"Superstore" Ad Is A Wonderful Biting Commentary

I usually have little patience for TV promos, you know, those things networks play during commercial breaks telling you how wonderful the upcoming season of whatever show will be.

Right now, though, NBC is promoting a new season of "Superstore," a comedy I actually like quite a bit because of its somewhat cynical, but accurate and biting take on the service economy and large corporate retailers.

I actually think the promo is terrific. Yeah, on one level it's just telling you to watch the show. But it really hits at the daily humiliations many people in service jobs have to endure at the hands of soulless, cheap and abusive corporate offices. And the awful things these workers must wear on the job!

Not all corporations are like that, of course, but a fair number are. So I like how this promo skewers this piece of society and capitalism.

Watch:

Scary Alabama Racist Newspaper Editorial Takes Us Back To The Jim Crow Days

Goodie Sutton, my nominee for the most racist newspaper
editor in the United States. 

UPDATE: Saturday, 2/23/19

So, a little karma happened with this story.

Under pressure, this racist loser has resigned. He's still not sorry for the editorial, but I love the deliciousness of this update.

The new publisher, owner and editor of the Democrat-Reporter is a woman named Elecia Dexter.

Oh, Dexter happens to be a black African-American woman.

Dexter says her understanding is that Sutton is actually still the owner of the paper. But regardless, this is definitely an improvement. It couldn't get any worse.

As for Sutton, he says he now has time to, as he says "drink beer and chase women."

Good luck with that, bubba.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Racism is, of course, always bad.

There are different degrees of it, or at least different degrees of what is said out loud by racists.

A small town newspaper editor in Alabama, though, has gone full throated racist, and his words are jaw-droppingly horrifying. The editorial's headline: "Klan Needs To Ride Again"

This piece of, um, literature was recently published by a creep named Goodloe Sutton, who is the publisher of the Democrat-Reporter in Linden, Alabama.

As the Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser reports, Sutton is unrepentant and stands by his editorial.

Sutton begins with the source of his ire: "Democrats in the Republican Party and Democrats are plotting to raise taxes in Alabama."

Um, OK, if you say so.  Then this all turns very dark, very quickly. He blames the "socialist-communist ideology" for all this, and then pretty much applauds the KKK who once "rode through the night to frighten some evil doer. Sometimes they had to kill one or two of them but so what."

Sutton then dreams of the day in which the Klan heads north to "raid the gated communities. They call them compounds now."

Montgomery Advertiser reporter Melissa Brown went over to Linden to interview him about the editorial. During the interview, Sutton said, "If we could get the Klan to go up there and clean out D.C., we'd all be better off."

Brown asked what Sutton meant by that. He suggested lynching.

It gets even more off the rails. Here's another excerpt from the Montgomery Advertiser article:

"'We'll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them,' Sutton said.

When asked if he felt it was appropriate for the publisher of a newspaper to call for the lynching of Americans, Sutton doubled down on his position. 

'....It's not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communist we're talking about. Do you know what socialism and communism is?' Sutton asked."

Apparently, it's anybody who disagrees with him. And, to state the obvious, yes he is calling for the lynching of Americans.

Sutton goes on to say that the Klan is not racist and violent, hilariously comparing it to the NAACP.

As an aside, Sutton's newspaper used to be good. In the 1990s, the Democrat-Reporter got national acclaim for reporting on a corrupt sheriff in the area.

However, the Democrat-Reporter gained a reputation for racism and ugliness well before Sutton's recent editorial.  In recent years, readers were treated to headlines like "Homosexuals take black spotlight" and "Slavery was a good lesson for Jews."

I've been complaining that the boorish Trump administration has given racists, bigots, misogynists and the like "permission" to blurt out their awfulness in public rather than keep in hidden.

Sometimes I've been told I've been overstating the Trump influence on the worst of American society. I counter that this editorial bolsters my case. I have always thought there are people as odious as Sutton out there.   However, it seemed that they had largely gone silent, or crawled back into the woodwork.

They're back out. But maybe Trump has done us a favor. Through example, he has encouraged these lowlifes to come back out into the sunshine. Now we know they're there, and I hope we can deal with them more easily.

Point at them at object and perhaps, just maybe, they'll think twice about hurting other people. You can only hope.

Gillette Ad On "Toxic Masculinity" Is Still Annoying Some Snowflakes

A scene from the Gillette ad that takes on "toxic masculinity"
I'm still not sure why so many (mostly conservative)
viewers hate it. 

That Gillette ad that hooks itself up with the Me Too movement and criticizes "toxic masculinity" has been out for a couple weeks now and some men - and a few women - are still pissed off at it.

The way some guys see it, the ad was meant to make all men feel bad about themselves.

I've seen the ad a few times now, and I'm still at a loss as to how this ad is offensive to guys.

It seems to call out the worst among us, and offer up the best of us as an antidote. It encourages us to be the best we can. You'd think that wouldn't be too controversial, but whatever.

I'm a gay guy, so there's some people who would probably say I have no right, or at least no knowledge of what "masculine" is.  But men of any orientation can be masculine.

The Gillette ad to me is a throwback. It seems to illustrate what I was taught masculine meant decades ago when I was a kid.

A "real" man, I was taught, stands up for himself and others who are unfairly targeted. Masculinity is all about being respectful to others without letting other people disrespect you. A masculine man is a class act, ready to help out others in need, but is never a chump.

Masculine men stand up for what they believe, in word and deed. They don't try to disempower others, thinking that somehow builds them up. They don't lie, cheat or try to game the system.  Masculine men are not bullies. They love to win, but only if the fight is fair.

A masculine man can be physically powerful, but that muscle isn't entirely necessary. The masculine man expresses his power by intervening in a situation that is wrong. A masculine man is brave, willing to promote an unpopular stand, if he thinks it's right.

A straight masculine man of course wants to have relationships with women. But this masculine man backs off when she says no. It's the right thing to do, and it's a matter of pride to be a mensch.

This is all stuff I learned from my father when I was growing up. I married a man who has all these traits, which is why I know I married well.

All that seems to be the theme of the Gillette ad.

Then how is it making men "feel bad" about themselves, as the critics claim? I see no evidence that the ad is trying to insult all men.

"If Gillette made a commercial predicated on women being bad & this is how they can all do better....the same radical feminists loving this ad would go nuts," Piers Morgan tweeted.

Oh Piers, where does it say in the ad that all men are bad? Come on, I'm waiting.

Karol Markowicz in the New York Post complained the ad tells us men are "universal aggressors and rapists" and that we need to "stop insulting men."

No, we only insult the men who are jerks.

The theme I kept seeing in the Gillette criticism is was somehow calling out men for being men. Which is the real insult to men. Do most men really want to be the worst they could be, not the best?  Some of these critics doth protest too much.

I get it that Gillette put the ad out in part to get people to talk about the brand and maybe be inspired to pick up some of their products. Even if some snowflake-y people boycott the firm. Gillette wants to sell stuff, everybody knows that.

Gillette isn't always practicing what they preach, either, as The Today show points out. There is sort of a "pink tax" on products like razors marketed toward women that cost more, even though these products are identical to what men pay for basically the same products.

The ad is probably a logical extension of the "Me Too" movement. I guess they were trying to say that men can be allies in that movement. That's not such a bad thing

For what it's worth, here's the Gillette ad so you can see it again:

Corrupt Louisiana School District Arrests Teacher For Criticizing Superintendent's Pay

Photo shows a Louisiana teacher about to be arrested for
the high crime of asking why a superintendent is getting a
pay raise but not teachers. 

What seems to be a corrupt school district in Louisiana really stepped in it last week, and as always, that created its own even more intense firestorm on social media.

Let's back up here.

Recently, the school board in Vermillion Parish, Louisiana agreed to renew Superintendent Jerome Puyau's contract for three years. So far so good. But the school board also decided to give Puyau a pay raise, which didn't necessarily go over terrifically with everyone.

The trouble began when Deyshia Hargrave, a middle school English teacher spoke up during the public comment section of the meeting and asked why Puyau was getting a pay raise while teachers were not. 

Well, you'd think Hargrave was making some sort of terrorist threat by asking that simple question. I guess the question did strike terror into the hearts of the school board because they promptly had her arrested.

Just for asking questions and speaking up at a public meeting. She made no threats, she didn't yell, she didn't get violent.

I guess the public comment section a Vermillion Parish school board meeting can only involve opinions that the school board endorses.

School Board President Anthony Fontana is having none of the outcry. He says you're only supposed to express an opinion during the public comment section, not ask questions. (Every public comment period I've been at during public meetings, and I've been to a lot ot them, often involve lots of people asking lots of questions, so I don't know where Fontana is getting that.)

By the way, when ordered to do so, Hargrave left the room, but was still arrested and tackled to the floor outside the room. The school board later decided not to press charges against her.

Says Fontana "This is not about the board, it's about the teacher and everybody wants to side on the poor little woman who got thrown out.... Well, she made a choice. She could have walked out and nothing would have happened."

Yep, she could have walked out, and not ask any embarrasing questions of the school board, because really, why should a public school board be held accountable? I guess he thinks they should do whatever they want, huh?

I have a feeling that Fontana won't stick to his guns for long. This story took the familiar arc when it went viral. Many of the nation's major news media picked up the story, and it's been rocketing back and forth through social media for a few days now. 

Public opinion, unsurprisingly, has come down with the teacher and not the school board. What most people seem to object to, including me, is this apparent trend among people that have any power to freak out and overreact when somebody questions authority, like Hargrave did.

As Isaac Bailey wrote for CNN:

"She wasn't screaming hysterically or uttering a rapid-fire succession of four letter words. She didn't pull out a gun or knife. She didn't rush the board members or threaten them with bodily harm. In their eyes, and in the eyes of a police officer providing security, she did something worse -- she questioned the rightness of their decision making and the morality of their authority to their faces, for all to see. 

That willingness to question authority, more than anything else, seems to put fear in the hearts of those in power."

As Bailey points out, there's other examples of this mentality as well, the kind in which you question authority and they swat you down like somebody trying to kill a mosquito with a bazooka.

For instance, there was that case in Utah last year when a cop arrested and dragged out of a hospital a nurse who refused to draw blood from an unconscious patient. The cop was demanding it to see if there were drugs or alcohol in the patient's blood. The nurse was following the law, and hospital protocol by not drawing the blood without a warrant. But the cop took that as ignoring his authority, so he cuffed her.

Charges were later dropped, and thankfully, the cop was fired.

With every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction, so they say. About as ridiculous as public officials objecting to being held accountable by the, um, public, there's also what some people in the public do when they hear about the latest outrage.

Sure, it's OK to react. I sure as heck don't mind the outcry against this Louisiana  school board, it's totally warranted. What I don't like is, every time somebody does something stupid, or rude, or illegal or tasteless, the perpetrator gets death threats. As if every transgression deserves death. It happens every time. Somebody does something stupid. The response is a bunch of idiotic death threats.

People screw up all the time. Sometimes in small ways. Sometimes in big ways. But if we all deserved death for the times we've screwed up, there would be nobody left on Earth. Logic and proportion, of course, are lost on the legions of death threat trolls on this here internet thingy.

Could somebody explain what the thrill is of issuing death threats against somebody you don't like?  Because I surely don't get it. Maybe I'll get death threats for not understanding the logic of death threats? God forbid.

This school board in Lousiana definitely needs to be held to account. Wouldn't it be cool if for once, we did so without going nuts on the internet?

Can't we just all calm down? The answer to that question, in these divided and stupid times, is definitely not.

Lousy, Selfish Parents Turn Easter Egg Hunts Into Nightmares For Children

Incredibly idiotic, self-absorbed and moronic parents
 ruined a children's Easter Egg hunt in
Connecticut over the weekend. There was trouble
at a similar event in Vermont, too.  

PEZ decided it would be fun to hold an Easter egg hunt over the weekend near their Connecticut museum

It turned out to be a bad, bad idea.

Because some parents can be real selfish idiots.

To make sure their precious darlings got the prize eggs before anyone else, and to make sure other kids went without so their offspring could, some parents rushed the fields with the eggs before they were opened, and ignored staff instructions to wait, says the Hartford Courant.

There was also similar trouble at another Easter egg hunt here where I live in Vermont.

At the Connecticut event at Pez, it turned into chaos as a result, and ultimately canceled. Thanks for ruining Easter, jerky parents!

Here's the Facebook statement from PEZ:

"Unfortunately, people whose to enter the first field prior to anyone from PEZ staff starting the activity. The crowd moved to the second field, waited for only a couple of minutes and proceeded to rush the field without being directed to do so and before the posted time.

Due to the actions of a few, the good intent (of the event) was quickly turned into a mess. I would like to seriously apologize to each of our guests, this was not something created to frustrate or make people angry."

One parent said her kid got a bloody nose because another parent pushed him to the ground so their kid could get the candy or whatever. Another kid's Easter basket was broken in the rush, says the Hartford Courant.

The Courant quoted one parent, Sandra Laviana-Aitken, who wrote on Facebook: "......human greed took over. People foret what it is like to be nice and patient and share all things they obviously were not teaching their children."

Another witness, Nicole Simmons, said, according to the Courant, "Even in the few minutes we were there, you could see the crowd of people almost like a swarm covering the field and just everywhere with no regard that there were other people, children and cars around them."

Yet another woman said parents were letting their uncontrolled children pick up eggs prior to the start. Then when the event started all the parents rushed in and were picking up the eggs."

Nice example you set for your kiddies, you adult jerks. Just grab all you can and leave everyone in the lurch. If there's rules to the game, ignore them.

Your children are going to be really special adults. They'll probably end up embezzling money from some charity because they were taught to grab everything they can and rules are stupid, and who cares if somebody else gets screwed over.

Some parents complained that the PEZ event got out of control because there wasn't enough staff and security there. Yeah, but you'd think a simple family Easter egg hunt wouldn't require deploying the National Guard and Army Rangers to keep the peace.

But I guess I'm mistaken.

At Wilson Castle in Proctor, Vermont, that other Easter egg hunt turned ugly when something like 1,200 people showed up and lines got long.  By all accounts, the event was poorly organized.

According to multiple media sources, people became annoyed by long lines and a lack of organization, and as the police report said, there were "multiple irate parents."

In this image from WCAX-TV a guy who became belligerent
at a Proctor, Vermont Easter egg hunt flees from the cop who tried to
arrest him. A probably unimpressed kid in the foreground looks on.  

One jerk in particular got more and more belligerent, and the State Police showed up.

He made loud threats, demanded a refund, and then escalated things further. He fought verbally with a cop, who tried to arrest him, Vermont State Police said.

The guy ran, the police used pepper spray to calm him down, and he was booked.

Police had to chase the guy on foot for a short distance, and had to pepper spray him to get him under control.

Jack Thurston of NECN reported the pepper sprayed and arrested guy is Michael Cuthbertson, 34, of Newbury, Vermont. He was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

He pleaded innocent to the charges and told NECN that "everything went haywire" during the incident.

"I never tried to hurt anybody. I never planned on hurting anybody.....I do believe these charges are trumped up and highly overrated, Cuthbertson said in the NECN interview.

Cuthberton told NECN he's not a bad person, but wanted his money back so he could something more meaningful with his kid with the $20 he spent at Wilson Castle.

The Proctor event's organizer, Party OutFitters apologized for the event and promised refunds to ticket holders who didn't get in.

Seems Like The Most Appropriate Day For This Song

I think I'll let Tracy Chapman unwittingly guest blog here today, since it's an entirely appropriate day for this. And so are the current times in general:

N.Y. Kindergarten Play Cancelled Because We Have To Train Kids To Be Brain Dead Cubicle Dwellers Early

The big news this week out of Elwood, New York is that the Harley Avenue Primary School kindegarten class will not be putting on its annual show like it's done in past years.  

The letter announcing no kindergarten
show in a New York school district
because students were too busy being
fed rote lessons to pass standardized tests 

According to the Washington Post, the kindergarteners have no time for such frivolity as learning to work together, collaborate, or heaven forbid, do anything that smacks of art.

The letter sent home to parents is pretty breathtaking. It reads in part:

"The reason for eliminating the Kindergarten show is simple. We are responsible for preparing children for college and career with valuable lifelong skills and know we can best do that by having them become strong readers, writers, coworkers and problem solvers. 

Please do not fault us for making professional decisions that we know will never please everyone. But know that we are making these decisions with the interests of all children in mind."

Um, excuse me, but I AM going to fault you. Putting on a show mimics real life work experience. You have to read, write, work with others and solve problems that are not predictable like in a classroom setting.

One person who commented on the Washington Post article said it best: "Since when is reading a script, interpreting a part, following directions, coordinating activities with others and presenting in front of an audience NOT age-appropriate career readiness training for Kindergarteners?

I guess the problem is you also have to be creative to put on a show. Yes, creativity is important in the world of work, but that doesn't seem to be the goal of the U.S. educational system anymore.  Plus, the students might find it interesting, and want to learn more about this. Or it might inspire them to ask questions about any other topic.

We can't have that.

It seems whenever a school becomes embroiled in some controversy, administrators at this school did not respond to the Washington Post for comment. There seems to be a culture in public education of being wimpy and just hiding when someone has the audacity to ask about the reasoning behind the way our children are taught.

There's good reason to question the way they're taught.

As the Washington Post article notes: "This didn't come out of the blue. Kindergarten (and even preschool) has increasingly become academic - at the expense of things such as recess and the arts - in this ear of standardized test based school reform. 

In most states, educators are evaluated in large part on test scores of students (sometimes students they don't have) and on showing that their students are 'college and career ready,' the mantra of the Obama administration's education initiatives." 

In an earlier Washington Post article on Feb. 6 reporter Valerie Strauss wrote:

"This doesn't leave much time for play. But even to the extent we want to promote meaningful learning in young children, the methods are likely to be counterproductive, featuring an emphasis on direct instruction of skill and rote rehearsal of facts. 

This is the legacy of behavioralism: Children are treated as passive receptacles of knowledge, with few opportunities to investigate topics and pose questions that they find intriguing. In place of discovery and exploration, tots are trained to sit still and listen, to memorize lists of letters, numbers and colors. 

Their success or failure is relentlessly monitored and quantified, and they're 'reinforced' with stickers or praise for producing right answers and being compliant."

By conspiratorial mind believes this is the point of teaching children this way--so they're not the type of person who grow up to be the type that ask questions and agitage for answers.

No, educators and industry and politicians don't meet behind closed doors and dungeons to make kids docile. But our current society, with its so called one percent, with the concentration of power and wealth among a few oligarchs, really, don't want people asking questions about this state of affairs.

So they encourage the kind of climate that ended the Harley Avenue Public School Kindergarten show.

As a side note, notice how the letter kind of asked the parents not to question the judgement of the administrators who canceled the show. ("Please don't fault us making professional decisions.") They're trying to teach the parents, as well as the kids not to rock the boat, not to question, not to probe.

If we don't teach children to think on their own, to ask questions, to pursue their passions, if we don't teach them to be creative, to gather strings of information into a cohesive theory or conclusion, they won't rock the boat as adults.

Our society needs boat rockers, really. But those in power, some of whom have way too much power, don't want that.  They don't want us to ask questions, criticize, analyze.

If they create a world of humorless, robots and minions disguised as people, they can continue to take advantage of all of us.  

Here's Some Changes I Suggest for 2014

Happy New Year!

2013 was certainly an, um, interesting year, wasn't it? The government shut down, or didn't function, the NSA probably knows exactly what I'm typing as soon as my fingers hit the keyboards.

None of this in 2014, OK?  

Miley Cyrus twerked her way into history, the mayor of Toronto partied hearty through the year with his booze and crack pipe. And we barely noticed, since we were so busy Tweeting, Instagraming, Vining and taking selfies.

Everybody wants a new start as a new year arrives, so here are some totally unrealistic hopes for 2014. Feel free to chime in and add your own.

In 2014, let's have a year in which politicians say and do exactly what they think is right, instead of kowtowing to the crazy "base"

They call them the "base" for a reason. Yes, I know the base in politics refer to the hardcore partisans on either the right or the left. But I call them base because they are just that, the lowest, stupidest common demoninator. Ignore the jerks and do what's right for once, jeez!

Speaking of extremists, let's have a little common sense and recognize that there's not always black and white, but shades of gray.  For instance, we can pass some gun laws that help keep weapons out of the hands of criminals and the crazies, while guaranteeing the rest of us can use our guns to hunt, target practice or use to protect our homes, if we choose.

It goes both ways. Some proposed laws by hard line conservatives are odious, too, but they won't mean the fascists will take over the world.

Mild laws don't necessarily lead to a Police State, despite what the NRA says.

That doesn't mean there's no police state. Again, shades of gray. The Snowden leaks shows the NSA seems to think that they have to get all the information about everybody all the time.

But what do you do with that information? There's too much of it to make sense. Can't somebody there get some common sense, spy on the people we need to spy on, and leave the rest of us alone. I know that's imperfect, but it's an imperfect world, no?

In 2014, whenever there is a law we don't like, let's also avoid the hyperbole, shall we?  Many people might not like Obamacare, want to change it, get rid of it, replace it with something else. That's all good. Why not continue discussing a law that's less than perfect?

But no, it's not communism, it's not a complete government takeover of every aspect of our lives, there's no death panels, and it's not going to lead to the fall of Western Civilization.

Same with gay marriage. If you don't like it, fine. But God is not going to smite us and every time we get a destructive storm or a tornado, it's not because God is pissed off at us because some people of the same gender are married. And a kid who is aware that gay people sometimes get married doens't mean the kid will instantaneously turn gay.

In 2014, I'm sure some celebrities will do something stupid, outrageous, criminal or eyerolling. This year, every time they do that, let's not turn the incident into a 'that's how low our culture has sunk" sermon.

People like Toronto Mayor Ron
Ford need to calm down in 2014.  

Some people, celebrities or not, are stupid sometimes. That's often the extent of it.

2014 ought to be the year we declare war on Internet trolls. I'm not quite sure how to do that, but I'm among millions who are sick of them. You know who they are: The people who leave comments all over the Internet saying the cruelest, most ridiculous things to get attention.

I know they say don't feed the trolls by giving them attention, but that's not working. The more we ignore them, the louder they get.

I'm a free speech absolutist. The trolls have the right to say their outrageous things. But we need to call them out more, expose who they are, show their faces to the daylight and let the world know how awful they are.  Time to exercise our own free speech.

They've been hiding in the basement long enough, mooching off their mothers, not going out and getting a job and and instead shooing out their bile.

Most importantly, in 2014, let's keep our sense of humor, OK? People say and do awful things, and I can see taking offense when that happens. But it seems every peep, every little misunderstanding, every slip of the tongue leads to outrage, yelling, screaming, victimhood and general drama.

In 2014, let's all chill out a little, OK?

And Happy New Year!

Everything's Too Complicated. Does That Mean They're Out To Get You?

For the life of me, I, like millions of people, can't understand all manners of modern life and commerce. Hospital bills. Insurance. Cable television and smart phone contracts. How to assemble furniture or whatever else I might order on line.

Why can't anyone write instructions or documents in English?  Why do they make it all so complicated?

You think she's confused? I  lose it every time
I try to read a banking or cell phone contract. Why? 

Along these lines, there was an interesting article by Alan Siegel and Irene Etzkorn last week in the Wall Street Journal talking about how simplicity would be a nice switch, but also why they're not expecting any turn toward easy anytime soon.

I found myself saying "Amen" to their article.

Part or the problem, according to Siegel and Etzkorn, is there are many choices out there. Perhaps too many. Have you seen the cereal or toothpaste aisle of a grocery store lately? And on line, it's worse. Everything is available. How do you choose?

More insidious is the verbiage we have to wade through which of course I don't trust. You know what I mean. Those smart phone contracts, again. Anything you do online.

Siegel and Etzkorn write:

"In 1980, the typical credit card contract was about 400 words long. Today, many are 20,000 words. 'Fine print' complexity costs us money in the form of hidden fees (about $900 per year for the average consumer, according to research conducted by the Ponemon Institute), denied claims and unanticipated charges ($2 billion in one year for landline phone customers, according to the Federal Communications Commission.)

To me,  anything that's excessively complex, worded in dense, incomprehensible legalese and goes on and on to me is a sign that they're trying to snow me over.

Or, as the article continues:

"Complexity is the coward's way out. But there is nothing simple about simplicity, and achieving it requires following three major principles: empathizing (by perceiving others' needs and expectations), distilling (by reducing to its essence the substance of one's offer) and clarifying (by making the offering easier to understand or use)

Good luck with any of these principles. Empathizing? Yeah, right. How many times have you struggled with a so-called customer service representative who can't or won't solve your simple problem but keeps giving you that insincere crap, "We're sorry you are experiencing problems...."

It's not the CSR's fault: They have to follow a script. Or else. And the script often does everything possible to help the company in question avoid helping any customers. Helping customers costs more. Can't have that!

And I despair at any chance of companies distilling and clarifying the verbiage they put out there. Have you checked your cell phone contract lately?

Siegel and Etzkorn are a bit optimistic about a resurgence of simplicity, citing outfits like Trader Joe's and to an extent, Google, for making things a bit more clear and a bit less overwhelming.  Outfits like the Pew Charitable Trust are working on simplified model documents that explain things like banking fees, that several large banks are interested in, the pair report.

I still wonder if the banks are THAT interested in simplified documents, but we'll see.

Now I have to go, and spend the rest of the day trying to figure out some tax documents that I know would take an advanced CPA days to figure out. Sigh.

We Hate Sex Offenders, But Trying to Make Them Disappear Off the Face Of The Earth Without Killing Them Doesn't Work

Count me among those who hate, hate, sex offenders. Seems like an obvious opinion that most people hold.

Anyone who victimized others like that deserves punishment, and our disgust, as I again act like Captain Obvious here.

Is making sex offenders homeless making us more safe or less safe?  

Once they've served their prison time, sex offenders have to live somewhere.

True, we don't want them living near us, especially if said people were child molesters and we have kids. But the fact remains you can't cross your arms and blink like I Dream of Jeannie and make them go POOF! off the face of the earth.

Many communities are trying anyway. Many states have laws preventing sex offenders from living X number of feet from schools or playgrounds or parks.

According to the New York Times, some towns are getting sex offenders out of towns by building little parks on small lots, so that any offender living within that X number of feet of the new park has to move. 

OK, they move. But if everybody makes them move away, where do they go? Many become homeless, because there are simply no buildings where they can legally live. All the buildings are too close to schools, parks and such.

Yes, there are lasting consequences for people who commit such horrible offenses as sex crimes. But the question the New York Times article raises, is, does moving sex offenders away from all neighborhoods everywhere make us safer?

The answer, according to the Times is least, is probably not. Homeless people are more likely than people who have places to live to feel like they have nothing to lose, so they're more likely to re-offend.

It seems the people who push the opening of these little parks say that the offenders need somewhere to live. They just don't offer any suggestions on exactly where that is, or how it will happen.

I don't either. I wouldn't want a sex offender living near me, and I'm a fairly burly guy and so is my husband, so we'd be more likely to be able to defend ourselves, and less likely to be the target of such a crime. But I wouldn't want a homeless sex offender wandering around either.

So what's the solution? It seems like there are no good answers.

Money: Another Reason Why I'm Happy I'm Not in the Dating Pool

I'm so glad I'm married already and don't need to date to find a mate.

That's true now so more than ever, given the higher and higher hurdles people make their prospective partners clear before the relationship goes ahead.

On example came last month in a New York Times article describing how some people are demanding credit scores from would-be suitors, often on first dates.

Romance, Schmomance. I don't care if you're a hottie. Are you financially solvent?"

"Credit scores are like the dating equivalent of a sexually transmitted disease test," the Times quoted Manisha Thakor, who heads MoneyZen Wealth Management, a financial advisory firm.

I suppose asking about credit scores is useful, especially if the relationship escalates into love, living together, marriage. You'd hate to be tied to bad credit as you buy a home, furnishings, whatever.

Said the Times:

Dating someone with poor credit can have real implications. Banks remain wary of making loans to borrowers with tarnished scores, typically 660 and below; the best scores range from 800 to 850, and scores above 750 are considered good. A low score could quash dreams of buying a house, and result in steep interest rates, up to 29 percent, for credit cards, car financing and other unsecured loans.

All that might be true, but must dating, a first date, even, be completely a job interview, or a loan application meeting? If the maybe future partner has the goods in other departments, and is honest, which you'd want anyway, can't you work out the finances at a later date?  Get the money straightened out before marriage, yes, but a week into the relationship?

It's also a turnoff to have someone demand full financial disclosure minutes into an initial date. Yes, you don't want to waste your time with someone who is a financial train wreck, so you might want to get out early. But I'd also not want to waste my time with someone who sounds as if he or she is in it for the money.

What's next? Full interviews by an investigative journalist with any and all family members, past acquaintences, first grade teachers, kindergarten friends and strangers who encountered you in the street in 1979 to get the dirt on a would-be date?

Like I said, thank God I'm already married. Finding a mate sounds like it's too much work, too business like.

My husband Jeff and I disagree on money sometimes. But we always work it out quickly. So I'll keep the great mate I've got, and leave the financial negotiations to Match.com or something.  thanks. 

Songs to Make Funerals More Pleasant

I don't want to judge what people choose to play at funerals. OK, I do, but the disclaimer is that I fully realize everybody is entitled to arrange a funeral however they like, and if I don't like it, too freaking bad.

However, I would suggest that people who plan funerals and think a certain song would be appropriate should at least pay attention to the lyrics.

Maybe playing inappropriate music would
cheer this group up

I say this because of the news that Adele's "Someone Like You" is now a frequent hit at funerals, according to the publication NME.

Yes, the song is terrific. And mournful sounding, too. But are the lyrics really a fitting sendoff for the dearly departed?
The song opens with these words:

I heard that you're settled down
That you found a girl and you're married now.
I heard that your dreams came true.
Guess she gave you things I didn't give to you.

So our deceased person  died to find the girl of his or her dreams, got married in the afterlife and is having a better time than when he or she  had to hang around with idiots like you? 

OK, so maybe I'm being too literal. But still.

Then there's the song's chorus:

Never mind, I'll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you, too.
 Don't forget me, I begged, I remember you said.
 Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead.  
 
So you're saying to the deceased: Yeah, I'll miss you, but I'll find somebody just as good as you, so I get over your death. Quickly. Time to party now, bye."

The list of most popular funeral titles has some other winners it it. My favorite is  Number 13 on the list of songs at funerals: The Monty Python hit "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life."
These lyrics will get the mourners into a party mood:

"If life seems jolly rotten, there's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing
When you're feeling in the dumps, don't be silly, chumps
 Just purse your lips and whistle, that's the thing"

It certainly would  help alleviate some of the gloom that funerals generally entail.

There's "Unchained Melody", another popular choice with people who arrange funerals, with these lyrics:

Oh my love my darling
I've hungered hungered for your touch
A long lonely time
And time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine
I need your love
I need your love
God speed your love to me

It's a little late to hunger for the dead person's touch, since that ain't gonna happen.

At least  Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" sort of fits, lyrically:

Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on

If the person in the casket still has a beating heart, time to call 911 and call off the funeral. It's a miracle!!!

I do love the song "Enjoy the Silence" by Depeche Mode, another suggestion for the Funeral Top 40:
Here are some lyrics:

All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

To be overly literal, once again, "All I ever needed is here in my arms? You're hugging the dead person?! I'm not sure I'd go that far.

If you think about it, there's so many other songs that could work as funeral dirges, if you have a mean, sick, weird sense of humor, like I do. There's Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" and Elton John's "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" whose lyrics go:

"Oh it kills me to think of you with another man
I was playing rock and roll and you were just a fan
My guitar couldn't hold you so I split the band
Love lies bleeding in my hands."

That would sure raise some questions among fellow mourners.