Website Innovations that no one needs. (You guys leave Auntie Em alone!)

Preying on the elderly is nothing new. And nothing rare. Googling “preying on the elderly” gets you nearly a quarter of a million hits. The hits for “scamming the elderly” are almost that high.

Mostly, I read about this in the abstract.

But shortly before my mother (at age 80) sold her house, she was being hard-sell hustled by some company that wanted her to buy something super-expensive. I can’t recall exactly what it was, and my mother is no longer here to ask, but I think it may have been a state of the art home security that would have been more appropriate for an estate insured by Chubb than for a modest ranch house in Main South, Worcester.

Because my mother was a kind, polite, and hard of hearing old lady, the sales person almost convinced her she HAD to invite him to make a home visit and buy something or other from him. But in addition to being kind, polite, and hard of hearing, Lizzie was also frugal and with-it enough to enlist the advice of her kids. We put the kibosh on this transaction.

More recently, my cousin Ellen has had a close encounter with a web-based marketing services company that had suckered her elderly aunt-in-law into agreeing to spend $15K for a computer, web site, banner ads, etc., and a full set up that would let her run a home-based marketing business.

The company that sold her this bill of goods was Website Innovations.

Keeping in mind that, on the web no one knows you’re a dog, the company looks legit, with a range of reasonably priced web services. But running through their price list, I’d say that they must have gotten Auntie Em to purchase two of everything.

While the business might look like it’s on the up and up, the Better Business Bureau of Central, Northern, and Western Arizona – Website Innovations is headquartered in Arizona – gives the company a big fat:

for running one of those insidious work-from-home schemes.

BBB complaints and inquiries allege that Website Innovations is a work at home business opportunity that charges up front fees, and makes high income claims that do not generate income for the consumer. On December 28, 2011, the BBB requested that Website Innovations provide substantiation that they are not a work from home business opportunity. While the company provided the BBB with information by the deadline given by the BBB, the information did not substantiate the company is not work at home.

Website innovations like this we could all live without.

Anyway, Auntie Em was saved by the fact that the price tag on her purchase was so high it required a bank transfer. The bank smelled a rat and called the police.

It’s easy to see how Auntie Em got snookered.

A widow with no children, Auntie Em is, at 84, suffering from dementia.

But she was with it until a couple of years ago, and had held a number of good jobs over the years,. For many years – up until her early 80’s – she ran a successful bookkeeping business, with many clients ran, from home. But as she aged, and dementia started to set in, the mistakes started adding up and Auntie Em was out of business.

So, here’s a woman who well into old age had been professionally active. And who remains (these are Ellen’s words) “in so may ways her witty, engaging, funny self.... Until you find out the litany of weird things she's been doing.” One of which was paying $1,000 for a vacuum cleaner that she didn’t need, which is probably what got her on the sucker list.

How simple it must have been for someone to convince Auntie Em that she could, once again, become a vitally engaged business woman.  That she would once again be in the professional driver’s seat, making her own decisions, running her own company.  And while Ellen and her husband Mike have been watching out for Auntie Em, making repeated visits over the last several months as her condition has deteriorated – no small thing, given that Auntie Em lives 250 miles from Ellen and Mike’s Chicagoland home – they can’t be there with her every day.

Fortunately, the bank was able to nip this con in the bud.

I’m sure that the Website Innovation high-pressure phone salesperson would tell you that they weren’t doing anything illegal. And why shouldn’t a little old lady be enabled, even encouraged, to keep on keeping on with her own business?And how were they to know that Auntie Em was a little old lady with dementia?

Well, whether it’s legal or not, it sure isn’t ethical.

Speaking of which, Website Innovation’s Facebook page includes a link to their section on something called Ethical Arizona – which is part of that Central, Northern Western BBB and is “your source for ethical companies in Arizona.”

When you click on the link with the URL that’s particular to Website Innovation’s, you come up empty.

Maybe they thought nobody’d click through. Just like maybe they thought that no one had Auntie Em’s back.

Bad enough suckering anyone into one of these rancid work at home businesses, let alone someone’s who’s 84 years old.

You really have to ask yourselves how some people manage to look themselves in the mirror, don’t you?

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A tip of the Pink Slip hat to my cousin Ellen for letting me use Auntie Em’s story.

“Guys who like My Little Pony”? I’m not really sure I needed to click through on this headline…

As fanboy obsessions go, this one seems pretty harmless.

Just because you’re over the age of reason, and just because you’re a guy, doesn’t mean you can’t be infatuated with/enamored of all things My Little Pony.

It could be worse.

As cloyingly sweet, colorful and cutesy, little kiddo icons go, My Little Pony ponies are a lot less gag-inducing than Barney. But not, I’m afraid, quite as interesting and charming as the TeleTubbies.

Still, this would be somewhat analogous to if guys of my generation, back in the late sixties and early seventies, had been reliving their childhoods by obsessing about Tiny Tears or Betsy Westsy dolls. Or setting up My Little Margie or Annie Oakley Fan Clubs. Or playing jacks.

Instead of focusing on what guys of my generation were obsessing about when they were in their late teens and twenties: getting high, getting laid, and getting out of the Vietnam War.

But the times, as our bard did inform us, oh, so many years ago, they are a-changin’.

And these days, young men flock to BronyCon Summer 2012, which was held last weekend at the Meadowlands, and:

…which drew 4,000 men, women, boys and girls, many in colorful wigs and costumes. (Source: AP article on Boston.com.)

Not that I had anything better to do last weekend. But still…

And 4,000 folks decked out in My Little Pony gear at the Meadowlands?

Somewhere, if he can budge under all that concrete, Jimmy Hoffa is rolling over in his grave. (And, ba-da-bing, what would Tony Soprano say?)

One of the attendees was Dale Fjordbotten

"I thought about what people would say. `It's creepy. It's weird. It's a ... show for little girls,'" said Fjordbotten, from Staten Island, N.Y. "It's just a great show ... the story line, the plot, the beautiful animation."

Now I suppose that it’s not out of the question that something that looks like this has a great story line, plot, and animation. And that it’s not – oh, so sexist – a show for little girls. Yet if I were a betting woman, I might be inclined to bet that this is not one of those shows, like Sponge Bob, that is entertaining enough for wide-eyed kids and interesting enough for jaded adults. But, hey, I’ve only just seen the little plastic toys, with their little plastic manes, and their little plastic combs. What do I know? Just from the look of things, I would guess that watching this show unaccompanied by a minor would, for me, be akin to torture. Modest torture, surely. Nothing that rises to the water-boarding level. More like fingernails-grating-on-the-blackboard torture. Or freeze brain from sucking down a pina colada torture. But torture, nonetheless.

"I discovered that there's nothing to be ashamed of being a Brony," said 19-year-old James Penna of Mastic in Long Island, N.Y. "People are into what they're into."

Yes, James, you are so right. Sometimes what people are into is truly horrific in nature and, thankfully, being a brony – the name for male My Little Pony fans – is not in this category. But sometimes people are just into something that’s just sort of…odd.

The resurgence of interest in My Little Pony, which was a fad in the1980’s, came about when Hasbro hired animator Lauren Faust to create a new series for the pastel herd, “Friendship is Magic.”

Faust told The Associated Press at BronyCon on Saturday that she never imagined the show would be such a hit with teenage boys and young men. She said her main target was little girls, but she hoped to draw in moms and perhaps some boys with strong characters and compelling story lines.

"We live in a society where saying that something is for girls is the equivalent to saying that something is stupid, or saying that something isn't worthwhile," Faust said.

"I think that's awful and I think that kind of attitude needs to be changed," she said. "And these men are doing it. ... They're proud that they're forward-thinking and modern enough to look past this misogynistic attitude."

Faust is, of course, dead on when she points this out. Girls are always expected to tag along and be interested in TV shows, books, movies that feature boys. But let a girl be the leader, the one with the adventures, the one with the ideas, the one in charge, and it’s box-office poison.

What weirds me out here is not that the My Little Pony appeals to boys. It would be great to see little boys watching “girls shows” without having anyone wig out about their masculinity. I’d say ‘bravo’ to that.

What’s peculiar to me is the age of the bronies, young men who, in a prior generation (mine) would have been trying to get laid, etc. And in the prior-prior generation (“the greatest”) would have been fighting on Guadalcanal.

It just seems, well, a bit too juvenile.

A couple of the BronCon conventioneers dropped a bit of an explanation.

Zac North is 26. He came to BronCon from Dayton because he likes that the show is:

“…colorful and innocent, which is something I don't have in my life," the 26-year-old Sam's Club worker said. "I like the community away from the show."

And Gabby Pantaloni from Hershey, Pennsylvania, had this to offer:

"After watching the show, I could see why anyone of any age would like it," she said. "I think it just makes us all feel like kids again. Some of us are afraid of growing up. We're all just kids at heart.”

I think that Gabby has a lock on it.

These are scary times.

The brony generation is getting out of college saddled with a lot of debt, and trotting into a shaky job market. And for those who didn’t go to college, or who didn’t develop some strong skills, the future looks even more gloomy.

Sure, they’ll grow up. They have to at some point. But I suppose if they want to spend a couple of years escaping with My Little Pony, you can’t really blame them.

I kind of wish they were spending the time trying to figure out what they’re going to do with their lives, and how to make the real world a better place.

It’s hard. It’s scary. And there’s no guarantee out there that things are going to get better.

My Little Pony may help you cope in the short term, but in the long run, the bronies are going to have to cowboy up.

What’s in your wallet? No. Wait. I’ll just figure it out for myself.

In my next life, I’m coming back as a Luddite.

Oh, wait.

I already am one.

Don’t let this blogging stuff fool you, I’m rapidly getting to the point where I believe that 80-90% of whatever’s hip and happenin’ on the Internet is sheer and utterly useless nonsense, and 80-90% of that is actually going to be hazardous to our – you name it – mental, physical, social, political, intellectual, and financial health.

The latest bit of technology that’s riled me up is not the usual social-whirl folderol. It’s something more insidious: price customization software that let’s an online retailer game how much you’re willing to pay based on factors like OS and zip code. (Mac users are assumed to be less price sensitive. Folks in certain zip codes are known to be wealthier than those in other zips. So, while I’m a low-rent Windows kind of gal, I do live in the sort of ‘hood that might just tempt an online retailer to gouge.  )

Not that selective pricing strategies are anything new.

Anyone who’s been to an outdoor market of any kind – farmers’, antique, flea – understands that prices are negotiable and, no doubt, farmers, antique dealers, and fleas are all quite adept at sizing up just how deep the desire and pockets are of the person they’re negotiating with.

Anyone who’s worked in enterprise software knows just how squishy pricing can be, with everything subject to negotiation. As with snowflakes, no two customers ever ending up paying the same price for pretty much the same thing.

And:

In a 2006 study of Fulton fish market in New York, Kathryn Graddy of Oxford University found that dealers regularly charged Asian buyers less than whites because the Asians had proved, over time, more willing to reject high prices, and readier to band together to boycott dealers who ripped them off. (Source: The Economist.)

Yet it somehow doesn’t seem sporting that online, where we hear so much about the vaunted transparency that will race all those prices to the bottom so that we all get to pay next to nothing for something, the retailers will be plotting and scheming to charge us more than they charge the next guy.

Not surprisingly, most online retailers are a tad reluctant to draw attention to whether they practice this practice.

Orbitz uses it.

Its software detects whether people browsing its site are using an Apple Mac or a Windows PC and, since it has found that Mac users tend to choose pricier hotels, that is what it recommends to them. Orbitz stresses that it does not charge people different rates for the same rooms, but some online firms are believed to be doing just that, for instance by charging full whack for those assumed to be willing and able to pay it, while offering promotional prices to the rest.

What’s the difference between this and having the “want fries with that?” kid at McDonald’s suss you out and decide that you can afford to pay full price for a Big Mac, while the down-at-his-heels guy in back of you gets handed a coupon for half-off.

I don’t know about you, but I would feel plenty aggrieved. While also feeling insulted if the “want fries with that?” kid didn’t recognize that I was carrying a real Longchamps bag, and insultingly, offered to have me pay less than the hoitier-toitier bee-yotch in line before me.)

Or is the world just coming full circle here, and radical capitalism has gone around the bend and met radical communism? (From each according to his ability (to pay), to each according to his means.)

Of course, just because an online retailer is data mining to “personalize” the shopping experience for you doesn’t mean that the personalization includes figuring out who can afford a bit more. (Side note to data miners. I have carpal tunnel syndrome. Before being diagnosed by my doctor, I spent a bit of time roaming the web – no doubt contributing to my carpal tunnel problems – and one of the things I searched on was “neuropathy.” But puh-leeze. I’m wearing a splint at night, my symptoms are diminishing, and I no longer want to see some link to a neuropathy site appear every time I turn a web page. Enough is enough.)

Still, it all seems rather unfair.

Not to mention making me really wary about whether a retailer is playing this game.

But whether they’re price-fixing or not, retailers are going in big for “personalization”.

RichRelevance – how’s that for a name – is one of the outfits in the personalized shopping/price customization biz:

Over 350 million times per day, RichRelevance is powering the personalized shopping experiences for consumers shopping the world’s largest and most innovative retail brands like Walmart, Sears, Target, Marks & Spencer and John Lewis…. RichRelevance helps retailers increase sales and customer engagement by recommending the most relevant products to consumers regardless of the channel they are shopping.

Ah, customer engagement.

Personally, personalizationally, if I want to be engaged as a customer I’ll go to a store or call the 800 number.

What I like about shopping online is that it’s not engaging.  It’s a cut and dried, you-got-it-I-want-it transaction. No small talk required. Leave me (and my neuropathy) the hell alone.

But I am, of course, both a latter day Luddite and a member of a demographic that no one except the AARP cares about, anyway.

RichRelevance has delivered more than $5 Billion in attributable sales for its retail clients to date, and is accelerating these results with the introduction of a new form of digital advertising called Shopping Media which allows manufacturers to engage consumers where it matters most—in the digital aisles on the largest retail sites in world.

I’m sure that they’ll be on the lookout for me – the crazed Luddite running amok in the digital aisles, trying to knock a personalizer over with my virtual shopping cart.

Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet

This afternoon, I’ll probably turn on the Red Sox game. (What’s more American than baseball?)

Maybe a bit earlier, I’ll brave a stroll down to the Esplanade and queue up with the gathering Pops’ Concert crowd at the hot dog stand. Probably not, as I’d feel too badly that my gluten-free husband couldn’t join me for a dog, which my mouth is now watering for. (Relish, mustard, and onions, by the way. Never ketchup.)

Apple pie may be American, but it’s not exactly a summer-time pie now, is it.  If I were going to go in for some 4th of July pie, it would be blueberry. My mother’s recipe. Yum! (If only I had mastered her crust-making skills.  Of course, there’d still be that gluten-free sympathy thing, which would keep me from pie-baking, even with a frozen store-bought crust…)

As far as I can tell, Chevrolets are 100% gluten-free. And I do believe that they’re mostly made in the good old U.S. A.

I just don’t think I know anyone who actually drives one.

In any case, it’s actually kind of nice to have a mid-week Fourth of July.

The holiday isn’t getting lost in the long weekend, and is standing on it’s own for a change.

I kind of like that feeling.

Other than baseball, my plans for the day are to read the Declaration of Independence, which The Boston Globe prints each year on its editorial page. (I will even have gone retro and picked up a paper copy of the paper for a change.)

In the evening, although we don’t live more than 200 yards – if that – from the Hatch Shell, we’ll put the Pops’ Concert on TV and watch the fireworks out our window.

In between Declaration of Independence reading, baseball watching, and fireworks gazing, I’ll think about just how unsettling it is to be am American these days.

It’s no longer our century.

This century, we’ll have to share.

This is not going down all that well, in some quarters in particular, and the political landscape is grim.

No, we don’t (yet) have elected representatives beating each other over the head with canes, as happened when Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist, was beaten nearly to death by South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks. (Sumner was out of commission for three years, but had the best revenge. He outlived Brooks by 17 years. Not to mention that Sumner’s pallbearers included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Apparently you had to have three names to play. No mention of who bore Brooks’ pall, but I doubt they were as illustrious as the aforementioned. Source of Sumner-Brooks info, wikipedia.)

But even if we haven’t yet fallen to the gutta-percha-cane beating level, when it comes to our political discourse, things aren’t all that well-mannered these days.

Among the rants that the SCOTUS decision on the Affordable Care Act inspired were a former GOP spokesman in Michigan, who suggested that armed rebellion might be justified to break the yoke of progressive tyranny; a former NH town official who wished colon cancer on the five majority-voting justices; and a radio talk show host who said that the ruling demonstrated that John Roberts is brain-impaired due to epilepsy.

Sweet land of liberty, alright.

Maybe things will tone down after this fall’s election. Maybe comity and common sense will prevail.

On the Glorious Fourth of July, we can only hope that at some point we’ll actually become the shining city upon a hill that, for the world’s sake, wouldn’t be so bad to have around and which, in most of our red-white-and-blue heart of hearts, we believe we are.

Happy Fourth of July!

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Last year’s Glorious Fourth post.

I think that I shall never see a sculpture lovely as a tree. But what an interesting career switch.

There was an interesting article on Boston.com on Sunday about a fibre optics technician who went from working for a telecomm to supporting himself as a chainsaw sculptor.

Now art-wise, wood sculpting is not precisely my cup of tea – too “nature’s grandeur”, too hippy-ish, too Deerslayer.  Along with Joyce Kilmer, I’d much rather look at a beautiful tree than look at something carved out of one. (Maybe it would be fun to have a cigar-store Indian from the way back, but mostly this is not my aesthetic.) But if you’re thinking that chainsaw carving is just those crudely hacked out statues of bears you see once in a while, think again.

Ken Packie is a bona fide artist. If you’re into wildlife carvings, I’d say that Ken’s your man. Hard to believe that this gets done with a chainsaw, but there you have it. (Okay, he uses a chisel and other sculpting tools to finish things off. Still…)

What’s really great about this story is the career transition that it represents.

From switch on the modem to rev up the chainsaw.

Packie had no training as an artist when,

At a log home show in 2005 he came across a man demonstrating chainsaw-sculpting techniques. Packie said something just clicked in his head and when he got home he immediately sought out a sculptor who taught classes.

A few years later, he decided that he was ready to take a stab at making a living as a professional chain saw sculptor.

And darned if he isn’t succeeding.

It helped to have an understanding wife, and I can’t help but thinking that, in homes across America, wood-be chainsaw artists are wishing that they had Ken Packie’s wife, rather than the one that’s asking them ‘are you out of your mind?’

"My wife said, `If you don't try, you never know.' So I dropped the day job," he said.

And about those bears that you see everywhere:

When Packie started, he said he point-blank refused to carve bears -- boxy, rough-hewn creations that proliferate at second-rate craft shows and serve as most people's introduction to the world of chainsaw sculpting.

"I said, `Really? Does the world need anymore of those?' " he said, describing a conversation with Jeff Samudosky, who served as his mentor.

Samudosky apprised Packie of the market realities: people like to buy wood-carved bears. If you want to make a living doing this, you’re going to have to carve bears.

Which Packie does.

Only his actually look like bears.

Since quitting his day job, Packie has entered (and won or finished high up there) in international chainsaw carving competitions. And he’s now got an exhibition at an art gallery out in Otis, Massachusetts, out there in the Berkshires, which is where Packie lives.  If you’re out that way, Packie’s at the Stanmeyer Gallery for the summer.

Packie is proud of how far he's come, but he said his first year carving full time was stressful. He worked more hours than he ever had before and his income was unpredictable. At the same time, he said he was happier than ever and can't imagine falling back into his old day job.

Happier than ever. Sigh….

He credits his family and the town of Otis as a whole for making his success a reality. From his wife and kids willingness to cut back during those tough first years to the town's highway department, which drops off brush and logs they clear from roadsides. [Packie only works with downed trees.]

"I always say it takes a village to raise a carver," Packie said.

But if there’s no one in your particular village who’s going to help raise you as a carver, you can join one of two guilds dedicated to the art of chainsaw: the United Chainsaw Carvers Guild or the Cascade Chainsaw Sculptors Guild.

I’m such a city girl: when I went to type in chainsaw just now, the back of my brain took command and I wrote “chain store.”

Anyway, this is just such a feel-good story, I couldn’t help but respond to it.

Plus, I would like to thank Ken Packie for this:

From now on, when I hear the word “chainsaw”, I will not automatically think Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Or, for that matter, chain store.

Thanks, Ken, an best of luck.

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Pictures are taken from Ken Packie’s web site.

Order in the Court! Order in the Court!

As I sit here writing this post, it’s a very hot Sunday in Boston. I’m at The Writers’ Room, which is the downtown financial district, about a mile or so walk from my home.

When I come to The Room, I’m not dressing for work. I typically have on jeans and a sweater (winter) or cropped khakis and a shirt (summer).  It’s not what I would wear to a client’s, but it’s not what I’d loll around the house wearing, either. It’s one step above house-loll.

That’s because, if I’m going into a quasi-office, and it’s in the middle of a financial district, I don’t want to look like I’m just heading to the kitchen to grab a Skinny Cow out of the freezer while the new pitcher’s warming up. And I don’t want to look like a tourist.

Not that there’s anything wrong with looking like a tourist. This town’s full of them and I say, bring ‘em on. And when it’s 86 degrees out, I really don’t expect them to be walking around in business casual. You’re on vacation: shorts are fine. (Although I will say that some of the heftier tourists would keep their cool much better if they swapped out their shorts and tees for a kaftan or muu-muu. And while I’m on the subject, ain’t no one over the age of twelve who looks good in anything to do with Winnie-the-Pooh, especially if you share your BMI with him.)

What got me thinking about what to wear where was seeing an article in The Huffington Post on a court reporter in New Zealand who showed up to cover a murder trial wearing skin-tight gold glitter pants.

A murder trial!

Is there nothing that’s taken seriously any more?I can see this sartorial splendor for a Kardashian divorce hearing. Or a Lindsay Lohan anything. But for a murder trial?

No, no, a thousand times no.

But I could have seen this coming as far back as 1979, when someone showed up at my Uncle Charlie’s wake wearing a track suit.

I remember the ripple of shock that ran through the “parlor” at O’Connor Brothers.

Not that we were expecting “mourners” to show up in frock coats, or dramatic Jackie Kennedy bee-keeper-like black veils.  This was, after all, Main South Worcester.

Still…

By the way, I “quote ringed” the word mourner there because the jamoke who showed up in the track suit was Charlie’s more or less brother-in-law. Nothing surprising about a brother-in-law showing up at a wake, of course, but in this case, Charlie and his wife, after a brief couple of months marriage, had been separated for over 40 years. So it was assumed that the brother-in-law was an emissary from the not-quite-ex-wife, looking for something. (Charlie never got divorced because Catholics just didn’t do that in the 1930’s.)

With Charlie, unless  you count his collection of outré shirts and ties, there was nothing to be looking for.  But that’s another whole story.

No, the real shocker was that track suit.

Who ever heard of someone showing up a wake wearing a track suit?

Fast forward a couple of decades, and we would have been thankful if the “boy next door” had come to my mother’s wake in something as refined and respectful as a track suit.

No, he came directly from work, wearing dirty cut offs, work boots, and a sweatshirt.

Well, nice that he came and all that, but this was a wake, not a backyard barbecue cum beer blast.

(In retrospect, what else could be expected from someone who’s judgment was so foul that he ended up a few years later in a Federal penitentiary on a child pornography charge.)

I’ve also seen some pretty sketchy garb at work over the years.

The worst was when one of the techies showed up in flip-flops, cut offs, and a pale-yellow cotton shirt. Nothing out of the ordinary at this particular company, where business casual was elevated to a new level. (I should say de-elevated to a new low.) What was a bit extra-ordinary was the shirt. It appeared to be a pajama shirt, one with numerous holes in it, and what appeared to be numerous dried blood stains on the back.

The company shirt police – I was a deputy – informed N that the company-wide preference was that he retire the holey and bloody pajama shirt.

He did.

With all this, I am nonetheless a bit taken aback about a court reporter showing up for work at a murder trial in a get up more appropriate for Studio 54 in its heyday.

Perhaps the reporter, thinking she was hot stuff, was in mourning for Donna Summer.

The reporter was asked to leave the court

Though there are no specific provisions of what members of the media must wear in the courtroom, the Ministry of Justice asks reporters to "please attend court suitably and professionally dressed" in its media guide for court reporters.

Perhaps the media guide should have included illustrations.

Talk about a Glamour Don’t.

Oh, well, at least it’s something of a relief to see that it’s not just Americans who go in for slipping the bonds of good taste.

If foie gras is outlawed, only outlaws will eat foie gras

In the eyes of the animal cruelty people, what’s good for the goose, and the Mucovy duck, is to not have to undergo the ordeal of gavage.

Gavage, you may well ask?

Gavage.

The force-feeding by tube technique that was used for (or was it against?) hunger-striking British suffragettes a hundred years ago is also what’s used to plump up the livers of those geese destined to become foie gras donors, rather than duvets.

The French, who took up foie during the Renaissance and are still the world’s leading producers and consumers, pioneered the automated feeding systems—tube down the throat, corn gushes in—that are the industry standard and the cause of the greatest controversy. The process, which they call gavage, takes two to three weeks and expands a bird’s liver to around ten times its natural size. (Source: The New Yorker.)

Animal rights activists have, understandably, been opposed to this practice. And they’ve succeeded in getting it banned in California. As of July 1, the state is gavage free. Let freedom ring - at least for geese.

For foie gras producers, something’s ringing, and it’s the death knell for their business. The producers profiled in The New Yorker article, who run Sonoma-Artisan Foie Gras, say that they’ve spent $1.6M on “lawyers, crisis P.R., and lobbying” to stop the ban from happening. Which is decidedly not chicken feed – or even chopped liver.

And for both gourmets et gourmands, well, they’ll no doubt be moseying around this weekend looking for their last foie gras fix.

There’s some debate over whether it’s possible to make foie gras without gavage:

Several years ago, a Spanish farmer named Eduardo Sousa became famous for producing “ethical foie gras” by allowing his flock to eat freely in a lush orchard. Geese, like other migratory waterfowl, instinctively gorge in the fall, storing fat in the liver, in preparation for their flight to wintering grounds. (In 2008, Dan Barber gave a TED talk on Sousa, and then tried, unsuccessfully, to replicate his results on the East Coast.)

Gavagistes maintain that Sousa’s approach is a commercial non-starter: “bogus”, “a hobby.”

Whether it is or not, how interesting that “ethical foie gras” was a topic at TED, the “ideas worth spreading” conference where I would suspect that the typical attendee is someone who both has the time and interest to worry about “ethical foie gras” and regularly dines at the kinds of restaurants that have foie gras (ethical or not) on the menu. No foie gras at Olive Garden. No foie gras at Red Lobster.  Fatty liver is what you might end up with if you took your three-squares a day at Denny’s, but there’s no fatty goose liver on the laminated bill of fare. (The better for the waitress to wipe it “clean” with her damp rag; I may not have ever worked at a Denny’s, but I am a Big Boy alumna.)

To its defenders and detractors, foie gras is an easy target—a luxury good with bad optics—and passing legislation against it is far easier than going after Big Poultry, though that may be the activists’ ultimate goal.

Big Poultry may well be their ultimate goal, but I think that one will be a harder sell.

How many people ever eat foie gras?

Vs. the number of folks who at least occasionally munch down a 6-pack of McNuggets. Or wheel their cart past the meat section of the local grocery store and toss one of those chicken McBreasts that are the size of turkeys of yore into their shopping cart.

I’m quite certain if that we really thought about where those Dolly Parton-esque chickens come from, we’d be doing without. Or buying only free-range chicken that were raised with all sorts of freedoms – including the right to decide for themselves whether they wanted to be big breasted or flat-chested. Farms where Farmer Brown left around a few Mark Eden Bust Developers, in case some of the girls wanted to pick them up. (“We  must, we must, we must develop the bus.”) Or asked the hen parties to peck once for yes, twice for no, to gauge whether they wanted silicon implants.

Personally, I find the idea of gavage, whether used on the Pankhurst sisters or on a Mucovy duck, somewhat abhorrent. But, then again, I could quite happily live the rest of my life sans foie gras.

On the other hand, if I really started thinking about where those skinless, frozen chicken breasts in my freezer came from.

Puk, puk, pooka…

I swear: what are they thinking down there in Middleborough?

The town of Middleborough, Massachusetts, is in the news.

As is often the case when some obscure burg achieves national recognition, it’s seldom for something glowingly positive: perfect SAT scores prove unequivocally that Lake Woebegone’s children are all above average; suburb achieves 100% no-negative-environmental-impact score by line drying their laundry; town places all shelter animals in loving homes.

No, mostly it’s for something peculiar, maybe even a bit foolish. (C.f., towns that enact laws that state that every household must have a gun.)

To the peculiar, maybe even a bit foolish category, I nominate Middleborough’s recent vote to fine folks $20 when the use profanity in public.

Officials insist the proposal was not intended to censor casual or private conversations, but instead to crack down on loud, profanity-laden language used by teens and other young people in the downtown area and public parks. (Source: Huffington Post. I told you this made the national news!)

No word on what’s banned in Middleborough, but a good place to start might be George Carlin’s seven dirty words. (Don’t click through if you’re nervous about seeing the f-word, the s-word, the c-word in print. I do not want to piss, I mean urinate, off any delicate readers.)

Outlawing dirty words is not exactly new in Middleborough. In 1968, they made cursing a crime. The law was never enforced because it was just too much trouble. The thinking this time is that a civil penalty – a fine – will do the trick.

Ah, 1968, that would be when a crowd of foul-mouthed teenagers of an earlier era must have started hanging around beautiful downtown Middleborough swearing their asses off. Apparently, those teenagers are now all grown up and have aged into the kind of censorious prudes who would vote to fine those who practice the fine art of not deleting their expletives.

The town meeting vote was not a nail biter: 183-50.

One of the approving disapprovers is Mimi Duphily, who is “really happy about it…I don't care what you do in private. It's in public what bothers me."

Now, I would not normally name names in this sort of post, but I happened to hit spelling check, and the suggested alternatives for “Duphily” included Dopily and Dumpily. (Sorry, Ms. Duphily, I couldn’t resist.)

Now I don’t know how big a problem that foul language is in Middleborough. I doubt that there are hordes of profanity-hurling teens rampaging through the streets, but you never know. If the alternative is hanging out in cranberry bogs – the big game in town – this may, in fact, be what’s happening. And I can’t blame the Middleborough moms who don’t want to have their four year olds exposed to the rants of foul-mouthed layabouts every time they have to run into CVS for toothpaste.

Still, I expect that fining folks for using profanity will turn out to be a non-starter.

As an avid profanity user from way-back, there are few words, other than the grossest of ethnic/racial slurs and the c-word, that offend me. Personally, I was more offended last summer when, walking down the main drag in Astoria, Oregon with my sister and nieces, we spotted a yahoo with a swastika on the back of his jacket. That both offended and scared me. (Although as someone who has been expecting fascism to arrive in American since 1968, give or take a year, I was not surprised.)

Most everyone I hang with curses/swears/whatever you want to call it, too. This disproves my mother’s repeated pronouncement that only those with limited vocabularies resort to profanity. (Not so, Ma: labile, inchoate, transmogrified, irenic*, riparian – to name just a few of My Big Words.)

Now, I don’t know anyone who fuckin’ uses the fuckin’ f-word as a fuckin’ adjective to fuckin’ modify every fuckin’ word out of their fuckin’ mouth.

But I do use the word, among other not-so-nicey-nice words with some regularity. (See my earlier post Sugar-Honey-Ice-Tea.)

I just can’t imagine that such regularity would include hanging around the streets of Middleborough yelling “bad words” at the top of my lungs.

I do pass by Middleborough when I’m heading to the Cape, however. Maybe next time I’ll swing by and let a few choice words fly.

I missed the protest that was held there the other day. And in any case,

Enforcement of the ordinance is on hold until Attorney General Martha Coakley determines whether the measure is constitutional. (Source: Boston.com)

But thinking about a Middleborough drive-by reminds me that, when my nieces -  now teenagers – were younger, they were driving us, for a while, to distraction by occasional forays into button-pushing, moronic, and way, way, way too repetitive use of strong language when in my (non-parental) presence.

I would explain to them that, while I personally didn’t give a rat’s ass what they said, they were not using their choice words with any particular élan.  That they were, in fact, boring. And that there were certainly people out there who really, really, really don’t like to hear pretty little girls with trash mouths. Just because. (For some reason, their swearing especially drove me nuts when I was driving.)

What I would let them do, when I had the girls in the car, heading to my sister and brother-in-law’s in Wellfleet, they could say whatever they wanted while we were crossing the Sagamore Bridge on the way to The Cape.

Knock yourself out, I would tell them. No holds barred. Open the windows. Stick your heads out. Holler to the heavens.

But, once we got to the other side of the bridge, that was it. No more swearing.

Surprisingly, it worked.

The girls got it out of their system, and, although we no longer need to rely on it, we all fondly remember our times on The Swearing Bridge.

Perhaps Middleborough should reserve a certain place or time in town where the kids can have at it. Moms with toddlers in toe, gray haired grannies heading into Dunkie’s for a cuppa after Mass, folks who just don’t want to listen to a bunch of moronic teenagers with nothing better to do,would know where and when to avoid “it”.

Of course, this would remove the fun of being provocative and antagonistic.

Still, it might work better than a $20 fine.

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*Yes, V, this ones for you!

Did you hear the one about the exploding toilet?

There are certain things that we take for granted.

When we flip a light switch, we expect light. And we expect that we will not get, say, electrocuted.

When we turn on the water tap, we expect water. And we expect that we won’t get, say, gasoline.

And when we flush the toilet, we expect whatever’s in the bowl to disappear. And we expect that we won’t get, say, hit by shards from an exploding toilet tank lid.

But that’s apparently what’s been happening if you have a toilet that isn’t one of those old fashioned types with the float arm, float ball, and ballcock. But does have one of those fancy-dan, new-fangled unit that’s used in the fancy-dan, new-fangled pressure units that have gained in popularity since the water-saver toilets came into play.

So Flushmate, after the Consumer Product Safety Commission recorded 304 incidents, has recalled the Series 504 Flushmate III Pressure-Assist Flushing System. – over 2.3 million of them.

Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about this. (Phew.) First, we have the old-timey ones. Second, the recalled items were manufactured between 1997 and 2008, and our toilets pre-date that. By many moons.

But I do know what it’s like to have an exploding toilet.

Many years ago, I had a top floor apartment with a rather strange toilet.

Rather than having a tank, the toilet was “hard wired” (hard piped?) directly into the wall.  Once, when I came back from a week or so away, I flushed the toilet, only to have the pipe that connected the toilet to the wall come flying off.

What a shockeroo.

It took me a moment or two to realize what had happened.

Whatever the set up was behind the wall, I only ended up with the equivalent of one tank-full of water on the floor.

And, I must say, a good laugh, once I got things mopped up and the plumber in to get things plumbed.

When I am next in the market for a toilet, I will be looking at one of those bi-modal jobs, with the light and heavy flush options, depending on whether you want to flush something light or heavy. I would also consider one with a Flushmate, as it seems to be a pretty good little product from a pretty good little company. It’s in the heartland. It produces something that – exploding tank lids aside – is good for the environment. And I believe it manufacturers its products in the good old U.S. of A.

So I’m sorry that they’ve had to do this recall.

Although it’s really not so much a recall as it is a do-over.

If you have one of the recalled Flushmate III units, turn off the water supply to your toilet and request a free repair kit. You can get more information and a kit, by contacting Flushmate at (800) 303-5123 weekdays between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time or by visiting their recall site..(Source: Boston.com)

Well, I can see that this would be a major drag if you were in a one toilet situation. But I suppose if you were in a one toilet situation, you might want to keep that water supply on and take your chances while you wait for that free repair kit to arrive.

I mean, if there’ve only been 304 explosions, 14 injuries, and no deaths out of 2.3 million toilets, then the likelihood that your number (one or two) is up is pretty low, probabilistically speaking.

Anyway, many years decades ago, the first time I heard about a product recall, it was one of those early car recalls – probably the Pinto, a far more dangerous exploding tank problema than the Flushmate toilet.

When the news about the recall came out, what popped into my mind was that all the cars were being sent back to Michigan to get repaired. I envisioned millions of cars being hauled on trailers, or flat-bed train cars, or even being driven by owners, heading back to Detroit.

I was somewhat disappointed, not to mention feeling a tad foolish, when I realized that recalled cars go back to the dealer, not to the assembly line.  While there was something right and just about those who made the bad stuff having to repair it, flawed products don’t tend to be the fault of the factory hands. Sure, there are no doubt times when the worker slack off, or even throw a metaphorical – or even actual – spanner in the works. But mostly if something’s really gang agley the problem’s higher up in the food chain: design, engineering, a bean-counter decision to swap in a lower cost, substandard part. And sometimes, well, shit happens.

Good luck to those getting their free repair kits in the mail. I’m reasonably good with fixing the parts of the ancient floating ball apparatus, but I wouldn’t want to mess with a Flushmate. Even though it’s all encased, it looks a bit too high tech to me.

No man is an island? Does that include Larry Ellison?

A week or so ago, I saw in the news that Oracle’s CEO, Larry Ellison, is buying the island of Lana‘i.

Well, I suppose that folks buy islands all the time. But probably most of those don’t cover141 square miles and have actual people living on them. So it struck me as somewhat peculiar, even though, in order for someone to buy an island of this size, someone else would have to own it already.So this is not all that original a transaction. Anyway, that someone is a something: Castle & Cooke, which has “diversified business divisions [that] include:

• The Island of Lana‘i, including resorts, world-class championship golf courses and private residences.”

Among its other attributes,

Serene Lana‘i is also the perfect place to unplug, unwind and let the day unfold gently. Buyers who choose one of our Lana‘i Luxury Homes tell us that it just feels right to be there, every single time. With luxury condominiums, homes and home sites to choose from, and the special access and privileges of Island Club membership available, there is a Lana‘i Luxury Home that’s just right for you.

Serene. Unplug. Unwind. Unfold gently.

This sure sounds like the Larry Ellison I’ve been reading about, lo these many years.

Lawyers for the seller redacted a copy of the sale agreement signed May 2, saying it includes confidential information that would competitively hurt Ellison and the seller if disclosed. The Maui News previously reported the asking price was between $500 million and $600 million. (Source: HuffPo.)

Redaction, be damned!

Actually, Lar’s not buying the entire island, just 98 percent of it.

Does the other 2% belong to the owners of those luxury condominiums? I mean, if Beacon Hill were for sale, and Larry Ellison got over that serene, unplug, unwind thing, and wanted to own something a bit more urban, would our condo still belong to us?

I’m probably feeling a tiny bit territorial about Lana‘i (which, thanks to that Castle and Cooke website, I now know ho’w to punctu’ate) because it’s the only place in Hawaii I’ve ever been.

Lana’i is not lushly beautiful. Most of it used to be a Dole pineapple plantation. But it was pretty darned nice. Of course, what’s not to like when you’re on an all expenses paid week at a luxury resort and, because all those expenses are paid by your company, you don’t have to count the days off as vacation days. And you’re staying at a luxury resort with a bathroom that’s bigger (not to mention more luxurious) than your bedroom at home. And where there are bougainvillea blooming everywhere, where the water’s warm enough to swim in, and where cabana boys trail you down to the beach with towels and water bottles. Or rum umbrella drinks, if you like.

One thing it wasn’t – luxe resort aside – was all that built up.

On the one free night – when the meal wasn’t communal, but when the tab was still being picked up – I don’t recall there being more than a couple of non-resort restaurant options.

In 2001, when I was there, there were no places to shop, either. So they boat-shuttled us over to Maui, where there were plenty of places to buy ugly Aloha shirts and plastic ukuleles. And where I was able to buy hokey outfits for my nieces, plus a ukulele Christmas ornament with Mele Kalikimaka written on it. (And here you thought Bing Crosby was just White Christmas, Adeste Fideles, and Christmas in Killarney.)

The houses where the locals lived were modest affairs. I suppose most of them worked in the resorts and luxury condos. (The pineapple plantation is gone.)

The scariest thing about Lana’i was the driving. (Or, in my case, the passengering.)

We signed up for a Jeep – fortunately chauffered by my friend Joan’s husband – to take an off-roading tour of the island. Trust me when I say that there are no atheists on the island’s center-cut ridge, which probably would have had spectacular views if I hadn’t been too terrified to turn my head in either direction.

Perhaps Larry will put in a better road system.

Ellison plans to pay cash, and the deal should result in new jobs, economic stimulus and a reinvigorated local tourism industry, the application said.

"The buyer anticipates making substantial investments in Lanai and is looking forward to partnering with the people of Lanai to chart the island's future," Castle & Cooke lawyers said in the application.

Enterprise applications for everyone!

Not only will Larry be getting all that land, all those building, but he’ll also be the owner of:

– a water company, a bus and shuttle service, and the island's wastewater utility.

Kind of like playing Monopoly, only with real money and real utilities.

As I said, it does seem very peculiar to be owning such an extensive property, where people other than you and yours make their lives. It seems well beyond plantation ownership, and on into the realm of imperialism.

Anyway, in preparation for the Springsteen Fenway concert in August, I’ve been listening to The Boss, and some lines from Badlands would seem to apply here:

Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king,
And a king ain’t satisfied till he rules everything.

Even the water utility.

I guess that Larry Ellison’s thinking right now that it’s petty darned good to be king.

‘Tis pity she’s a school bus monitor. (At least Karen Klein can call it quits now.)

The ‘net has been agog the last few days with news about Karen Klein, the 68 year old upstate NY school bus monitor who was so ferociously and mercilessly bullied by a pack of middle schoolers. If you haven’t watched the video, I can assure you that it is profoundly disturbing.

The kids pull out all the stops, haranguing Klein for her weight, her hearing aid, her clothing, her presumed poverty. They threaten her life. They even get in a jab or two about her son who committed suicide. All delivered with a profanity icing on the bullying cake. And all, of course, recorded by one of the gang, later to be posted online so the  whole world can share in the good, clean fun.

Then there’s the demeanor of Klein herself.

She is clearly humiliated and upset, crying; just trying to wait it out, make it through the remainder of the ride and the school year. Her pushback is mild – ‘if you can’t say anything nice’ – but it’s clear throughout the video that the bad guys are winning.

I suspect that Klein reacted the way many bullying victims do: just take the ‘this, too, will pass’ attitude. (Maybe if I close my eyes they’ll go away.)

What is peculiar about watching this episode of Bullies Gone Viral, of course, is that the victim is an adult, not a kid. And it’s an adult who was in a position that holds – or should hold – at least a modicum of authority. Presumably, the role of school bus monitor requires the monitor to try to maintain order, make sure the kids refrain from bullying each other, and make sure the school bus driver can do his or her job without being driven to distraction by a pack of howling kids.

If this was part of her job description, Klein’s job performance comes up woefully short.

Not to blame the victim. Apparently, she had reported kids in the past, but gotten nowhere. Apparently, since school was almost out for the summer, she figured ‘why bother.’ Maybe she figured that if she made a more forceful pushback, she’d lose her job. (‘That nasty, mean old-lady bus monitor pushed me and swore at me. Mommy, make her stop.’ Sniff, sniff.)

And it’s hard to imagine that any 68 year old is working as a school bus monitor as a fun and enjoyable way to capstone a career that’s winding down. In all likelihood, Klein needs to stretch her Social Security and/or whatever miniscule pension she earned as a school bus driver for 20 years.

I hate to be looks-ist, but Karen Klein sure doesn’t look like someone who’s sitting on a lushly endowed 401K, working as a school bus monitor to kill time when she’s not doing more glamorous things.

Things are now looking up for Karen Klein.

As the video chronicling the verbal assault on her went viral, Klein found herself being interviewed all over the place: CNN, Fox, TMZ, People….

She’s going to Disneyland, courtesy of Southwest Airlines.

And someone who felt badly for her set up an online fund raiser, and, as of the weekend, over $600K (tax free) had been raised for Karen.

So maybe now she can quit her job as a school bus monitor, which clearly didn’t play to her forte to begin with.

Meanwhile, a couple of the bully boys have tendered apologies, which Klein has not (yet) accepted. (“They can do better…”) I agree with her. How about an in-person sit down, rather than a note? But I hope this doesn’t turn out to be some prolonged birther-style thing, during which no apology will ever be sufficient.

As for the kids themselves.

Yes, yes, yes. This is a tough age. Kids act in packs. They don’t think about consequences. They’re playing to each other. The strong intimidate the week. Everyone’s safe as long as the bullies are after someone else. It has always been thus. Lord of the Flies. They’re not bad kids.

Maybe not. Actually, probably not. What they probably are is spoiled, show-offy, self-centered, weak. They don’t cringe when Simon Cowell puts someone down; they think it’s funny. (If he’s putting someone else down, he’s not attacking them…) They probably watch all kinds of reality shows that glorify nitwits who are singularly devoid of any positive attributes, and who will say or do anything to maintain their status as a celebrity. They [we’re back to the kids, now] probably think everything in life should be videoed and uploaded, as long as they’re the ones being featured. (Look at me, I’m famous. 1.4 million hits on YouTube. Awesome!)

I do hope these kids learn something about compassion, empathy, otherness, and common decency from this episode. And I hope this doesn’t end up haunting them for life. Their names are out there, so anyone googling them for college admissions, a possible job, or even a date, will be able to find them. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: there really should be a statute of limitations on the reckless, wanton, and asinine things you do when you’re very young. There is a reason why they seal juvenile records. Too bad nothing gets sealed on the Internet.

All this said, my reaction on seeing the video was a keen desire to slap those kids up and down the side of their heads. To slap the not-so-smartphone out of the video-ing kid’s hand and crush it under my foot. To get right in their grills, matching f-bomb for f-bomb – hey, I can’t get fired – and grabbing the phones I hadn’t crushed under foot and speed dialing mommy and daddy to ask ‘do you know what you’re precious son has been doing for the last 10 minutes?’

I wanted to turn to the “good kids” who were passively sitting by while all this happened and tell them that the bad guys only win when the good guys do nothing. That, if this ever happens again, I can guarantee them that they’ll feel better afterwards if they do something, anything. Even though it will be scary, and the bullies can easily turn on them. I’d explain that there’s safety in numbers. I’d Todd Beamer them: Let’s roll.

I also wanted to take the seat next to Karen Klein, shielding her from these nasty, crappy-acting kids. To  put my arm around her, and tell her ‘you don’t deserve this shit.’ And ‘don’t let those pathetic dweebs get to you.’

And now she doesn’t have to.

$600K is a lot of yearly earnings for a school bus monitor, so I’m guessing that Karen Klein can pack it in.

Hopefully, the money won’t run right through her fingers, that her kids and grandkids don’t manage to gouge it all, leaving her in continued need of some additional income, however meager it is.

If, for whatever reason, Karen Klein does decide to keep working, I sincerely hope that she finds something that will play to her strengths better than school bus monitor.

In Greece, NY, that job apparently requires someone who trained at Parris Island. Going Gandhi clearly does not work.

Shackled: Adidas unchains a not so good idea.

On one hand, I am always a bit taken aback when a major brand puts out a product that’s in colossally questionable taste. On the other hand, to paraphrase H.L. Mencken, no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. (For Mencken, the operative word was intelligence.)

The latest is Adidas, which had recently announced a new sneaker that features an ankle shackle, reminiscent of the iron chains worn by slaves, not to mention the cuffs that we see prisoners wearing during perp walks, jail transfers, and court appearances.

The community – largely the outraged African-American community – has spoken, and Adidas has withdrawn this item, but not before initially defending it as a bit of whimsy from an edgy designer.

The Adidas statement reads, in part: "The design of the JS Roundhouse Mid is nothing more than the designer Jeremy Scott's outrageous and unique take on fashion and has nothing to do with slavery. Since the shoe debuted on our Facebook page ahead of its market release in August, Adidas has received both favorable and critical feedback. We apologize if people are offended by the design and we are withdrawing our plans to make them available in the marketplace." (Source: LA Times)

Jeremy Scott may well have an “outrageous and unique take on fashion”, but to claim that the shackles have “nothing to do with slavery….” Hmmmmm. Maybe not in Scott’s mind, but I put this more of less in the same category as someone using a swastika because they like the way it looks. That may well be the case, but there are certain images that it’s just best to avoid. And the use of shackles on a sneaker marketed largely to young African-American males is one of them.

Which is not to say that, if this were presented as art and not as commerce, the imagery wouldn’t be appropriate, and appropriately provocative. How about a conversation about:

The shackles that hoop dreams place on urban kids who want to be LeBron, but don’t get there  - or anywhere else.

The glorification of violence and criminality by rappers who hold enormous influence in poor communities.

The rate of incarceration among African-American males, and whether it’s the way it should be or something else.

So, as agitprop art, I love Scott’s sneaker. As a product, I don’t.

By the way, as a product, these kicks would have retailed for $350, and would not doubt have been just the sort of things that kids would have killed and died for. Unfortunately, that’s meant literally.

What on earth does a $350 pair of sneakers mean?

Sheesh…

Maybe the world really was a better place when P.F. Flyers cost $8 and came in red, white, and blue, and big boys wore what are now called Chucks: Converse high tops or low cuts, in white or black. Which probably cost $8.50.

Surely, no one ever killed or died for a pair of Keds…

Adidas is a sophisticated company, and I doubt that they put this particular sneaker on the market without checking it out with focused groups made up of their target demographic, which is not, of course, composed of fussy middle aged female bloggers who might pay $350 for a pair of wonderful last-a-lifetime leather boots that could be reheeled and resoled over and over again, but couldn’t imagine paying that for a sneaker, let alone one with a goofy “ankle bracelet” on it.

Adidas is in the business of making money, and if one of the ways to make money is to exploit poor folks and psyche kids into believing that they won’t be cool unless they’re sporting these particular over-priced kicks  then, while I may not like it, so be it. I don’t have to buy Adidas products.

And, in truth, I have no problem with Adidas actually bringing this product out. Have at it. My hope would be that, once they’d introduced it, no one would buy it. That people would let them know that they thought the product was in poor taste, and let Adidas be stuck unshackling the plastic chains and turning these into just another pair of sneakers, or shipping the unopened boxes to the Third World where folks could do their own unshackling and likely find a whole bunch of uses for that bit of plastic frippery.

Still, you have to wonder about these companies that don’t seem to have a conscience on staff, someone who might actually say, ‘sure we could do it, but it would be wrong.’

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Earlier in the year, I blogged about Nike’s Black and Tans. Not a great idea, but nowhere near as dreadful as the Adidas shackles.

Yet another miserable growth industry. (Why some functions should just NOT be privatized.)

One of the points that Mitt Romney is making on the campaign trail is that it might be a good idea to make business experience a requisite for the presidency. (Not that he’s being self-serving there or anything. No, self-serving would be that running the Olympics should be a requirement. Or having great hair.) I don’t think you have to look any further back than George W. Bush or Jimmy Carter to figure out that, when it comes to running the government, business experience doesn’t necessarily translate into all that much good.

As an aside, if we do decide that there are requisites beyond being a natural born US citizen whose at least 35 years of age, I think that there are few that might be more relevant than business. Like having served in the military. Or supporting yourself for a while, à la Barbara Ehrenreich for her great book Nickeled and Dimed, at a minimum wage job. Or done a Black Like Me and walked a mile or two in the shoes of someone not of your own race.  And how about a requirement that someone’s lived abroad?

Any of these, I suspect, would make for a better president than business experience.

But I digress.

The business experience thang came to mind when I was reading an article in The Economist (in turned based on a series that appeared in the New Orleans Time-Picayune) on what an important role the (totally abysmal) prison industry plays in the (generally abysmal) Louisiana economy.

Even by U.S. standards, Louisiana’s incarceration rate stands out:

The state imprisons 26% more people, on a per-capita basis, than the next-strictest state, Mississippi. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is almost six times Maine’s and seven times China’s.

Louisiana’s high incarceration rate reflects a confluence of factors: the state is poor; it has a high crime rate (duh!); it’s sentencing is more draconian that one might find in a more tree-hugging state, like Maine; and the state has outsourced imprisonment to local sheriffs and private “corrections” companies, both of which have an incentive to keep the prison population high, and the amount spent per capita on each prisoner, low.

In Louisiana, outsourcing the state prison function to local sheriffs and privateers came about after the Feds declared the state system woefully (and illegally) overcrowded. Rather than let any prisoners loose – apparently, even the relatively harmless, non-violent ones – they set off a growth spurt in parish (Louisiana-speak for county) and private cell construction. (I’m just as happy to live in a state that’s more focused on bio-cells than on jail cells, that’s for sure.) And, of course, once you get those cells built, they need to be occupied.

For the state, this outsourcing turned out to be a bargain. They pay local and private jailers, a mere $24.39 per diem for the care, feeding, and rehabilitation of prisoners. 

That is less than half what Louisiana spends on inmates in state-run prisons, and it is barely a third of what even relatively poor states like West Virginia spend.

And even that paltry amount of money is not all spent on prisoner care. The only way Louisiana’s local sheriffs and private-prison operators can make a profit on the per-diem payment is to skimp on costs. This means bad food, limited supervision and no vocational programmes. For a sheriff, that money is more usefully spent on more deputies, higher salaries and better equipment. Tiny Richland Parish, in the north of the state, had 60 sheriff’s deputies before the prison gold rush. Today there are 160, not to mention new shotguns, cars and bulletproof gear.

If you’re imagining Boss Hogg, Cool Hand Luke, and The Heat of the Night, well, I am, too.

And, okay, okay. Outsourcing your prisoners to other governmental jurisdictions is not the same as privatizing.

But it does provide the same perverse incentive: keeping the prison population up to keep those per diems – however ‘paltry’ – rolling in.

It’s just good for bidness…

And prison businesses, of course, lobby through organizations like ALEC for harsher laws and more privatization. The scrim that rationalizes this is that a business approach to a social problem is going to be more likely to solve that problem (or at least do as good a job as the state). And, of course, will save money. (Which, by the way, doesn’t always happen.)

But when you need to make a profit, saving money is not necessarily gotten through “efficiencies” only. Something’s always got to give.

Yes, I’m quite sure that there are efficiencies that government can and should borrow from the private sector. Not that I’ve necessarily worked in businesses that had any particular approaches to efficiency that were worth borrowing. Let’s keep in mind that, even though businesses are nominally focused on profit making, an awful lot of them don’t make a profit and aren’t run particularly well.

But in the end, the purpose of business is not the same as the purpose of government. A failing business will go out of business. This may be a loss to those who work there, and to the community in which it’s located. But everyone can pretty much get over it. Find a new job, a new place to buy shoes…

A failing government still needs to provide at least a minimal amount of service in order for society to keep functioning safely and securely. And you can’t fire or lay-off sick people, old people, school kids, poor folks… Although you can ignore them and hope they die out or self-deport or whatever it is we’d like to see happen to those who are seen as too comfortably supping at the public trough.

It’s interesting, however, that when it comes to prisons, the privatizing solution is not to get better at providing big-house services that reduce recidivism. It’s aimed at increasing the prison population.

As I said, a rather perverse incentive.

Anyway, from where I stand, the belief that running government as if it were a business will miraculously improve government is based on one big fact myth.

When it comes to prisons, here’s what it will get you:

In 2012, CCA [Correctional Corporation of America] sent a letter to prison officials in 48 states, offering to buy prisons from these states in exchange for a 20-year management contract and a guaranteed occupancy rate of 90%. Community organizations have criticized the proposals, arguing that the contractual obligations of states to fill the prisons to 90% occupancy are poor public policy that could force communities into creating criminals, and that these contractual clauses end up costing taxpayers more than state-run prisons would. (Source: Wikipedia.) 

Nope, there are just some parts of society that you don’t want to see turned into a growth industry.

Paint the town red? As Denis Abrams found, not on Warren Buffett’s dime, you don’t.

In this day and age, what was Benjamin Moore CEO Denis Abrams doing taking his staff on a junket to Bermuda to celebrate their first quarterly sales increase in a dog’s age. Especially when you work for the Sage – which I’m sure is on the Benjamin Moore color palette  - of Omaha, who really doesn’t go into for this sort of frou frou. (Benjamin Moore is part of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.)

Okay, taking the gang from New Jersey to Bermuda is pretty small potatoes as far as corporate excess goes. When I was at Genuity, when we were losing about, oh, $1B a year or thereabouts, the sales “winners circle” went on a week-long posh to Hawaii. I never knew whether it was because there weren’t enough sales winners that year, or because they didn’t want to hear a lot of belly aching from the non-sales employees, but that year they brought 50 “normal” employees along for the ride. Hey, I was delighted to go – as was my sister Trish (who doesn’t want a free vacation at a luxe resort on Lanai?) – but it did seem like a crazy extravagance for a company on the eve of destruction.

Hard to figure out where to start with what’s wrong with this Benjamin Moore picture, but let’s start with that big celebration for achieving a quarterly goal.

As anyone who has been even tangentially involved with “the numbers” can tell you, unless you’re completely circling the drain, it’s not all that difficult to pull out enough stops and do enough shucking and jiving with customers to hit the numbers for one, brief shining quarterly moment. Rev up a discount. Move a deal from Point A to Point B. Ask a big customer for a small favor.

All this has been known to happen.

It’s getting the next quarter that’s harder, and the one after that, and the one after that. Stringing those quarters into a year. Stringing a couple of years into a trend.

One point in time shouldn’t make for such a big celebration.

How about something a bit more modest and more inclusive?

Champagne toast.  Shut down at 1 on the Friday before a long weekend. Give everyone a free gallon on paint.

Yes, it’s a big accomplishment to make your numbers for the first time in 5 years. But let’s not go overboard.

This all leads to the second 'what’s wrong with this picture’ point:;

In a company that has been running in the red, that’s had layoffs, where there’ve been no raises, it’s really incredibly bad taste, bad judgment, bad juju to take the chosen few off on some posh getaway that “allegedly included a dinner cruise aboard a yacht that some vacation attendees believed was owned by singer Jimmy Buffett.” (No relation to Uncle Warren.)

While the execs were no doubt wasting away in Margaritaville – although, of course, Bermuda is a tad bit more buttoned up than Key West – the rank and file employees were no doubt  feeling that they were, metaphorically speaking, stepping on pop-tops back at corporate HQ in New Jersey.

So after 17 years at the helm of Benjamin Moore – ain’t LinkedIn grand? – Abrams is jobless, apparently frog-marched out of the office with dispatch, asking what went wrong.

Seriously? You work for Warren Buffett for over 10 years – BH acquired BM in 2001 – and you weren’t able to figure out that he might not approve of a bring-the-wives-along-on-the-company-tab resort excursion? As much as you might have tried to convince yourself that the trip was merited, maybe even required. As much as you might have been keeping you eyes out for some new paint colors – lots of nice blues and pinks there, as I recall -  there’s no way to paint this jaunt as anything other than foolish.

Anyway, Abrams has now fallen into the Bermuda triangle of unemployment. I’m sure he’s not going to starve, but it’s not the way anyone wants to end his career.

What a maroon. (Or, in Benjamin Moore terms, what a pomegranate AF-295.)

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Source: Huffington Post.

Much as I love Jon Hamm

We certainly hear plenty about race to the bottom wages – why pay someone a living wage, when you can find someone  else a million miles away, or a local who’s just plain desperate, who’ll work for 13 cents an hour?

So it was interesting to come across a recent article in The Washington Post on a distinctly different phenomenon: actors who are scoring million dollar pay days (pay hours?) to do advertising voice-over work that a plain vanilla voice-over actor– the guy next door, only with a great voice – would get paid a few thousand bucks to do.

What prompted me to think about voice-over-ing was hearing a familiar voice on a TD Ameritrade commercial I heard the other day.

Matt Damon?

Sure enough.

Our Matt didn’t displace a poor boy voice-over achiever, however. He’s taking the mic from Sam Waterston. (Apparently it’s not about the benjamins. At least for themselves. Both Matt and Sam are said to donate their advertising fees to charity.)

Needless to say, those who have labored as field hands in the voice-over vineyard are not jumping for joy when they see their (relatively) meager wages going Hollywood.

They are not happy campers,” said Marice Tobias, a well-known voice coach known in the industry as the “voice whisperer.” “A lot of them will say, ‘Why don’t they just leave our business alone?’ ”

With millions of dollars in play – even if it gets Lord and Lady Bountinful’d off to a charity – that ain’t going to happen.

The “civilian” voice-over folks are doing plenty of voicing over the celebrity trend:

“Some are fabulous, and some are pretty mediocre,” said Keri Tombazian, a veteran voice actress. “The unfortunate thing for us is that career voice-over actors are not afforded the luxury of mediocrity.”

One does have to ask the question of whether having Matt Damon or any other A-list actor whispering the sweet nothings into our ears actually moves more product. But:

“Rarely is it strictly for sales,” said David Schwab of Octagon, a sponsorship consulting firm. “Brands are always looking to create product differentiation,” he said. Using a celebrity voice “increases awareness.”

Hmmm. How does Matt Damon’s voice differentiate TD Ameritrade from, say, eTrade. I actually think the snarky eTrade baby creates more differentiation. (That is eTrade with the little wise guy, isn’t it?)

The displaced persons apparently agree with me:

“That’s a complete load of hogwash,” [voice-over actor Tom] Kane said. “The reason agency people and clients will shell out millions is called star you-know-what.”

Well, whether he’s hawking Aleve or Mercedes-Benz, I can certainly see that Jon Hamm would hold appeal to someone interested in being a start you-know-what.

While I certainly haven’t forgiven Don Draper for throwing money in Peggy’s face, now that Mad Men has closed shop for the season, I would certainly miss that Don Draper (never Dick Whitman) voice fix if I couldn’t rely on Aleve or Mercedes-Benz ads.

Not that it’s motivating any buying behavior on my part. I buy the generics at the corner drugstore when I need pain relief. And when I need transportation relief, well, I just get the cheapest Zipcar on offer. Which so far hasn’t been a Mercedes. (Once over the initial weirdness, I’m kind of liking that Prius.)

When I’m thinking about the well known actors who do voice-overs, no actors of the female persuasion come to mind. I’m sure there are some, but the only voice-overs I can think of are men: Damon, Hamm, Morgan Freeman, Michael Douglas, Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm…

Maybe there are comfort products – mac ‘n cheese – that use actresses?

Most of the actresses I see doing ads are not doing voice overs, they’re doing both video and audio, supposedly for products they actually use: Jamie Lee Curtis, whose worried about our bowels, and Blythe Danner and Sally Fields, who want to help out those with osteoporosis. (Interesting that these gals are past their peaks, and are pushing products for gals who are pat their peaks as well.)

Meanwhile, much as I love Jon Hamm, I’d be just as happy if a poor working stiff with a nice voice got the voice-over job.

Ray Dolin: it’s just not enough these days to rely on the kindness of strangers

Ray Dolin, a writer/photographer from West Virginia was supposedly working on some something of a hitchhiker’s guide to kindness in America, to be called, well, Kindness in America. As writers do, Dolin had an epiphany* – and decided that, in the cutthroat environment that is today’s literary world, he needed to give his book’s prospects a boost.

So, at the great American intersection of self-promotion, ingenuity, and guns, he shot himself, which on the scale of dramatic gestures goes well beyond, say, my firing myself to get publicity for Pink Slip.

After the shooting, Dolin gave the Montana po-po a description of his supposed assailant that wasn’t a self-portrait. Based on Dolin’s photographic eye for the details – real or fake – the authorities found the hapless, luckless Lloyd Christopher Danielson III tootling along in a maroon pickup and arrested him for plugging Dolin. And as Danielson III’s luckless would have it, even when the charge was dropped:

…Danielson remained in custody, accused of being under the influence of drugs or alcohol when he was arrested. (Source: Huff Po.)

Sheriff Glen Meier had him an inkling that Danielson wasn’t the culprit in the Dolin shooting. There may be plenty of gunplay in Montana, but apparently most of it isn’t drive by:

"I had the worst feeling he was telling me the absolute truth," Meier said. "I kept telling him that we are seekers of the truth and we are going to work very hard to find out the truth of this incident. ... It was a great moment when I sent someone up to the jail to tell him he had nothing to do with it."

That must indeed have been a great moment although, however under the influence he had been, Danielson pretty much knew that he “had nothing to do with it” even before the cool, clear, eyes of the seekers of wisdom and truth in the Valley County, Montana, Sheriff’s Department appeared at his jail cell to give him the good word.

Meantime, in keeping with the Kindness in America theme, Sherry Alveson of Malta, Montana, stopped to help Dolin after her daughter saw him bleeding by the side of the road, trying to flag someone down.

"He had blood down his arms, all over his clothes, and he was bleeding and shivering and shaky," Alveson said of her initial encounter with Dolin. "I wasn't going to leave him sitting there."

Well, I must say that there is a big difference between the kindness of someone from Malta, Montana, and the kindness of someone from Boston, Massachusetts, reacting to the sight of a bleeding man in a remote place. Me, I would have made sure my doors were locked, driven on a quarter or a mile or so, pulled over, and called 911. (On the other hand, if I were walking down a city street and saw someone bleeding, I would more than likely stop immediately to help. Can’t really tell: the closest I’ve come is the wrong-way lunatic on the bicycle I saw hit by a car last fall in front of our house. I called 911 and stayed with the guy until the ambulance came.)

Alveson said that even as she waited with the wounded Dolin for emergency personnel to arrive, he began talking about his memoir. She said he brought it up again when she visited him in a Glasgow hospital the next day.

Ah, yes, the book must go on!

And the wounded warrior story was getting some traction. AP picked up the story. I even saw an editorial, written before the truth came out, in the UK Guardian, “In Praise of Ray Dolin.”

Alveson is sticking to her guns about her decision to stop for Dolin:

"Whether it was self-inflicted or somebody else did it, he needed help," Alveson said.

I think it’s time for the Guardian to do an editorial in praise of Sherry Alveson. If I’m ever shot, I sure hope she’s driving by.

It’s not clear whether there will be any charges lodged against Dolin. It would truly be kindness in Montana if he were let off. (As for Lloyd Danielson III: Lloyd, Lloyd, Lloyd, it is really not a good idea to drink or dope and drive, even in Big Sky country where you’re more likely to mow down a prairie dog than anything else.)

Dolin, as it turns out, is someone who’s already shown himself to be enamored of the gun metaphor. His photography business is called One Shot Impressions, and sports a gun site as its logo, right next to these words:

We believe in creating dynamic, comfortable sessions that allow the client to relax and reveal his or her true personality

Personally, I don’t think having my picture taken by someone whose logo is a gun site would allow me to relax and reveal my true personality. (Maybe it would; maybe I’m just a chicken shit.) But, then again, I’m from Moobat, Massachusetts, not Wingnut, West Virginia. Perhaps Dolin specialized in photography for shotgun weddings.

OneShot offers wedding, head shots, model portfolios, children, senior portraits, maternity pictures, new born, baby, engagement, bridal, event coverage and much more...

Head shots’ taking on new meaning, isn’t it? And I hope Dolin remembered not to shoot himself in his camera arm.

Here’s from Dolin’s About page.

My name is Ray Dolin and two of my greatest passions in life are travel and photography. I believe that travel broadens one's view of the world. Experiencing other cultures, meeting people from other communities, other countries, and seeing the beauty of the world has helped me understand that all of our lives are both  interconnected and individual.

Curiously, the web site has no contact information. If Dolin’s lucky, it won’t be some jail cell in Montana, hoping for the kindness of his jail keepers.

And good luck with the book, Ray, and with the photography business. I have a hunch you’re going to need it. On second thought, maybe not. We’re pretty kind, here in America, and we do tend to love (and forgive) the most egregious screw ups. And, on a scale of 1 to 10, unless you’re Lloyd Danielson III, this is certainly not a biggie.

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*I’m writing this post on Bloomsday, when James Joyce is celebrated. And he is, is he not, the patron saint of the epiphany?

Vermont Made…

You gotta watch where your pure Vermont maple syrup is coming from.

If you bought yours on eBay from Bernard Coleman, it may have been made in Rhode Island.

And, oh, yeah, it was probably not sugared off in a way that would have been recognizable to, say, Grandma Moses. No, Bernard Coleman didn’t have to tap a tree, wait for the sap to rise, and haul his buckets to the sugaring off shed. He brewed his maple syrup up at home from water, sugar, and maple flavoring. (Reminding me of the scam uncovered a few years ago, in which some locals were bottling up water as Vermont Crystal Pure, filling jugs via hose from their bathtub in Dorchester.)

Too bad for him that an echt Vermonter paid $220.50 for a batch for his wife. Like true Vermonters, they new their terroir:

The buyer’s wife, who makes specialty items out of the syrup, determined it was not real, based on the look, smell, and taste of the product. (Source: Boston.com)

They took the bathtub syrup to the Vermont Department of Ag and Consumer Protection, which confirmed their suspicion. It then became a Federal case:

An investigation by the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Department of Agriculture found that a seller, identified as Coleman, was buying large quantities of maple flavoring from a supply store in Rhode Island.

Ah, in other places, terrorists buy up supplies of fertilizer to make bombs; in New England, faux terroirists buy up supplies of maple flavoring to doctor up sugar water and palm it off as bona fide maple syrup.

Coleman confessed, and has just been:

….sentenced to two years of probation for “introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce with the intent to defraud or mislead,” the US attorney’s office in Vermont said today in a statement.

There is, of course, a big difference between maple syrup and breakfast or table syrup, which I appreciated in one direction growing up, and the other direction once I reached the age of tasteful reason.

I did not grow up in a real maple syrup house-hold. Even in my day, Vermont Maid was Vermont Maid Syrup with “the real maple sugar flavor you’ve longed for!” As we see from this ad, like me, vintage 1949. (Forget Mrs. Butterworth. Forget Log Cabin. I’m quite sure we weren’t a Vermont Maid family because it was a New England-y thing. More than likely, it was because if was the only breakfast syrup sold at Morris Market and/or the cheapest.)

We probably had pancakes or French toast once a week, so I poured plenty Vermont Maid on.

I remember the first time I tasted real maple syrup.

Our family had made a summer-time day trip to Vermont – we went through Bennington and Chester and, I believe, stopped at some site that had something to do with Ethan Allen. The Revolutionary War hero, not the furniture store. And, somewhere along the line, bought a tin of authentic, Vermont maple syrup.

Ptui! I didn’t like it.

It was insufficiently sweet. Insufficiently thick.

Hand me the Vermont Maid Syrup, please. That was all the  maple flavor I longed for.

My tastes are more sophisticated these days. And not that I have pancakes or anything that requires maple syrup all that often, but when I do, I’ll go with the real deal. I have some in the fridge now, and just did a taste test. That stuff is good. Makes me want to pop an Eggo in the toaster oven.

A New England Tradition: The full flavored taste of Vermont Maid Syrup has been a New England Tradition for over 50 years, and tastes more like real Maple Syrup than any other table syrup. (Source: BG Foods.)

It may taste more like the real deal than “any other table syrup,” but – price be damned – I say accept no substitute!

All this, of course, if making me crave maple walnut ice cream, another New England fave, and maple sugar candy, which I have once a year, picking up a package at Brookfield Orchards on my fall apple run. Talk about sweet melt-in-your-mouth goodness. One little piece feels like you’re inducing diabetes and or have just invited teeny-tiny little men into your mouth to swing at your teeth with teeny-tiny little pick axes.

Maybe not maple walnut ice cream. But maple syrup. Maple sugar candy.

Made in Vermont,

Then again, with a husband born in Bellows Falls, I’m awfully partial to all things Vermont made.