"Just Pay Shipping and Handling..."

Instead of my usual "Wordless Wednesday" post, I thought it might be nice to actually type something here for a change. (I have been under the weather again -- yes, there is indeed a physician visit in my near future -- and that has made posting difficult.)

An acquaintance of mine works in an establishment where there is a coffeemaker dedicated to keeping staff well-caffeinated. He told me that this particular machine (they apparently last about two years each) cost less than $15 and had been in near-constant use for over a year without any problems. It was easy to use: remove the filter basket assembly, dump the used paper filter & coffee grinds out of it, drop in a new paper filter, drop the assembly back into the top of the machine, use the machine's carafe to pour water into the reservoir, spoon coffee into the paper filter, and press the obvious button on the front of the machine. Voila -- a few minutes later, the carafe would be full of hot coffee free for the taking. This procedure was very well known among the staff of several departments.

Or so he thought. A few Mondays back, he discovered that someone who did not know the procedure had tried using the machine over the weekend and threw away the entire filter basket assembly along with the used paper filter and coffee grinds.  (Just to clarify, this assembly is a large, solidly-made plastic bin with a large and obvious metal spring & valve assembly underneath that, according to my friend, definitely does not look disposable.) Without it, water runs too quickly through the paper filter to brew the coffee properly, and then just drops through a large hole over the carafe, splashing hot, weak coffee over an area roughly two feet in diameter.

After the inevitable grousing, search for the guilty party, complaining among the staff, and so on, my friend realized the coffeemaker was a major national brand that was sure to have spare parts available. A quick Internet search later, he had all the information he needed to order the missing part.

And then things got... all together now... annoying.

The manufacturer listed the filter basket/flow control valve assembly on their website for $8 in change. My friend, wise to the ways of online commerce, quickly ran a second set of web searches using the specific part number (a good hint to keep in mind, readers!) and was rewarded with two lower prices: a food service reseller listed the identical part for $6 in change, and a restaurant supply house listed it for a mere $4.50.

Happy to have found the part so easily, my friend completed the online order and stopped in horror just before the final mouse click: once shipping and handling had been added automatically by the vendor's website, that $4.50 part was suddenly going to cost him roughly $16.00 -- a 350% increase in cost and several dollars more than the original cost of the entire machine! Needless to say, that final mouse click was to close the browser window and not to authorize the credit card billing.

My friend then went to the site offering the part for $6, thinking they could not possibly charge as much for shipping & handing as the first vendor. He was correct, after a fashion; the final price (again not available until just one mouse click short of finalizing the sale) was roughly $12.50 -- a 190% increase in cost and a few cents more than the original cost of the entire coffeemaker. The manufacturer's online pricing proved no better, ending up a few pennies higher.

Needless to say, my friend has started asking co-workers for small donations toward the purchase of a new coffeemaker (hopefully of a design that makes it more difficult to dispose of non-disposable key components).

But let's all back up for a moment and look at the annoyances inherent in this sequence of events. (To save time, I will skip over the obvious annoyance of someone throwing out the coffeemaker's key component.)

1. The original manufacturer lists this one component of their product for roughly 50% of the total cost of the product;
2. The manufacturer's price is obviously highly inflated, since other general vendors are selling the identical OEM component at discounts of up to more than 40% as their regular price;
3. One of the online vendors insisted on collecting local state sales tax despite their being based elsewhere in the USA and this state not requiring such taxes under those circumstances;
4. All the vendors are charging shipping & handling fees that at best double the actual price of the merchandise being sold (at least in this case); and
5. All the vendors' websites hid the total actual cost of the merchandise being sold until the last possible second.

My friend and his colleagues have voted with both their feet and their wallets: they are not buying another Hamilton Beach coffeemaker, and they are not buying from that manufacturer's website or any other that charges such high fees for the privilege of shopping there. I will do the same, and urge all of you to follow suit. Maybe, just maybe, we will be able to convince online vendors that doubling (or worse!) the cost of their merchandise is not an incentive to buy from their websites.

Otherwise... well, prepare to be annoyed...

Wordless Wednesday

Once More, With Feeling...

Okay, once again, something has happened that makes no real sense.

This area commonly has thunderstorms. I am not talking about a few rumbles of thunder and a bit of quick rain; I am talking about multiple vertical lightning strikes[1] ... violent winds... heavy downpours... all on a fairly regular basis.

So why, if someone out there can tell me, do our public utilities keep failing due to "unexpected" heavy weather?

We had another set of heavy thunderstorms pass through the area again the other day while I was at work, and when I brought up the electrical utility's outage map I was presented with a large number of colored areas, each signifying hundreds (in some cases, thousands) of customers without power. A few moments after having my "uh-oh" moment, I received a phone call from my parents; their neighborhood had once again lost power.[2]

I left work with some trepidation, unsure if I was returning to a comfortable environment or a hot, muggy house with no lights or air conditioning. After passing several Pepco work crews as I drove down my leaf-covered block, I was happy to find my house  dripping but well-lit. Unfortunately, my mood changed within moments of walking through the door when I tried to check the Weather Channel and found I had no cable TV service -- and I really got cranky when I subsequently tried to check the weather online and discovered I had no Internet connectivity, either. (And did I mention all that static on my phone line?)

This is the 21st century. This is the nation's capital. This is a region where thunderstorms are a near-daily event and severe thunderstorms are almost as common as heavy traffic on the Beltway.

So why, o why, are we still losing basic utility services so frequently due to "unexpected severe weather"?

Get with it, Pepco, Comcast, BG&E, Verizon... you're all really annoying your customers...

[1] When my family first moved to the area several decades ago, we nicknamed the stronger nighttime storms "Maryland Specials" because at their peak the lightning came close to providing enough light for reading.

[2] Electrical power was restored near 11:00pm... and promptly went away again for no apparent reason shortly after midnight, only to reappear once again shortly before 1:00am.

Wordless Wednesday

All Clucked Up

SPECIAL NOTE: I am re-editing this 24 hours after its original posting because, when I came back to read through it one more time, I discovered that I had accidentally (yes, it really was an accident) deleted a few key words when trying to rephrase a couple of lines. In its original form, this post read as if I was labeling Chick-Fil-A as a terrorist organization and/or Dan Cathy as a terrorist. I did not mean to say that, and I do not believe that. However, if you read through to the end of the post -- where the missing text I had accidentally deleted has been re-inserted -- you will see what kind of label I think does apply to Chick-Fil-A and the WinShape Foundation. (I have also corrected mis-numbering in the footnotes, and corrected the name of the Foundation, which I had gotten wrong in the original post.)

To be honest, I had (and continue to have) no intention of turning this blog into a political commentary... but some issues go so far beyond being mere annoyances that I simply have to post comments about them.

The (now slowly semi-sorta fading) Chick-Fil-A uproar counts as one of those issues.

What is annoying me about it? Well, aside from what you will find in my previous post, I am seeing a lot of commentary about the whole issue revolving around the use/abuse of free speech. I am seeing an increasing number of posts from bloggers who are firmly against Mr. Cathy's (and presumably his chain's) stance on marriage that are saying something like, "It doesn't matter if I disagree with him or not, he has the right to say what he wants. If you don't like it, don't give Chick-Fil-A any money. All those mayors who want to block the chain from opening in their cities are wrong, because it's no different than rendering illegal any other business that they disagree with for any reason. They haven't broken any laws, and they haven't done anything wrong."

First, I want to state that I fully agree Mr. Cathy does have as much right to his beliefs as I do to mine, and he does have as much right to free speech as I do. Second, I agree that we should all vote with our dollars and boycott Chick-Fil-A if we are offended by his (and his chain's) stance. Third, I have to admit that I have real concerns about what happens to freedom of speech if expressing oneself can lead to anything that might be construed as supporting one's views banned or rendered illegal just because someone in a position of power disagrees with those views.

But let's take a look at that whole "they haven't done anything wrong" idea.

I know there are bound to be individuals working for Chick-Fil-A who are uncomfortable with Mr. Cathy's statements, so maybe, just maybe, I should not paint the entire chain with the same brush (tempting as it might be)... but the tight linkage between Mr. Cathy and the business make it impossible to do otherwise.

The U.S. Government regularly freezes and/or seizes the assets of businesses and charities it believes are actively supporting terrorist and hate-based organizations. The individuals employed by those businesses and charities may know absolutely nothing about those ties, but may unwittingly be helping to feed funds to...

...groups that engage in activities that deny individuals, groups or populations their basic rights;

The Cathys and Chick-Fil-A's "WinShape Foundation" have repeatedly donated large sums of money from the Chick-Fil-A chain to groups working to deny members of the LGBT community their rights, up to and including making it legal to fire them from their jobs for no reason other than their sexual orientation.[1,2]

...groups that engage in exerting strong influence on foreign governments to forward their agenda;

The Cathys and the WinShape Foundation have repeatedly donated large sums of money from the Chick-Fil-A chain to groups lobbying and "advising" a number of foreign governments, mainly in Africa, to ensure they enact and/or continue policies that agree with his personal views.[3]

...and groups that kill, or actively support the killing of, anyone who they find objectionable.


The Cathys and the WinShape Foundation have repeatedly donated large sums of money from the Chick-Fil-A chain to groups actively supporting, and possibly actively helping, some governments in Africa impose an automatic death penalty on anyone guilty of the "crime" of being a member of the LGBT community.[4]

No, I'm not screaming, "terrorist!" in Mr. Cathy's front yard -- but our government (under both Presidents Bush and Obama) has seen fit to apply the "hate-based" label to, and take action against, businesses like his with much less hard evidence firmly in hand.[5]

Think about it.

I'll leave the ultimate decision up to each of you... but I've made mine, and I can assure you it is not favorable for Mr. Cathy or Chick-Fil-A.

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[1] Only 9 jurisdictions in the USA allow same-sex marriage: CT, IA, MA, NH, NY, VT; the District of Columbia; and the Coquille & Squamish Native American tribal jurisdictions. Three others (CA, MD & RI) have at least limited recognition of same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions but do not recognize any performed in-state. All other jurisdictions in the USA not only do not allow same-sex marriages, they refuse to recognize those that have been legally performed & officially recognized in any other jurisdiction. The Cathys and the WinShape Foundation have donated money in support of the expansion of "no such thing as gay marriage" laws in those few jurisdictions that do recognize them.

[2] There are 29 states in the USA in which an employer can legally fire an employee for no reason other than that employee being gay. The Cathys and the WinShape Foundation have donated large sums of money in support of expanding such laws to all states.

[3] There are 81 countries in the world in which being LGBT is either illegal or carries de facto punishments ranging from a few months in prison to flogging, life sentences, or banishment from the country. The Cathys and the WinShape Foundation have donated large sums of money in support of such laws both in these countries and in those that do not currently have such laws.

[4] In at least 6 countries countries where being gay is a crime, the punishment is death. Money from the Cathys and the WinShape Foundation is donated directly to groups supporting such penalties.

[5] The Cathys and the WinShape Foundation have donated millions of dollars to the Family Research Council, the Marriage & Family Foundation, and other groups actively engaged in "missionary" and "advisory" work in Africa in support of footnotes 3 and 4, above.

...and Cluck You, Too!

This is not a post about being annoyed.

This is a post about fearing -- truly, honestly, actually fearing -- the ethics and empathy of a statistically significant percentage of the population of this nation.

A firestorm was recently ignited in the media by the owner of Chick-Fil-A coming out against gay marriage. He said he was against it because it went against the biblical definition of marriage, and within hours (if not sooner) the pro- and anti- groups were slinging verbal mud at one another. The mayors of at least two large American cities made public announcements that the chain was not welcome in their city, the Jim Henson Company severed a long-standing business partnership with them, and the call went out to boycott the company. Not long after that, a counter-call went out asking everyone who supported the company owner's stance to make a point of eating at least one meal at the chain's nearest outlet on August 1st.

Although small in comparison to the crowds of people coming out against the company and its owner, there were some significantly long lines at many of the chain's locations on the prescribed day as thousands of people sought to show their support for... and forgive me for the language... "good Christian values."

Let me back up for a moment; if you have read any of my earlier posts, you will undoubtedly remember I am Jewish. I therefore want to make it absolutely clear that I do not consider myself any kind of "expert" on what a "good Christian" is, does, or believes.

However... I have been a member of homo sapiens and citizen of the United States of America for over half a century; I have spent a statistically significant portion of my life living "on the economy" in other countries; and my family is as diverse an agglomeration of ethnicities and religions as one is likely to find anywhere. I believe that those attributes give me enough "expertise" to comment on the behavior exhibited by the thousands of fellow homo sapiens who are also citizens of the USA, a nation established and very heavily populated by immigrants of many ethnicities, nationalities and religions.

(And yes, to state what is likely obvious, while happily heterosexual I strongly believe that every citizen of this nation should have the same rights as every other citizen regardless of any measure of difference between them and me -- including sexual orientation.)[1]

I will avoid commenting on the not-so-minor problem that the "biblical definition of marriage" was a small bit of text cherry-picked from a selection that includes many instructions and guidelines concerning marriage that these same individuals are likely to find archaic, repugnant or laughable (or described by many other similar adjectives). I am commenting on the groups, crowds, hordes (if some supporters are to be believed) who wanted to show their support for good Christian values by buying some variation of a chicken breast sandwich, wrap, or salad.

I may not believe Jesus was any more or less a child of God than any other human being, but I do believe the guy had some good ideas.[2]  Ideas like taking care of the aged and infirm... helping lift our fellow humans out of poverty... taking care of orphans... treating our fellow humans with love and respect... placing equal, if not superior emphasis on the good of others as we do on our own good...

I think (I hope!) you see what kind of Jesus' ideas I agree with. I also happen to know that the vast majority of people I know who follow any of the variants of Christianity/Catholicism agree with those same ideas and ideals -- and brother, believe me when I tell you I know a lot of folks for whom the cross is the symbol of their religion.


So, all you folks out there who stood in line to give your money to a fast-food chain owned by an already-wealthy family to show your support for "good Christian values..."


How long did you stand in line, and have you dedicated the same amount of time to volunteering in a soup kitchen, a hospital or nursing home, a library, a school?

How much did your meal cost, and have you donated the same amount of cash to a charity helping the aged, the infirm, the poor, the orphaned?

How much food did you buy, and have you given the same amount of food to a local soup kitchen or food bank?

How fired-up did you get over the chance to show how closely you hew to the values of your religion, and do you feel the same way about ridding the world of poverty, hunger, disease, human trafficking?

How angry did you get over the perceived slight to your beliefs and do you feel the same anger at unfair business practices, oppressive governments, drug cartels, systemic bigotry?


Okay... Maybe I am beating a dead horse by now, but I hope you get the point.  (And while there is certainly room for improvement, I actually do engage in some of the above behaviors as often as time and finances allow -- my house may not be solid brick, but it's not made of glass, either.)

Howzabout we all put aside trying to show our support for "good [group] values" and take some time to engage instead in actively supporting good human values? Maybe set aside all those "us versus them" differences just long enough to solve some of the problems that are actively destroying the lives of millions of our fellow humans in this country, in this hemisphere, on this planet every day?

Is it really so &@%#!  important to give your time and money to buying a stinkin' sandwich to show how much you support a specific viewpoint when so many people -- possibly on the same block on the same street in the same town -- can't even afford one for themselves? (If you bought food at a Chick-Fil-A franchise on the 1st and then gave it to someone who could not afford it themselves, then I have a sincere "thank you" for you -- but sadly I have not yet seen any such stories in any media outlets.)

C'mon, people -- if you want to put your money where your mouth is, if you want to show your support for the Good Things in your belief system... well, take another look at my "How..." questions above and follow through.

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[1]  I was brought up believing the definition of different is "not the same" -- not "better" or "worse," just "not the same."

[2]  I am fairly sure I just created enemies in both the Christian and Jewish religions with that one sentence... efficient, n'est-ce pas?

Wordless Wednesday