Bah! India!

Dear Congressman,

While you are throwing rocks at those liberals ruining the United States of America, I found an interesting story about your English counterparts, the Conservative Party. (They are also know as the Tories, but that is a story for another day.) That bastion of liberal journalism, the New York Times, wrote a front page piece today on an English conservative party member named Sir Nicholas Winterton, who since 1971 has been the Member of Parliament representing the town of Macclesfield, a mid-size town about 25 miles south of Manchester.

We are a little slow on the uptake here in the USA on other county's political systems, but with everything that is going on with the big health care fight and all, I can understand why the Times reporters did not break this one any sooner.

It appears that the Conservative party in the UK is leading in the polls for the next general election, which the Labour Party will be required to call some time in the next year or so. The Conservatives have a reputation in the UK of being stodgy, elitist, and out of touch with the average British resident. Their leader, David Cameron, has worked diligently to reverse this stereotype and portray his party in a new light, one that cares for the needs of the voting public and will champion their cause in the House of Commons.

Except for Sir Nicholas....

Quoted from Wikipedia: "On 18 February 2010 during a BBC Radio 5 Live interview he defended MPs travelling first class by saying that people who traveled in standard class on trains were a "totally different type of people."


As Seth and Amy would say.... "Really, Sir Nicholas, really?"

And what type of people would that be? Would that be say...hmmm... the voting public? It appears Sir Nicholas wants to distant himself from the serfs and peasants that compose the majority of his constituency and hid among the numerous earls, barons, dukes, marquises, and occasional OBE that happens to be part of his social circle. It must be ssssooooooo hard to have to listen to their sniveling constant whining about living conditions and poor schools and crime rates and busy roads and this and than and so on and so on.... What a perfect world it would be if we could go back to the days of the early realm, where these ill-bred types were kept in their place and a gentlemen could go about a gentleman's business, spending time at the local men's only society sipping port, smoking the finest cigars, and discussing (and solving) the biggest world problems of the day before dinner.

So to you Sir Nicholas, we send our heart-felt sincerest regrets that the world has moved on and left you standing at the train station because there was not a first class car available in which for you to ride...

Jolly bad show, what!

And to Mr. Cameron... good luck old stick, you are going to need it with this baggage.

Happy St Paddy's Day

Dear Congressman,

Since today is St. Patrick's day and everyone in the US pretends they are of Irish descent while wearing green clothing and drinking insane amounts of beer, I thought it would be appropriate to present something Irish for your entertainment.

So, without further delay, here is a summary of a story written by an Irishman


The Reader’s Digest Condensed Version of James Joyce’s Ulysses

Episode 1: Stephen: “You suck, Buck!”

Episode 2: Stephen: “You’re making me queasy, Deasy.”

Episode 3: Stephen (to himself): “I miss my mom…life was different in Paris… I got a great idea for a poem!... Boy, I gotta pee.”

Episode 4: Leopold: “Here’s breakfast and a letter from Milly, Molly. Excuse me while I go make number two.”

Episode 5: Leopold: “I wish that damn tram would get out of the way!”

Episode 6: Leopold: “Paddy was a good man, but do you realize you have a dent in your hat?”

Episode 7: Read all about it! Read all about it! Leopold and Stephen are in newspaper office at same time and don’t talk to each other! Read all about it!

Episode 8: Leopold: “I’m hungry… those people are disgusting… Venus has a nice ass…what the hell does that postcard mean?...oh crap! There’s Boylan”

Episode 9: Stephen: “Shakespeare’s wife liked to do it” Buck: “So does Leopold, except I think with you.”

Episode 10: A bunch of folks wandering through Dublin… nothing to see here….

Episode 11: Leopold: “Good dinner, but what the Blazes?”

Episode 12: Citizen: “Leopold , you are a %(@#%&#$ jew!” Leopold: “I’m outta here!”

Episode 13: Leopold: “Oh lord, she is so hot!” Gerty: “He is kind of hot in a sad way!”

Episode 14: Leopold: “Is it a boy? A girl? Or a history of English prose?”

Episode 15: Leopold: “Am I in a brothel…nah… it must be a bad dream… come on Stephen., lets get out of here before the walls melt again.”

Episode 16: Leopold & Stephen (singing) : “What do you do with a drunken sailor!”

Episode 17: Leopold: “If ya gotta piss, mind the dog!”

Episode 18: Molly: “Make your own breakfast!... What should I wear to Belfast?... I wonder how you spell metempsychosis?...I am really bored….I wonder where Lieutenant Mulvey is now?... Is Milly a younger me?.... Does Stephen like me?.... I guess I still love Leopold….

The end

A story for Thursday

Dear Congressman,

Today I wanted to relay a story that I told my granddaughter over the weekend. It is not an adventure filled saga, or one that many would find particularly interesting, but for some reason I felt a need to tell it.

In September of 2003, my wife and I went to a reunion of high school friends from my days in London, England. As the reunion was in Ottawa, we decided to spend some time in Niagara Falls and Toronto before descending on Ottawa with the rest of the attendees.

This event happened in Toronto, early on a sunny Sunday morning. We were staying up on Bloor Street after getting a good weekend rate at the Hilton. Our weekend involved wandering around the streets of Toronto and exploring the ambiance of the city. This particular morning we walked down Younge Street toward the lake and stopped at that bastion of American cuisine, McDonalds, for a quick breakfast. Not that the Hilton did not have a fine breakfast buffet in their own restaurant, but at $30 Canadian each for the privilege of nibbling on their fare, we opted to spend our dollars elsewhere.

It was about 8:00am when we went for breakfast, so there was only a scattering of people at the McDonalds when we approached from the hotel. As we entered, there was a lady standing outside of the building silently talking to herself. Her appearance was that of a street person, with generous layers of clothing to fight off the evening chill, but with muted colors so as not to stand out too much. I perceived her to be fairly young, in her twenties, but the age of the homeless is hard to gauge, as she had adapted that timelessness that comes with limited options in life.

We entered the McDonalds, leaving her standing outside, still talking to herself quietly while scanning the street for threats both imaginary and real. There was a short line at the ordering counter which went quickly, and we settled down in one of the hard plastic booths to eat our breakfast and drink our coffee.

As we sat eating, a young gentleman walked away quickly from the counter after he had bought two breakfast sandwiches. He had taken one out of the bag, unwrapped it, and taken a bite all before reaching the front door of the store. As he exited, without breaking stride, he reached into the bag and held the other breakfast sandwich out to the young lady we saw earlier. She took the sandwich from him and just stared at his back as he continued up the street consuming the sandwich he kept.

At this point a subtle change came over our friend. It was not a quantum shift, like a mood swing, but she quit talking to herself and ended the constant rearguard action of scanning the surrounding area for the evil forces that lurked nearby. She held the breakfast sandwich in her hand for a minute, slowly peeling back the yellow paper covering to see what it contained. After examining the item fully, she carefully re-wrapped it so it's appearance was that of one newly served.

Our young lady then looked up and walked briskly into the store, holding her entry pass in front of her in her right hand as she headed for the condiment table. Once there she perused the contents, collecting several napkins, packets of salt and some of pepper, and several ketchup and mustard packages. Once her bounty had been collected, she found a table in the center of the near-empty McDonalds.

We were still finishing our breakfast, so I observed her from the short distance that separated us. She had used the salt and pepper on the sandwich, but had pocketed the other condiments for later consumption. Under the yellow wrapper, she had neatly arranged the brown generic napkins into a form of tablecloth. Her head was now held higher, as if she had been magically empowered by the sandwich. She ate it slowly, taking small bites and chewing thoroughly, like an unseen relative was judging her table manners as she engaged in the morning repast that had unfolded before her.

I was still sipping coffee when she finished. She placed the napkins and used condiment packets into the yellow wrapper before wadding it up into a small ball. Arising from the chair, she walked quickly by the trash receptacle, dropped the bundle inside and shuffled back to her spot adjacent to the front door of the McDonalds to continue her vigil. We left soon after to continue our day of exploring, and I was tempted to slip her some money as we walked past her. But for some reason I chose not to do so.

I wonder to this day if I had witnessed a ritual that occurred on a regular basis, or if this was a one off opportunity that the young lady took as an opportunity to dine inside. We passed by there later in the day, however she was gone by that point, off to stand guard in another of Toronto's many boulevards.

TSA trauma

Dear Congressman,

There has been a lot of controversy over the new full body scanners that airport security agencies are now adapting since the attempted Christmas Day bombing. Critics of the new scanners, specifically the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), refer to this process as a "virtual strip search".

Since the scanners provide a front and back image of all passenger's bodies that pass through the scanner, the Transportation Security Administration will be able to see through clothing and determine if anyone is trying to board a plane with 2lbs of explosives attached to their groin.

Per the TSA, they have taken steps to protect privacy, including the blurring of all faces, personnel inspecting the screening will not have direct contact with passengers, and assertions that the images are deleted soon after they are reviewed.

This is all well and good, but I personally have a serious concern regarding the implementation of this new technology.

My concern is obvious. It is about the TSA screeners who will spend at least 30 hours a week viewing these images looking for threats to the US transportation system. For reference to what I am referring, take an hour this weekend and drive to your local Wal-Mart. Grab a shopping cart and circle the store a few times. Try to imagine seeing all of the people you pass in the aisles naked.

I think you see my point here. Within a short period of time, all of these screeners will begin to develop a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from having to constantly look at screen shots of an obese general public that passes through their particular airport.

Sure, they might smile once in a while at the occasional Apollo or Aphrodite as they across their screen, but the majority of images will be of people who only know "curls" from the Arby's menu and believe it is exercise to get out of the Lazy-Boy to get another beer during commercials. The "yards of lard" that they will be expected to examine on a daily basis will become a vision that they can not shake. It will cause sleepless nights due to fears of dreaming of raging lipids and then general anxiety every workday morning when they realize that they must again examine screen shots of endless overweight individuals while trying to identify potential contraband almost completely masked by massive gelatinous fat layers.

That, my friends, is not a job I would wish on anyone.....

The fees....the fees..... the fees...

Dear Congressman,

By the end of this month, credit card companies will be regulated by new guidelines established by you and your co-workers during last year's sessions of Congress. Since these companies are going to be limited in some of their previous practices that generated much of their profits, they have begun to announce a whole new set of fees that will allow them to pad their bottom lines with additional profits courtesy of the taxpayers.

Examples include one bank charging an "inactivity fee" of $19 if you do not use your card in a 12 month period. Another more drastic fee is a $60 annual fee if card holders charge less than $2,400 a year, as rolled out by one of our wonderful Fortune 100 bailed-out financial institutions. So don't forget to charge that $200 per month to avoid that fee!

But as the need for fees drives on, I believe that banks and processing companies will only get more aggressive when it comes to this topic. Here are some ideas for them to ponder.

Early internet payment fee - Yes, it is a real hassle for the banks when you pay your credit card too early, as they have to go to the trouble of applying your payment outside of their "planned window", thus clogging up their administrative infrastructure.To fix this irritating problem, banks will designate a 30 minute period on a monthly basis when you can pay your bill online. If you miss this window, it's a $39 fee. Typically, for everyone's convenience, the window will be open between 3:30am-4:00am Eastern Standard Time on the first Sunday of the month.

Call center fee - Yup, those fine folks over in India have to eat as well, so the major banks will be instituting a fee for every time you feel the need to call the 1-800 number on the back of your card. No a lot of money, just a simple $5 connection fee and then 35 cents a minute after that, conveniently billed directly to your card!

Bonus administration recovery fee - Every year the banks issue their bonus checks, and then the majority of the payroll staff quit in disgust when they see insane amount of money the top 10% of employees are paying themselves, while they are trying to get by on an annual salary that is less than an average executive team member's monthly expense allowance. Thus, the bank incur an ongoing irritation of having to constantly hire menial payroll staff to process their grotesquely large annual payouts. A consultant was hired by a number of banks to address this problem and recommended that they forgo a small portion of their bonuses to placate the disgruntled employees by sharing it with them. The banks thanked the consultants for their hard work, escorted them the door, and then proceeded to institute this fee on cardholders to offset the additional costs of continuously hiring new payroll department employees on an on-going basis.

BWC fees - If you read your credit card statement it will say the following: BWC fees are levied on all customers of XXX bank as per outlined in the cardholder agreement dated January 31, 2010. BWC fees are calculated as 0.01% of all outstanding balances on a 28 day cycle, and billed in arrears. If you pay your balance in full each month, then your BWC fees will not be billed in the ensuing month's activity, provided that BWC waiver conditions are met. BWC waiver conditions require that once during the 28 billing period that the BWC fees are accrued, a verified 1/4 inch or more of snowfall is recorded in an area commonly defined as the Sahara Desert. (if you read far enough into the fine print, you will find the BWC stands for : "Because We Can")