benefit. After he died, I continued the practice of not watching the news. But I can't get away from it any more.

The news has followed me to the gym, and it's all about Syria and what if anything we are going to do. We are not going to send soldiers there, oh dear no! The present plan is that we are going to bomb certain strategic targets, taking care to inform Assad what they are well in advance, so he can pull his assets out. And oh yes, we are going to get Congress to agree to this. Or not. Some time in the not so distant future.

Obama is angry that Bashir al-Assad is killing innocent Syrian civilians with poison gas. It is okay for him to carry on killing them by other means, but friends don't kill friends with poison gas. Assad is probably scared silly by the threatening language and ominous frowns coming from our leader.

My best guess as to the outcome of all this? Since there are still plenty of Syrians left, the evil dictator is probably going to kill some more of them, pour encourage les autres. And Obama is going out in the back yard and eat worms. After he finishes a round of golf.

Obama reminds me of the hero of the book, A Paper Mask. This man, though not a surgeon, is mistaken for one, and it is to his advantage to continue the deception. He can't make a mistake, as he is surrounded by competent people, other doctors and nurses, who will guide him and advise him and keep the patients from harm. But then his support network fails him, and he is revealed as the contemptible fraud he is,

Car trouble in the family

I don't think dad actually found his car missing at the curb when he left the house, but he came close. Mother had a habit of lending his car to one of her brothers when either of them needed it. She didn't discuss this ahead of time with him, as he would only have made a fuss, which would have done him no good because she had determined that whichever of her brothers needed the car needed it more than dad, being as they were doctors. So she informed him around the time he was putting on his coat, preparatory to getting in said car. He was hopping mad, only partly because her brothers were such awful drivers. Uncle Moe was the less dangerous one, as he drove cautiously and timidly, knowing he was not a good driver. Uncle Doc, however, was a terror behind the wheel. He would change lanes by turning on his turn signal and then changing lanes without looking in his mirror to see if there was anyone already in the lane, among other little peculiarities pf his driving style. That was probably why whichever brother who had borrowed the car had taken it to the body shop, having had an accident. But he was a doctor and had patients to visit, not to mention his patients in the hospital he needed to see, and dad could just as well take the bus as he was only a lawyer, like her, and the bus came to a corner only two blocks away and the weather was not that bad. Dad was actually a good driver who enjoyed driving until he died at 99, despite some sourpusses in the family who wanted him to give up his car.

Defending the post office

Why is everyone knocking the post office? I personally am totally happy with their service. They actually come to my house--of course Congress is going to put a stop to that! They are planning to cut Saturday service, or maybe only deliver mail 3 to 4 times a week. And Conservatives are constantly knocking the service. Shame on you, Conservatives. If you want to get rid of a government agency, here are a few suggestions: the IRS, the Education Department, the State Department--I could think of more if I had the time. How far would you carry a letter for 50 cents? Or even a dollar? Not bloody far, I'll bet.

Everything in the garden is humming

Every evening, as I get ready for bed, I open the bedroom window, not for the fresh air, but for the sounds in the garden. I'm not a naturalist, so I can't say for certain how the insects in the garden make their indescribable but delicious night music. Maybe they rub their feet together, if they have feet, or maybe they are playing teeny tiny musical instruments. Anyway, the garden is alive with summer sounds and I dread the day that autumn comes and stills their music.

On Sanibel Island, long ago

 

Knocking around

Mr Charm used to call a certain type of clothing "knocking around clothes." These were garments, including shoes,that you would wear around the house, mostly, or for chores like washing the car, weeding the garden, or at most, an emergency trip to Target.>

As far as I can see, these are the only kind of clothes anyone wears nowadays, unless they wear something worse, like going shirtless to mow the lawn with your belly hanging over your belt, or wearing your trousers so low that the bottoms scrape the ground and your underwear shows--and it's not particularly nice underwear, or even necessarily clean. But that last is only the business of your mom, so I won't comment on it.

The aisles of Macy's, Boscov's, Kohl's, Nieman Marcus and Nordstrom are loaded with lovely garments for men, women, and kids. Even the Good Will has lots of nice things. Judging by the looks of the customers, though, nobody is buying them. No wonder we have a recession. The average person around here looks like they last purchased their garments early in the second Bush administration. Not George Herbert Walker Bush, but the other guy, the one who was such a blockhead that he made all foreigners hate and despise us and whose favorite form of exercise was trampling our civil liberties.

But I digress. No one could have obtained size 16 men's pink shoes with grass green laces in 2008. So I guess they are buying some sort of clothes nowadays. To go with the tattoos.

Letter to Wells Fargo

Dear Wells Fargo Collections Department--I really don't know your name, but it's nice to make your acquaintance. How is your day? I hope it is a pleasant one.

Mine has not been so pleasant. As of today, I have received five letters and more robo-calls than I can count from you. As it happens, you are in error, and I electronically forwarded $2,000 to this account from my checking account before your latest series of recriminations. It was your error, not mine. Of course I don't expect an apology; Wells Fargo doesn't believe in such niceties. But it would be a refreshing change if you did not act so high and mighty--as if you were a king in Babylon and I were a Christian slave, so to speak.

Perhaps it would be as well to remember that you are investing the money your customers deposit in your bank. You are not actually doing us a favor by condescending to let us park our money in your bank. Remember also, my dear old Collections Department, that there is 8 percent unemployment out there, and there is an excellent chance that you could join the ranks of the unemployed if you don't treat your customers with respect.

Mr Charm and Trayvon

Mr Charm was the son of a single mother and a high school dropout. He was white, and had never done anything criminal, but those are the only differences. He would have had a bleak existence except for one thing: he was drafted. It was during the Korean War.

The army made all the difference. He had a rather quiet two years, drinking beer and eating rich pastries in Austria. In the part of Austria he was in, they spoke German, not Austrian. (Couldn't resist.)

But it wasn't his wartime experience that made the difference. It was the G I Bill of Rights. Next to the Homestead Act, I think it was the most influential piece of legislation Congress has ever passed. It gave thousands of young men a chance at a better life, among them Mr Charm.

He went to Brooklyn College, a selective institution but one that had no tuition. That in itself was a miracle; he thrived at Brooklyn College, and the rest is history.

Trayvon Martin's life was wasted. At seventeen, he had plenty of time ahead to straighten out his life. Tragically, he never had a chance. I'm guessing his parents gave him no guidance but let him run wild, unlike Dr Ben Carson's mother. They probably gave him no guidance because they never got any. Again, I'm guessing, but I have met dozens like him among my mother's clientele.

On visiting day in any prison you can see the next generation; young mothers, with their children dressed up in Sunday clothes, come to visit their baby daddies.

You can't say these young men and women don't care about their kids; clearly they do. They lack parenting skills, and the schools they attend are pathetic. Since we can't start with the parents, perhaps we could start with the education these kids are getting, an education that suits the teachers'unions just fine.

I don't have an answwer, but it grieves me that a generation of black youth is squandered.

Fixing your tummy--a practical approach

I know at least two people who have had hideous things done to their colon, stomach or other viscera and after an initial weight loss, are just as fat as ever. And then there's Chris Christie. It seems that there are a lot of medical procedures that don't really work but continue to be performed.

Can I make a suggestion? Everyone is always banging on about the fat around your waist and how hazardous it is to your health. It's true that in maturity people tend to get a spare tire around the waist. It happened to me. My weight stayed the same but a small but firm pillow lodged itself just above the belly button and shows every sign of having taken up permanent residence. So why can't the oh-so-brilliant doctors who are removing and remodeling our insides just suction out all the fat? I would be the first person to volunteer for the procedure.