Incoming Checks

Do you ever get checks in the mail from businesses of people who claim you overpaid for their service? I just got three more of them and it makes me wonder if my memory is slipping or if I am even stupider than i thought I was. Why else would I overpay so much?

One of the checks is from my mortgage company, an escrow excess (about $120). It seems that they charged me more than they should have for escrow. But how come I didn't known that before they sent me the check? They could have not sent me the money and I would never have known. Hmmmmm That's evidence of the stupidity, rather than memory, reason for me getting those checks. I think I prefer being stupid to losing memory because I can do something about stupidity.

The second check I received this week was from a dermatologist daughter Jane sees for an acne problem on her back. Each time I pay $25 and the insurance pays the balance of the office charge. I am sure I paid that co payment, but they claim I didn't. This could mean I am not stupid as I thought above, but that I have a failing memory. If that is the case I hope I can remember more important "stuff' like to zip up. First you forget names, then faces, then to zip up, and then to zip down. AHHHHHHH I refuse to check my records to see if I forgot to make the co payment. It's too much of a discovery for me.

That third check that was sent to me is from an insurance company and is in the tiny amount of $30. I have no idea why I go that amount and this could prove I am both stupid and forgetful. I could probably call them and ask why they sent the check but who wants to question money that has fallen from the sky. It's just $30 and I have already established I am both stupid and have no memory. If I phone and ask them and ask I may discover another of my flaws. Or they may say it is their mistake and take back the money.

When I was young many years ago I once opened a monthly bank checking account statement I received in the mail and found almost 1 million dollars had been deposited into it. My balance went from a few thousand to about a million. I was sort of happy. But I didn't put a million dollars in it. Knowing that spending any of that money would be a criminal offense I called the bank and casually asked if my statement was correct. They told me that my account number was one number from a bigger account and that the bank mistakenly transposed the account balances. At that point I was out of a million dollars.

But it proved that banks an also be stupid and forgetful. It's reassuring to me as I look at those three mystery checks.

Loss Of Faith

There seems to be loss of faith in institutions in this country, particularly in government. I suspect the same is happening in most other places as well. The latest faith breech here is the scandal involving the Secret Service agents who are employed to protect public officials from harm or attack, as in the President and other elected officials. A group of Secret Service agents who were in the nation of Columbia to set up security details for President Obama's visit, instead consorted with a number of Colombian prostitutes in and outside of their hotel.

Fortunately the hookers were just that and not agents of terrorists or some other outsider who might want security information from the agents in order to harm the president. Apparently, none of the prostitutes were attempting to blackmail the horny agents either. But several of the ladies complained about the agents not paying for the sex, and that broke the news story in the media.

This latest breakdown in government only makes people feel that they have no faith in their government and in many other of today's important institutions. Might this decade become the decade of cynicism? Scandal after scandal, from drug aided cheating athletes in sports to politicians caught with their pants down in the wrong places, to sex scandals in the Catholic Church, may have begun to wear down the faith citizens have in their once favored institutions.

What is going on with the adults who are elected or appointed to responsible positions? They are behaving like children. and in reaction, we are either winking and saying, "boys will be boys" or are simply losing faith in those institutions that we need to serve us. This is an age when being the bad boy is tolerated by many and treasured by more than a few. Being a responsible adult today is no longer the trend, but the exception. Is there a general reluctance in our society today to be mature? Is it now cool to act childishly and in negative ways? Who is the grown-up today?

The public today has lost faith in much of the formal institutions, in politics, in sports, in corporations, in the media they once respected and trusted to report truth but now reports more scandal and gossip. Ahhhhhhhhh! How can one have faith anymore in the core institutions of society? You tell me.

 

DOGTV

I have long uttered the popular refrain about television "going to the dogs". Uh, I was ranting metaphorically but now can say it literally. DOGTV has debuted in California (it belongs no where else?) and is about to go national in the U.S. and soon after go on line. The DOGTV network says it's mission is to "offer a promise not our beloved best friends that they should never again feel alone."

It claims to be a "scientifically developed and Pup approved' television station Hmmmm But I never heard of a lonely dog or a lonely dog that needs the boob tube. Have you? Surely, TV has killed human language skills, but it's hard to believe we now communicate on the same level as Fido. However, though I refuse to bark about it, some of those human cell phone addicts do seem to snarl and woof into their phones from time to time. Maybe they also need a DOGTV app for their cells.

DOGTV is advertising free and is aimed at "stay-at-home dogs". Here is a link to the DOGTV mission statement that explains it fully. But I think it defies human imagination that humans will pay for and expect alleged dog TV shows to appeal to canines. http://dogtv.com/Page/watchdogtv

Supposedly, the 24 hour a day cable DOGTV has the sound, color and camera angles just right for dogs. Well, if they would just show Reality TV shows I think they might achieve the same affect for the doggies. I doubt there is much difference between the two. And, yes, the actors on dog TV are mostly other dogs who act more with more civility than Snookie or the Kardashian brood (but then what self respecting animal doesn't).

DOGTV is a kind of role model for canines, a "new breed" of TV!. In the California city of Escondido, the Human Society dog shelter mounted TV's at the local kennel and has reported a major improvement in all the dogs who watch. (I guess there is no dog porno programming to corrupt them?) I wonder why TV seems to do the opposite to human kids? Someone should switch the dog shows to the kid network and the children's' shows to DOGTV and see what happens to both the dogs and the human kids. It might be a natural anyway, given so many small children bite each other like dogs.

Sedating dogs with TV maybe be about what sedating kids with TV has become, a baby sitting device. Gee...I hope the world's dogs are not damaged as much by DOGTV as human kids have been by watching human TV.

Country's Smallest

There's a town located almost equidistant between Cheyenne and Laramie in southeast Wyoming that is in the news. That's because the smallest town in the United States, Buford, Wyoming, was sold at auction for $900,000 on Thursday to an unidentified man from Vietnam. I passed by that one man town when I drove from New Orleans to Portland about almost two years ago (Buford looks like it is located on the surface of the moon) and an fascinated by what the new owner will do with it. Here's why!

The one man town of Buford consists of a gas station and convenience store, a schoolhouse from 1905, a cabin, a garage, 10 acres, and a three bedroom home located at 8,000 feet altitude. Temperatures are more often freezing and the mountain side is bare scrubbed rather than scenic. Too, Buford overlooks the trucks and cars on the nearby interstate 80 (which is where I saw Buford on my drive) on one side and the distant snow capped mountains in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado on the other side.

Don Sammons is the seller and he has lived in Buford for 20 years. But now he wants or move away, resign as mayor and write a book about his experiences in Buford. At one time in the late 1800's Buford had 2000 residents because it was situated along the transcontinental railroad. But the railroad was rerouted and Buford slowly died. Scattered around Buford are big ranches which give the residents a reason to live in an isolated and severe part of the U.S.

I was struck at how barren the area is when I drive across it and wondered why anyone would want to live there. The buyer just said he "wanted a piece of America". Odd. For $900,000 he could have gotten a nicer piece. I doubt he can turn Buford into a tourist town because the area is extremely remote So what can the new Buford Owner do? He has sovereignty over the area and can do anything with it that doesn't violate the laws of the state of Wyoming. Hmmm Let's see...maybe the new owner will....

* Rename it 'Saigon West'
* Convert the town into a brothel
* Make it a rest home for has been reality TV performers
* Probably become very proficient at playing solitaire
* Never see his mother-in-law again
* Open a Pho soup restaurant....uh....no deliveries for 'BuPHOrd Soup'
* Can you imagine it? 'Disney World Wyoming'
* Make it the World's smallest Wal mart
* Finally, build a house arrest where Lindsay Lohan can keep out of trouble

Killer Coke?

If one believes reports from New Zealand, he coke problem seems to be a growing one. There was quite a shocking death the other day attributed to ingesting too much coke. Experts there say that a stay at home mom New Zealand woman, Natasha Harris, had a 2 gallon a day coke habit may have been the cause of he death. But wait! I'm not writing about cocaine. It's Coca Cola that did her in.

Apparently drinking 2 gallons of coke a day will kill you as fast as those burgers chips and other "bad foods" we eat and enjoy. But then, Coke says in response to Nastasha's death that even if we drink two gallons a day of water it would probably kill just as fast. As we unhealthy eaters like to note, eating or drinking too much of anything is what kills. It's not the Coca cola that is bad (beyond being empty calories). It's the addiction to it. The suspicion in Natasha's death is that she had a heart attack brought on by her low potassium level, caused by the excessive intake of coke and by her poor over all nutrition that was created by her diet of coke and little else.

I wonder how Natasha became that addicted to coke. But then, she reportedly smoked about 30 cigarettes a day as well. It makes me wonder if she had substituted water, or juice or anything else for the gallons of Coke, would she also have died. Her general health was so poor, maybe the Coke is innocent of the deathly charges. The kidneys ability to process liquids of any sort is limited, which explains why so many dehydrated humans people have died from drinking too much water. Is the story just an assault on Coca Cola? I doubt many will drink Coke at the rate Natsaha did.

Now we will have the food police warn us about the evils of soft drinks, the high corn fructose that sweeten them, the phosphoric acid contained in them. Hmmmm Natasha also had 8 kids! Maybe too many kids kill too. Or perhaps it was suicide. If I had 8 kids, smoked 30 cigarettes a day and drank 2 gallons a day of Coke I would be suicidal.

Sounds to me it was more a case of her dreary life killing her than sipping the Coca Cola.

My Baby Or My Stuff?

I have a bizarre New Orleans crime report for you. It's so strange that I attached the link to it here, since it is almost beyond recounting. Click below, read the article and look at the face if the "suspect". I want to see if you have similar impressions and disgust as I. Ok, go to it now...I will wait for you to come back....
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/04/twist_in_case_of_woman_accused.html

Can you believe it? Looking at the face of suspect Charbaney (well, at least the name is interesting, if not the disgusting person to whom it is attached) I see a microcosm of some of the worst element in society. That and the look of stupidity or, perhaps drug addiction, might explain why that thief robs upscale baby clothing stores and after being caught leaves her own baby behind as she flees the police.

Let me guess that Charbaney fits the most common profile of a thief. I guess the following: has an extensive criminal record, she is from a single parent family, was ignored or abused, had few or no proper role models from which to learn right from wrong, is uneducated, has no employment but lives modestly off "Obama stuff" (the endless entitlements the "poor" get from a collection of 128 federal anti poverty programs that require nothing more from the recipient than to hold out the hand and take in the gifts), is or has been a drug users, has an illegitimate child or children, expects "the government" to provider her with all of life's necessities and wants, has one or more children who have already learned the welfare lifestyle and intends to live life under that code... Ok I am guessing about Charbaney, but I would bet she fits all or most of that profile.

My point is that the number of Charbaneys' out there are growing as the world becomes more and more a huge welfare state. In a welfare state, all members of society are forced to give to certain other individuals, groups or businesses all on an arbitrary basis (though most of the time it is the basis of politicians giving "free stuff" in return for votes to keep them in office). These entitlements most often come in the form of free benefits such as health care, housing, food etc. to "the poor" (now defined as a growing and hardly impoverished mass). The esteemed CATO Institute in a major study on the effect of welfare on the individual and society had quite a few conclusions. Here are a few of them.

-The value of the full package of welfare benefits for a typical recipient in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia exceeds the poverty level. Because welfare benefits are tax-free, their dollar value is often greater than the amount of take home income a worker would have left after paying taxes on an equivalent pretax income.
-In 40 states welfare pays more than an $8.00 an hour job. In 17 states the welfare package is more generous than a $10.00 an hour job.
-Welfare benefits are especially generous in large cities. Welfare provides the equivalent of an hourly pretax wage of $14.75 in New York City, $12.45 in Philadelphia, $11.35 in Baltimore, and $10.90 in Detroit. For the hard core welfare recipient, the value of the full range of welfare benefits substantially exceeds the amount the recipient could earn in an entry level job. As a result, recipients are likely to choose welfare over work, thus increasing long term dependence.

I find Charbaney and those like her to be disgusting human beings, people who burden society and impair it their entire lives, and individuals to some degree created by the welfare mentality that has captured the world. But having written that, I find even greater disgust for we who allow our governments to give others too much "free stuff" rather than helping those in need with real programs that require responsibility and restitution for the gifts received from society.

New Airline Fees

I see those carry on bags diminishing.... Like Spirit Airline, Allegiant  Airline announced it will start charging passengers for carry-on luggage when flying the airline. Just like Sprint, it will allow customers to bring on one personal item free of charge, but only if those items can fit under the seat in front them. Strange... Bags that must be put in overhead storage bins will cost $35 if not reserved in advance (will offer a discounted rate if purchased online in advance). Are they kidding?
Checked bags cost airlines a small amount in labor ( which most feel is and should be a part of the ticket price, given that passengers must take luggage when they fly) and baggage handling infrastructure. A carry on cost them not much just some fuel burning extra weight   Do airlines really expect people to travel without any luggage at all? I know they want to make money, but small airlines like those two seem to me short-sighted in gouging that way. Surely, it will mean a loss of those customers who have an alternative airline they may flay on that route.

When airlines or any other business needs more revenue they should raise the prices of the commodity bought ( in this case the airline ticket itself) not create ancillary fees. They are charging crazy fees now to cover increased fuel costs.  But that increase is already  covered under the additional fuel surcharge that has been imposed on each ticket sold. So the carry-on fees and the like are charged to generate revenue that goes directly to stockholders. What's next, a  $10 oxygen mask maintenance fee? How about some more suggestions for the fee-crazy airlines. They could charge a fee for wearing clothes, hairy passengers could pay for hair while the bald ones pay nothing,  a small seat belt fee, rest rooms can be coin operated .

Hmmmm Maybe the traveler who pays these ridiculous fees might also find out the hotel room he checks into has added a "bed fee" of $35. And surely his taxi driver should charge a fuel surplus fee of at least $5. That restaurant where the traveler has breakfast will learn from Allegaint  that exporting money is fun and will charge him or her a few dollars to use the restaurant bathroom.
Wait! Maybe I should charge you  for entering my mail box with your messages.  I could call it a "proof of insanity fee".