927 Let's You and Him Fight

927 Let’s You and Him Fight

In 1981 Eric Berne’s book “Games People Play” was a best seller and it put “transactional analysis” on the cultural map.  One of the games Berne named was “let’s you and him fight.”  That’s where a woman sets things up so two guys fight over her and she walks off with a third guy.

This is what’s being played with some of those who want to escalate “Occupy Wall Street” into a bloody urban battle.

Let’s (you guys) break some windows.  Let’s (you guys) break some heads.  Not to say that would be all bad.  But you don’t much hear that stuff from people on the scene.

Here in central PA a few years ago, we had public disturbance over a football game.  Pretty big by local standards.  Everyone around here called it a “riot.”  It wasn’t.  People who used the term -- and that’s everyone from the cops on up and on down -- have never been in or near a riot. Distance changes perception -- both ways.

This space has long said that people who weren’t in New York or Washington on 9/11/01 don’t get the Trade Center or Pentagon attacks.  Distance again.

And those of us who aren’t in one of the more than 100 locations playing (reluctant?) host to Occupy Wall Street and its offshoots and siblings can see the situation in several ways.

We look at the police handling of the protesters in New York and it seems more violent than it might actually be.  Or we look at the protesters themselves and say “they don’t know what they want, they don’t know anything and they don’t have a plan.  They’re just a bunch of shaggy, scruffy college students.”  Neither of these perceptions is necessarily true.

Distance.

A third way of looking at all this is “let’s you and him fight.”  We’ll come down on the side of a “third guy.”

Good will come of the protests.  But blood will be spilled.  Righteous corporate income will be sacrificed along with the nefarious profits that should be destroyed along with the people who take rather than earn them.

In point of fact, most of us are being screwed, which is nothing new.  Unscrewing requires a reexamination of one of the basic axioms of American business:  “Profit and growth ueber alles.”  Nothing wrong with making a profit, and growing.  But how much and how much?  And in what way and on whose back?

Wall Street’s answer to this has been “you don’t understand the wonderful things we do for you.”  Oh, yes we do.


Shrapnel:

Herman Cain’s tax plan?  He calls it 9-9-9.  Should be nein-nein-nein.

--Another one bites the dust:  ABC cancelled the remake series “Charlie’s Angels” almost as fast as NBC cancelled “The Playboy Club.”  Guess viewers just aren’t into pretty girl nostalgia.



I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011

926 The Cult

926  The Cult

The Guy in the Sky, if there is one, must be laughing.  Down here on earth, Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) is keeping his distance from those of his supporters who say “Mormonism is a cult.”  He does this because the fellow who will roll over him like a Sherman tank passing over a blade of grass for the Republican presidential nomination is a Mormon.  This is just politics.  Or is it?

Mitt Romney, in all his technocratic plastic, robotic and teenage girlie temper tantrumosity is no less qualified to be president than the rest of the sorry pack he appears to be leading.  That is to say we’re going to get a bum deal no matter who runs and who wins.

But it’s not because he’s a member of a church with the word “Christ” in its formal name and at the same time is accused of being “not Christian.”  You’d think the name would demonstrate sufficiently the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ view of itself and ward off that kind of challenge.

Actually, the Mormons are at a slight strategic advantage over their accusers.  They have a long history of being mocked, oppressed and isolated.  So reason dictates that at least some among them can transfer lessons learned to others who are mocked, oppressed and isolated.

A cult is nothing but an organization -- usually a pretty zealous organization -- with which you disagree.  Most can be fought on rational grounds.  Resorting to name calling is a last ditch effort of the fearful.

It’s the same kind of crap Al Smith faced when running for President.  It’s the same kind of crap JFK faced when running for President.  Both those guys were Roman Catholic.  And Smith’s era was a little more dignified in its mud-slinging. But just a little.

What about the guys who define Christianity so narrowly as to eliminate anyone but themselves.  Is THAT a cult?

So if you want to oppose Romney as a candidate and as not-conservative-enough, there’s plenty there.  And if you want to oppose him as too-conservative, the reasons multiply like rabbits.

Yes, the LDS church has beliefs and practices that are, well, different.  And they don’t help themselves with the general public by keeping a lot of them secret.  But, then, neither do the Scientologists, the Rosicrucians and the Masons, the Skull and Bones and the police department.

Shrapnel:

--Here’s a quote from Chairman Joe:  “No Mormon ever called me ‘Jewboy.’”  Not to his face, anyway.

--The hits just keep on coming.  RIP Bill Brown, late of CBS/FM the poster boy for disc jockeys in that format.  Bill was 69.

--RIM should change its name from Research In Motion to RSM, Really Slow Motion.  Another day, another multi-continent Blackberry outage.  CBS on-line Headline:  “Rim Promises Improvements, Users Scoff.”


I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011

925 Nobel Prizes

925 Nobel Prizes

There should be a Nobel Prize for stating the obvious because that’s what many of the winners do.  This year’s economics award goes to two guys who figured out that economic policy and government spending have something (not sure what) to do with economic results.

Duh!

Spend more than you have and you get into debt which sometimes you can’t pay back.  Spend less than you have and you can save some money.

Who knew?

At some future date, the Nobel Prize in Physics will go to someone for discovering that “When you drop something it goes down, not up.”    The Peace Prize will go to someone from a country you never heard of where war between two factions has raged for 600 years and the discovery will be “if you stop shooting, you can at least talk about your differences and maybe even agree on some compromises.”

Of course, in recent years, the peace prize has gone to some people who either started wars or egged them on or did nothing or had no hand in either their start or their end.  Barack Obama (2009), Jimmy Carter (2002), Yassir Arafat (1994), Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (1973).  In 11 of the last 110 years, the committee didn’t award any peace prize at all, a choice that should have been increased by at least four, if not more.

Alfred Nobel was an arms maker and the inventor of dynamite.  No Peace Prize winner, he.  But like the Rockefellers, the Fords, and Andrew Carnegie, guilt closes in, sometimes after the fact.  Hence, a lot of nouveau millionaires with medals.

The literature prize?  Often a prize for making the clear obscure.  You ever read any of these winners?  Some, you have to (Faulkner, Steinbeck, Camus, Sartre, Toni Morrison.)  Half the time you go away saying “huh?”

To its credit, the Nobel Foundation has added only the economics prize to the original list in Nobel’s will.  These days, it’s surprising they give no medals to “Best Rap Video,” “Coolest Electronic Gadget,” “Most Corrupt Politician,” “Knuckle-draggingest College Football Team” or “Dumbest Starlet.”

But the Prize of Prizes still should be for Stating the Obvious.




Shrapnel:

--Amber Miller, 27, of Westchester, Illinois, ran the Chicago marathon and immediately afterward gave birth to a baby girl, described by her doctor as “healthy.”  She said she ran the race at 39 weeks pregnant because “I’m crazy about running.”  Only the first two words of that quote count.

--You need this but don’t know it.  Exam gloves for typing on a computer.  Else, there’s no way to keep the keyboard clean and smudge free.  Keyboards are made of the same stuff as eyeglasses, which also are impossible to keep clean and smudge free.

--In St. Mary’s Georgia, Camden County is thinking about using prison labor to fight fires.  They want to put several cons in each firehouse, supposedly saving about half a million dollars a year.  Some places just can’t get rid of that slave mentality.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011

924 Password Evolution

924 Password Evolution

Who can remember all those passwords?  And especially now, in the golden age of hacking and cracking?  It used to be simple.

At the AP, we didn’t use passwords.  We just turned on the computer, read, wrote and edited.

At CBS:  Cooper comes over and says “you need a computer login and a password.”  This was maybe 1984 or 85.  Okay.  Username: Richards.  Password: “eadgbe.”

“Why that?” he asks.  It’s the standard tuning for a guitar.  “How do you expect me to remember that?” he asks.   “I don’t.  Isn’t that the whole idea?”

Today, a password like that is too short and too simple.  Nowadays, you need seven or eight characters, at least one of which has to be an upper case letter and at least one of which needs to be a number or a symbol.

“Eadgbe” would now have to be “eaDgb1e.”  What’s next?  Probably something longer and more complicated.  And don’t forget, you should change the word every month or so.

So what do people do?  They write the new password down on a Post It note and stick it in a drawer, which they usually leave unlocked.  Prying eyes abound.  So if the new password is eaDgb7865#e, it may be less secure than plain old eadgbe.

Memory lapse sends you to the automated IT department which asks you in which city your mother was born because that’s your “reminder question.”  Then you have to remember “did I say ‘New York’ or ‘New York City?’  And are the first letters of each word upper case, or doesn’t it matter.”

Who was your sixth grade teacher?  Answer Ms. Ascerno because you don’t remember if she was “Miss” or “Mrs.” That doesn’t wash.  You HAVE to remember.

What date is your wedding anniversary?  Maybe you even know that.  But do you know what form you used for typing in your original answer?  Was it 02/15/00?  or was it 2/15/2000 or some other variation.

Call I.T. instead of using the automated system and by the time you finish with them, you wish you could find a way to improve your own hacking skills.


Shrapnel:

--What a pleasure it is, telling dozens of e-mail lists to “unsubscribe.” No more Daily Beast, Newsweek, Nation of Change, Verizon, Jewelry TV, HSN, Liquidation Channel, Macy’s, Zappos, Deering Banjo, Elderly Instruments, The Nation, Mother Jones, Barack Obama, Amazon, Kohl’s, AFTRA, NABET, WGA, AFL-CIO, CWA, UNESCO, Project Hope, Comcast, Newsday,  Optimum. A great sense of relief and a big time-saver.

--Greenspan should keep his mouth shut even when he’s right.  The former Fed Chairman says the Bush tax cuts should expire.  But he’s held in such low regard these days that his position will only strengthen the resolve of those working to keep the cuts.

--You really want to know what’s going on in corporate America, get hold of and reed some recent employee handbooks.  You’ll find a prefab anti-union diatribe in many.  Preemptive strikes are the new propaganda weapon.

--RIP, Roger Williams, who turned schmaltzy piano playing into a national musical obsession with hits like “Autumn Leaves,” “Born Free” and 100 chart-reaching albums.  Williams’ real name was Louis Weertz.  He was 87.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011

923 Ghost Writer

923 Ghost Writer

We received the following email this morning, here quoted in its entirety and without comment:

Dear Sir,

Allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Harold.  That’s my last name, not my first, and I want you to know that I’m the man for whom the Long Island Railroad named the Harold Interlocking in Sunnyside, Queens, originally called the “Harold Avenue Interlocking.”   I want to clear up some mysteries and have chosen Gmail to do so, as will become clear to you.

No one has ever managed to locate Harold Avenue on a map.  No historian, no cartographer, city planner or archivist.  No one.  There’s a reason for that.  All traces of it vanished when I died, which was on October 31, 1903.  I am a ghost and so is my street.

For most of the last 108 years, I had lived in the “Harold Tower,” as it once was known.  When the thing was rebuilt, I was ejected.  That was 1987 and I’m still pretty annoyed.  I have since moved on to a car dealership on Northern Boulevard, easy transmuting distance from the rail yard where I still hang out.

The auto guys know I’m there and tolerate me.   I tolerate them.  It’s a nice arrangement.   But when I first moved in, I had a lot of explaining to do.

First, they thought the place was haunted.  Yep.  That’s me.  Then there was a big fight about whether there’s such a thing as ghosts in the first place.  They brought in some “researchers” with their stupid electronic contraptions and tried to find an energy source.  Well, you should know, ghost energy cannot be measured.   But just to make them feel welcome, I set off some of the alarms in the cars on the lot, tooted some horns and made sparks using the car batteries and some wires I found in the repair shop.

It was funny as hell watching these geeks scurry around with shocked looks on their faces.  And since they craved to believe, I gave ‘em a good show.   Then, in came a crew from the TV program about finding ghosts and even more fancy electronic contraptions. So I opened up the Coke machine on the sales floor to give them a blast of “mysterious” cold air.  But I refused to set off the alarms and toot the horns.  Screwed with their heads!

Every once in awhile, I’ll get into the rail tower, which now is automated, and fool around with some of the track switches.  Your train to Jamaica winds up in Boston?  That’s me!

But after all these decades, the whole routine is getting old.

The other night, after the Mattress store on Queens Boulevard closed for the evening, a bunch of us held a meeting there.  No reason not to be comfortable during a bull session, and what’s more comfortable than 200 unoccupied mattresses under one roof?

We decided people were a pain in the ass but couldn’t decide on whether to escalate or ignore.  Since passing takes a ⅔ majority and neither side had one, we took no formal action.   But we’ll meet again on Halloween and after all the lobbying and horse trading that’s been going on, there’s sure to be a ⅔ vote one way or the other this time.

Sincerely,

Harold@Ghostmail.net

PS.  Thanks to the Ghost Riders in the Sky for the horses we traded.

Shrapnel:

--Remembering Steve Jobs, Apple Computer co-founder, tech marketing innovator and great character who died this week at the age of only 56.  Jobs proved that a good gut is still the best route to commercial success.  Without consulting surveys and spreadsheets and focus groups, he knew what we wanted, sometimes before we did,  and he made sure we could have it.

--NBC’s smartest decision so far this season: Cancelling “The Playboy Club,” a drama so dismal and boring even guys with bunny fetishes couldn’t stand to watch it.  Three episodes was 2.7 too many.



I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011

922 What's App, Doc?

922  What’s App, Doc?

Or maybe, what’s DocApp?  Why, it’s the next best thing for your iPhone or Android.  Visit the doctor by smartphone.  Think of the time you’ll save.  You can keep working until it’s exam time and then slip into a discreet private location and let the games begin.

You’ll have an on-camera chat with your physician.  Then, the real look-see begins.  First, you’ll put your phone in the crook of your elbow.  That will record your blood pressure.  Then, open wide as the camera allows Kindly old Doc to look down your throat.  Say “ahhhh.”

They haven’t yet worked out the rectal exam thing.  But as the phones begin to shrink, that’s in the future.

Prescriptions?  Most of those are filed electronically anyway these days, though you can download a copy and print it later.  (What? You mean your phone doesn’t hook to a printer?  Time for a new phone!)

Doc sends your paperwork to the checkout.  The checkout clerk debits your checking account.  You have your exam and made your co-payment without leaving the comfort of the bathroom in your office or shop.  Big time and gas saver.  And think of the “medical mileage” you can deduct from your income tax, especially if you’re in New York and Doc is in, say, Mumbai.

No, we can’t do this by phone yet.  But we’re getting there.  In some ways that can be a good thing.  It WOULD save time.  And in an emergency, the EMS truck already can send data and symptom descriptions to the hospital long before you actually get there.

If you can pay bills by smartphone, read news as it’s made by smartphone and shop on line, why not a medical exam.

And for that matter, why not a vote?  How about a Board of Elections app?  Skip the line, skip the absentee ballot.  Skip the little sticker that says “I voted,” skip the glad handing panhandlers for votes who hover near polling places in states that don’t have the sense or good will to ban electioneering on the schoolhouse steps.  Avoid the needless chitchat with neighbors you don’t like in the first place.

Also:  how about the Police App?  Since you’re busy sending medical data, why not send driving data at the same time.  Fifty in a 25 zone or blow a stop sign or a light?  Your ticket is in the mail. Not guilty?  There’s always the tell-it-to-the-judge app.

Shrapnel (privacy edition):

--All these apps are invasions of privacy.  But you don’t have privacy anyway.  And if you think you do or you should, think again -- that’s long gone.

--On Star, MetroCard, EZ Pass, traffic cams, credit card transactions, bar codes,  i.p.addresses.  They know where you are and what you’re doing most of the time, anyway.  Deal with it.

--Whatever happened to plain old eavesdropping?  It seems so quaint by today’s standards.  But something had to be done, especially if your neighbors aren’t nosey enough.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmai.com
© 2011 WJR

921 Held For Ransom

921  Held for Ransom

Congratulations to Bank of America, pioneer and champion of the customer.  Five bucks a month to use your own money from your own checking account when you use your debit card?  

Outrageous doesn’t begin to cover it.

It’s your money.  It’s your checking account.  The money sits in their Scrooge McDuck wall safe until you use it.  But it’s still yours.  And now, they’re holding it for ransom.  The ransom is $60 a year except if you have one of their fancy upscale checking accounts that requires an average daily balance within walking distance of the gross domestic product of Lithuania.

Why did they start charging?  Well, because the Dodd Frank Consumer Protection law caps the fees they can charge merchants.  Some protection!  Actually, the banks are performing a service for the merchants and should get a reasonable fee.  It’s just that they lost their sense of scale and Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank figured out a way to put their fingers in that dyke.  At least that’s what we all thought.

But never underestimate the creativity of an American banker!  Especially when there’s a few billion in revenue at stake.  And never underestimate the power of legislation to have an effect opposite of its stated intent.

Other banks have been testing out pilot programs like this in small areas.  But BOA is the first to pull the trigger nationally.  Chase, in answer to an e-mail, says they have no plans to spring this on their checking customers.  Yet. (Uh, oh! Actual reporting for this posting.   Setting a bad precedent.)

A couple of smaller banks have a circumspect answer to the question “When will you start doing this?”  Once branch manager said “they haven’t told us they’re going to do anything like this.”  That’s not nearly close enough to the right answer which is “we wouldn’t dream of imposing fees on you for using your own money, especially since we pay pennies a year in interest while holding it.”

Bank of America is bound to see a downturn in customer count to match their upturn in fees, although many in that herd will likely get used to it.  After all, it’s only five bucks a month and it’s a pain to move our accounts.

So many will meet the ransom demand when they should be calling the cops or the FBI about their abducted money.

Shrapnel:

--Have earplugs, will travel.  The noise (some call it “music”) that comes over public address systems in many public places is getting much harder to handle these days -- whining, shrieking... an open aural cesspool.  Earplugs can help.

--Andy Rooney has commentated his last for CBS’ “Sixty Minutes.”  Too bad... it was one of their best features, though the final appearance wasn’t his best work.  And at a mere 92, he isn’t that old by that program’s standards.


I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011