CHICK-FIL-A

My feeling is that any outfit that uses a gaggingly cute spelling of fillet for its name would do anything. So I don’t trust the whole enterprise or its food.

And I also have to say, I don’t believe anything the Chick-fil-A website says about its chicken, its fresh ingredients, its hand-breading, or any of its advertising nonsense.

For one thing, there is a note at the bottom of the Chick-fil-A propaganda site that reads: “Chick-fil-A does not verify the accuracy of the content contained in the preceding website”. And for another thing, its chickens eat from 18-32% "protein-based products", which could be really icky stuff. Like blood meal, poultry offal, meat and bone meal and feather meal, among other things…all of which could be infected with extremely icky stuff.

So…those are my reasons for staying away from Chick-fil-A and its fast food. All of which I think are reasons enough. And I don’t know why Chick-fil-A has been able to stay in business in the first place.

But if the public wants to eat this fast-food junk, it should be allowed to. And if that junk comes with an anti-gay message and ridiculous remarks about what Jesus is going to do to people who find nothing wrong with being gay, then so be it. You really shouldn’t be eating that crap in the first place.

United Insurance Company of America—YIKES!

Beware! This is an ugly story! Maybe not as ugly as the thought of Bristol Palin doing “Dancing With the Stars” again in September…but ugly.

For twelve years, I have had a small “renters insurance” policy with United Insurance. It’s basically a fire insurance policy and covers minimum needs. It was only $8.15 a month. It is true that for 12 years, United Insurance and its agents did stupid and annoying things, but the premium price was attractive.

For one thing, although I always sent my checks on the third of the month, United Insurance never deposited them until the 21st of the month, causing my account to seem to be in arrears. My bank has sent the checks to United through its “bill pay” service for the past five years. But last year, I received a payment book from United. This was the practice fifty years ago. Checks were enclosed in the book, mailed in, and the book was returned with a “payment received” notation. I had to remind United that time had passed and now newer ways of paying were being used…like bill pay.

A month ago, the Bala Cynwyd, PA office for United informed me I had not paid my insurance bill for three months and my insurance had been cancelled. I informed United that my bank had been sending checks all along. United got back to me and said that although it was true, my July check had been received, I had not paid the May and June premiums and I needed to re-sign for a policy. I told United that my bank had dutifully mailed the checks every month and that I couldn’t possibly need to re-sign a new policy.

I sent a snail-mail letter to United Insurance explaining my position. Eventually, a couple weeks ago, I was informed by the United Insurance Bala Cynwyd office that the office in North Carolina where my checks were being sent had not been in operation for many months. The fact that my bills clearly said I was to remit to the North Carolina office did not faze anyone in Bala Cynwyd. I was told it was up to me to mail my checks to the correct place.

Yesterday was the denouement. I called Bala Cynwyd to find out where I should mail my checks now. I had not received a bill for my August premium. I was told that Bala Cynwyd had no record that I had ever had an account at United Insurance. I was directed to call the home office in St. Louis. I called St. Louis. St. Louis wanted to know my policy number. I said I had no idea what my policy number was, but I gave them the account number printed on all my bills from United. St. Louis couldn’t find my account. I said my bank had been mailing my checks, as instructed on my bill, to North Carolina. I said my bill did not have a policy number. St. Louis called Bala Cynwyd. Bala Cynwyd said I didn’t exist.

Finally, I sicced my bank on United Insurance. A United employee told my bank that I had given them a wrong account number. United Insurance said I did exist, but the account number I had given my bank, which was on all my bills and which I’d had for twelve years was wrong. I did not recognize the account number that United said was correct.

My bank told United Insurance that it (my bank) was not in error, that it had been correctly sending payments to United. United told my bank it had not received the last three payments, even though United had told me it had received the July payment. In any case, United maintained that the account number I had given to my bank was wrong.

The upshot is that I gave my bank permission to stop payment (at no cost to me) on the last three payments and I will be reimbursed. United says I will now have to re-sign for a new policy.

FAT CHANCE. Of course I am getting a new insurance company.

I do not understand why United did this. Was it sheer incompetence? Or did it want to rid itself of a small policy holder? Whatever the reason, United Insurance spokespersons blatantly lied when talking to my bank. That goes beyond conducting business in a prudent and sharp way.

Baby-Boomers Are Glum

That’s the overall Google/Internet/Wikipedia take on things.

This Boomer generation that was spawned because potential dads were going off to war and potential moms were hopping in the sack out of sheer biological panic, has now been through its own good times, bad times, drugged-out times, baby times, supposed maturing times, running the world times and is now on the brink of getting old. The boomers are pissed off.

It’s no good to say “You were supposed to fix things, so suck it up.”

One can only note: Now that you Boomers have empowered the medical and pharmaceutical businesses to run the world, how are things working out for us?

The world has cancer. Not only figuratively speaking about the shitty state our planet is in, but speaking healthwise, a significant portion of the world is being treated medically for cancer.

How has that come about? Well, all the A-bomb tests, A-bombs and nuclear power plants the Boomers’ moms and dads unleashed on this world has caused problems to our health--from our autoimmune defenses being knocked awry, to actual cancers being given a leg up.

But also, how much blame can be directed at pharmaceuticals that actually cause cancer? How much blame can be directed at doctors who prescribe ill-tested and/or dangerous drugs because doctors get kick-backs? How much blame can be directed at doctors who prescribe radiation and chemo for cancers that will never grow or become significant? How much blame can be directed at the greedy medical community for promoting the existence of cancer rather than finding a cure?

If Boomers are glum about their prospects for a benign future, can any generation now fix the harm the Boomers have inflicted on themselves and the rest of us by deciding everyone’s life and fate should be in the hands of pharmaceutical companies and the AMA?

The AMA, drug companies and hospitals not only determine whether we get well or die. They now determine whether we get sick in the first place.

The Problem With Memorial Day

I grant you, every man or woman who has died under the aegis of the government of the United States of America during the entire existence of the US of A deserves to be remembered and honored. And a day set aside called Memorial Day is a good time and occasion to do that.

The honoring of these dead is not the problem.

The problem is the description used honoring these dead.

It is very true that many American soldiers have died defending this country. And it is also true that in recent years when men and women signed up for duty in the army of the United States of America, they assumed they might be called upon to defend this country, and they were proud and willing to do so. That willingness to die for one’s country cannot be praised enough.

When a man or woman in the United States Army is grievously wounded or dies in a war, I can understand the family and friends needing to believe he or she died defending America.

But where the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are concerned, it is not true.

And yesterday, Memorial Day, we were constantly told to remember those who died in Iraq and Afghanstan who were “defending our country”.

They surely may have been willing to defend the USA, but those who died in Iraq died defending the erroneous, wrongheaded and unnecessary war concocted by President George W. Bush and his administration. They died to increase the riches of Vice President Dick Cheney who was heavily involved with and invested in the corporations that made armaments. That is not defending our country.

And now, 2000 US men and women have died in Afghanistan defending the poppy fields and opium trade of a nation that has been at war with itself for 3,000 years. That is not defending our country.

We have to stop lying to ourselves about why the men and women in our military are dying. If I were a parent or loved one of a soldier who had died in our military, I too would want to think they had died defending America. And it is true, they all surely were willing to die defending the USA. However, they died for every egregiously ugly reason under the sun except in defense of the USA.

We have to stop lying to ourselves before we can stop this nonsense of young men and women fighting and dying on foreign soil for no good reason.

Why I Don’t Care Why Greg Smith Quit

Greg Smith was in his 12th year with Goldman Sachs when he quit yesterday and posted his manifesto in the New York Times to explain “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs”.

Do I care?

No.

Greg Smith is a recognizable small-time opportunist. He wants it both ways. He is 33-years-old, has been with GS for 12 years, was making $500,000 a year, which isn’t all that much dough, but he hadn’t made it to the level of Managing Director. He was described by a man he attended Stanford University with as being a person who had “a really high moral fiber”.

Spare me. The same has been said of religious zealots who willingly murder transgressors…it’s a meaningless encomium.

But Mr. Smith’s fiber being highly moral or not is not the point.

Now that things have not worked out well at GS for Mr. Smith, and now that GS rep has been seriously tarnished, Mr. Smith wants us to know he never liked the way GS operated and he stayed on just to change things from the inside out, because the way GS was operating, was, he said, “making me ill.”

There’s a lot of that sick-making moral lassitude going around. Rick Santorum told us the separation of church and state views of John F. Kennedy made him “want to throw up”. And yet, both Smith and Santorum stuck around for years doing whatever they had to do to advance their careers before discovering they had a visceral response to the company they kept.

The organization Smith now reviles couldn’t see its way to making him a Managing Director. Do you think this has anything to do with Smith having belatedly grown a spine?

I do not care why Greg Smith quit Goldman Sachs any more than I care why a woman who has had three abortions decides aborting is repellent and wants no woman to have an abortion. I do not care why Greg Smith quit Goldman Sachs any more than I care why a jewel thief turns state’s evidence and wants his thieving compadres put in jail. I do not care why Greg Smith quit Goldman Sachs because I also do not care why a rejected lover wants the former object of his/her affection to rot in hell. The reasons are all too transparent and vengeful…no explanation is necessary.

I do not care about Greg Smith’s reasons because they are suspect and he looks like a slimey little putz trying to spin his years of turning a blind eye to corruption into a magnificent act of sacrifice.

There are Two Kinds of Republicans.

I am tempted to quote old-time humorist Robert Benchley when he said “There are two kinds of people in the world, the kind that divides the world into two kinds, and the kind that doesn’t”, but I won’t.

The two kinds of Republicans are: 1) the kind that is thinking, intelligent, wealthy and willing to do anything to get a Republican elected president; and 2) the idiotic, moronic troglodytes who back the Tea Party and its ilk and are willing to do anything to get a Republican elected president. A third kind does exist, the kind that is thinking and intelligent, but they will either not vote in the next election or will vote for Obama and therefore are not counted as Republicans by Republicans.

Both types of Republican-voting Republicans are committed to the anti-contraceptives issue. The Group Number One type loves the divisive issue because it keeps everyone’s mind off the fact that the GOP has no plan for confronting real issues. No woman in this group will be affected by the threat to outlaw contraceptives because all child-bearing thinking-intelligent-wealthy women can and will always be able to get contraceptives and abortions from their doctors.

Let this be known here and now: Most women in Group Number One are using contraceptives, because no thinking-intelligent-wealthy woman who has sex with her husband (and/or whoever) would be caught dead having a baby every year until they are menopausal. These women and their husbands will see to it that contraceptives and abortions are always legally available to those who can pay for them. Group Number One has no religious conviction about contraceptives, but hope the issue will get a thinking-intelligent-wealthy Republican elected.

The Group Number Two type cannot get past its small-minded prejudices, fears and superstitions. This group is terrified that intelligence and education will discover the world is round, the earth is not the center of the universe, God is not a huge old man striding around in the sky, and they want to return to a way of life they understand—life in the 1950’s.

In the last election, 228,000,000 people were eligible to vote. Roughly 65,000,000 voted for Obama, and 57,000,000 voted for McCain. It is estimated that 35% of Republicans are conservative. So, of the 57 mil, approximately 20 mil voters in the last election were conservatives. Of which, let’s say half were women. Of that 10,000,000, it has been estimated that 20% were right-wing zealot evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics.

So, okay. Two million women in the United States promise they will never use contraceptives; and from the time they hit puberty until they are in their fifties they are willing to have a baby every year; in addition, they want all women in the world to conform to that rigor.

Hey, fine…their choice. But this small group of women is beside the point.

What is very much to the point are all the thinking-intelligent-wealthy Republican women and their husbands/significant others who are willing to get on the anti-contraceptives bandwagon in order to get a Republican elected.

Now here’s my point.

Do these thinking-intelligent-wealthy women honestly believe that in this technology-over-kill age, it cannot be found out that they are using contraceptives? Do these women, some of whom are Congresspersons and some of whom are married to Congresspersons, not understand that they will be pilloried for demanding a law that they are not willing to follow?

The Republicans have set themselves up for things getting really ugly. And it won’t be the Democrats doing the dirty-work.

Obama will be re-elected. Not because he’s had a stellar first term, he hasn’t. He will be re-elected because the Republicans have alienated themselves from normal Americans. The alienation started with nominating Sarah Palin for Vice President in the 2008 election. And in the last four years the GOP has steadily moved from a reasoned political platform into crazy ranting and crackpot religious zealotry.

But it’s the Republicans who are going to use the contraceptives wedge issue against themselves. If the Repubs want to base their whole 2012 political campaign and their future electability on the issue of contraceptives, that is exactly what is going to happen. This move to attract the most ignorant, hysterical, unlettered extremists to the Republican Party is a bell that cannot be unrung.

Every time a Republican who has no children or fewer than 3 children runs for dog-catcher, the issue is going to be raised by other Republicans as to whether contraceptives have been used in the family. And do not think that proof of betrayal will not be shown. It can and it will.

If it’s divisive, bigoted, off-the-wall, nonsensical claptrap the Republicans want in the GOP, that is exactly what they are going to get.