SHAME ON YOU

Dear Messrs. Boehner, Cruz, et al.:

My father, the son of poor immigrants, served with honor in the U.S. Navy. He then went on to work for the New York state government, helping maintain a balanced budget. After that he started a new career as a Foreign Service Officer, working to support & protect U.S. interests both here and abroad. After retiring, he was a teaching professor & department head at a local college, preparing a new generation of American citizens for the future.

He was called out of "retirement" to work for USNATO, moving overseas once more, then retired again -- only to be called back to public service yet again (and moving overseas again) to serve the nation as the U.S. representative in Den Haag helping create the first comprehensive international organization to control chemical weapons & similar weapons of mass destruction. In each position, he worked (successfully) to ensure U.S. interests were supported while simultaneously cutting operating budgets and returning taxpayer money to the Treasury.

His health is no longer as good as it was, his house needs repairs, and by all accounts he has paid his dues -- and you, along with your political cronies, have "thanked" him for his years of service & sacrifice by cutting off and/or interfering with his pension, his health care, and literally dozens of services he needs because you could not succeed at pushing through a minority agenda without using the terrorist practice of holding governments & nations hostage.

When my father salutes the U.S. flag, he can hold his head up high in pride; you and your political cronies do not even deserve to be allowed to look at Old Glory, much less claim to represent this once-great nation.

I am not merely "annoyed" at your behavior. I am angry. I am ashamed.

...and I have a long memory, and I always vote.

Two (Criminals) for the Price of One

I have ranted here before about telephone solicitors, but now I have two that I specifically want to "call out" for constant, ongoing violations of the Do Not Call regulations.

First and foremost: "Lower Your Interest"  I don't know who these people are, but I receive calls from them (sometimes two or three) on a near-daily basis. (I know it's them because they show up as "LOWER INTEREST" in the Caller ID display and it's always the same chirpy, artificially happy female voice on the recording.) Most of the time, I find their messages on my answering machine when I get home from work, but occasionally during the week (and always on weekends) I am home when they call.

Usually I will either let the answering machine pick up the call or hit the "talk" button and immediately hang up to prevent their recording from wasting more of the available recording time on my answering machine. However, every once in a while, I will actually pick up one of their calls and dutifully press "1" when instructed to speak with one of their operators.

Most of the time, I will end up holding a telephone handset that is connected to... nothing. No one hangs up on me, no one cuts me off, but there is just dead silence on the other end of the line and no one ever picks up (at least, no one picks up during the several minutes I will wait sometimes). Every once in a great while, I will actually find myself speaking with an actual person, and every time that lucky event comes to pass I immediately ask to be removed from their list -- with the same negative result.

Today, for the third time in approximately five weeks, I hit "1" before the end of the recording and found myself speaking with one of their operators within 2-3 minutes of doing so. The gentleman politely thanked me for waiting and politely asked me if I would like to lower my credit card interest today. I politely -- yes, I was actually quiet and polite, sprinkling pleases liberally throughout my speech -- politely asked to be removed from their list. The gentleman politely asked why, and I quietly and politely responded that I did not need their services, was doing alright financially, and was getting a lot of calls from them that I did not want.

The gentleman politely hung up on me. No "sorry," no "alright," no "I understand," no vocal response at all -- he just hung up on me. Just like his two colleagues had done the last two times I spoke with one of them.

Based on prior experience, I am quite sure that I will be receiving more unwanted phone calls from these borderline criminals. However, I am going to contact Verizon and have them block the number:
(1-616-613-2220)... and I will urge everyone else to do the same. The more of this outfit's numbers we block, the sooner their questionable "business" will lose its ability to function easily.

Second problem operation: Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA)  This is a legitimate company established by Mr. Bruce Marks, a former official of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Its primary purpose is to help individuals victimized by predatory mortgages, but it apparently also is in the business of helping individuals receive bank approval for mortgages for the purchase of a home. Unfortunately, NACA does not take "no" for an answer when "offering" to "help" me with my nonexistent mortgage problems. (Note: There are several organizations using the "NACA" acronym; I am specifically and solely referring to the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America in this post.)

I no longer have an actual mortgage; it was paid off last year (it hurt but was worth the cost). I have never contacted NACA in any way. I have never asked or authorized anyone to contact NACA on my behalf. I have never had any need for the services NACA is supposed to provide. I have never had any kind of dealings with NACA in the past, and my answering machine's outgoing message clearly states that my phone number is on the Do Not Call list -- so there is no reason for them to be calling me.

And yet... they do. Roughly every three to five weeks, I will come home from work to find a message from the founder of the company telling me all about his latest upcoming seminar in my area. Compared to unwanted callers like "Lower Your Interest" this may not seem like much, but NACA's phone calls are not a quick sound byte ending in "...press 1 to speak with one of our operators now." Oh, no. NACA recordings are full-blown commercials, with Mr. Marks telling me aaaalllll about his latest upcoming seminar, often with a second mini-commercial at the end concentrating on one or another of the services NACA offers to consumers. The problem is that Mr. Marks' soliloquies can last over four minutes; a single call from them can wipe out my answering machine's entire available recording time, causing me to miss calls from companies I am doing business with. (This last statement is not conjecture; I have been told by individuals whose messages I was waiting for that they could not leave me a message because my answering machine was full... and each time it was because of Mr. Marks' verbal infomercials.)

I have tried to call NACA to be removed from their list; no luck. I have tried to contact NACA through their website to be removed from their list; no luck. I have tried to contact NACA via email to be removed from their list; no luck. The only response of any kind I have ever received from Mr. Marks or any of his employees is a small number of nonsensical posts in a complaint thread I posted about them on a public "gripe" forum in which one of their employees essentially keeps saying either they are not calling me, or they are calling me because I have an established relationship with them as a client. (Obviously, both statements are outright lies.)

---

So there you have them: "Lower Your Interest" and the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA), two companies who in effect refuse any request from non-clients to be removed from their call lists in violation of federal law.

The BBB has been no help with either company (although that process may require more time), and the number of complaints about both companies viewable online seems to be steadily growing. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions... but my personal experience is that they are both scofflaws and should thus be avoided at any cost.

Wordless Wednesday

Apples vs. Passion Fruit

Let's talk about comparisons.

You know, the ol' "apples vs. apples" thing that becomes "apples vs. oranges" when someone tries to compare two wholly unlike objects as if they were like.  For example, one can compare a station wagon to an SUV and remain in the apple::apple camp, whereas comparing a station wagon to, say, an aircraft carrier (hey, they're both vehicles, right?) puts one into the apple::orange domain.

But let's talk about something a little more extreme: comparing apples to passion fruit. Yes, they're both fruit, but the similarity pretty much ends there.

Not unlike, say, comparing armed agents of the U.S. Secret Service guarding the children of the U.S. President when they're out & about to putting one or two guys with pistols into a public school and saying "all these kids are safe now that they're protected by armed guards."

To use the vernacular... Oh, puh-leeze.

The U.S. First Family (as they're often called) are very public figures who are essentially walking around with concentric red & white rings painted all over them, regardless of age, race, religion, or party affiliation. They are the lightning rod for all who oppose actions (or even the very existence) of the U.S. government, a juicy target for anyone who wants to hurt / shame / damage the reputation of / take action against the USA, a potential source of incredibly strong leverage (if captured or put in danger) for anyone seeking to force the government to take certain action. The President, the First Spouse, and the First Kid(s) are protected by a large, heavily armed organization because the President's job makes them Targets with a capital T every moment of their lives.

The American schoolkid is someone's son or daughter, just one of millions of everyday people who happens to be under (or just reaching) legal age of majority while spending several hours a day for a large chunk of the year in buildings the purpose of which is to provide them with knowledge they can use to grow, to develop, to be constructive and productive members of society. There is nothing about them, or schools in general, that makes them a target for anyone except seriously disturbed individuals whose only aim is to rack up a body count, or terrorists who want to use their blood to make a point.

Those wonderful examples of modern American society over at the NRA have, however, decided that it is unfair and hypocritical to protect the First Family unless we also provide armed guards for all public school children. They have chosen to ignore all the glaring differences between the two types of protectee in an effort to make their own political point and in doing so have compared apples to passion fruit... or perhaps even compared apples to bricks, trees to horses, houses to bulletin boards, or any other number of ridiculously inappropriate combinations.

Unfortunately, a large number of people seem to have been quite thoroughly duped by the comparison, ignoring the differences between the two potential types of protectee and taking up the rallying cry of, "my kids are just as important as the President's kids!"  Well, believe it or not, I completely and totally agree with that statement: a child is a child, and they are all important.

The problem is, the President's children (and spouse, and other members of the immediate family) can provide leverage to outside parties that the son or daughter of Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Public cannot. The First Family, regardless of whether or not any individual American citizen voted for a particular president, are representatives of all American citizens, living symbols of the nation, and a possible gap in the U.S. President's armor that could allow outsiders to (at least believe they can) control the President's actions. On a person-by-person basis, that doesn't make them more important, but it does make it more important to protect them because their role, their purpose in and influence on national & international politics, has to be protected.

Still not seeing it?  Okay, let's put that aside for a moment and take a look at another facet of the problem. The First Family of the United States is not simply protected by armed guards; they are protected by a massive organization of professionals with expertise ranging from marksmanship to driving to threat analysis to detective work to any number of hundreds of other fields. The public sees the teams of men & women in dark glasses surrounding the First Family, periodically talking into the cuffs of their shirts while swiveling scanning crowds. What the public usually does not see is the many teams of hidden guards, sharpshooters, snipers and observers; the many teams of agents following down leads related to known threats; the many teams of agents following down leads to what may be unanticipated threats; the many teams of agents handling the insanely complex logistics of safely transporting the President & First Family to and from events; and the many teams of agents and their even larger teams of support staff who are dealing with literally dozens of other kinds of assignments that are related to keeping the First Family alive and well, uncompromised, and out of harm's way.

Now... how do we do that for public schools?  Little one-room schoolhouses have essentially gone the way of the Tyranosaur and the Dodo; schools are large buildings with long hallways and many rooms, presenting nooks and crannies and shadowy corners galore for assailants to hide in, waiting to ambush any one or two individuals who come looking for them. There are no small groups of individuals who can be isolated from everyone around them; the entire student body scattered throughout the school building needs to be protected. How many armed guards will be needed to truly protect the students & staff in a school housing, say, 100 people?  300 people? 1000 people?

If you think those numbers are out of line, I graduated from a generic public high school, just one of dozens in the county that included only grades 10, 11 and 12; my class included a total of just under 700 students. Add in the almost equally large 10th & 11th grade classes, the teachers, the various support staffs (Office/Clerical, Janitorial, Maintenance, Dietary) and on any given day that single school building would house well over two thousand people, no exaggeration or rounding up of numbers needed. How could even a handful (never mind just one or two) armed individuals protect a group that large, especially when it was spread throughout a large multi-story building with hundreds of rooms & closets? What about all those gym classes that could have up to 350-400 students scattered across the athletic fields outside the school, fields surrounded by literally thousands of potential hiding places for someone with a gun looking to score a few kills? Now multiply that by the tens of thousands of schools across the country.

You'd need a literal army of armed guards, probably over 100,000 strong. And you could still  lose students & staff to even single armed assailants due simply to the delay in any guard(s) determining where the shooter was and taking action -- assuming the guards themselves weren't the first ones killed or wounded too badly to be effective.

Many (if not most) of the individuals who say they support the NRA's idea of putting armed guards in schools also say they find that preferable to any limit, control, or reduction of the freedoms provided by the Second Amendment and the associated increase in the government's (perceived) ability to police & control the citizens it is supposed to represent. And yet no one worries about creating a large armed paramilitary force and essentially handing it control over all the nation's children?

The lack of intelligent thought in the NRA's stance is annoying... and getting more so by the minute.

Wordless Wednesday