Category: Interesting Tidbits

Like all websites, I would be nowhere without referrers: search sites that have indexed my work; communities where I am a member and have a listed profile that includes my web address; sites that have added me to their link-lists, with or without reciprocation; and most importantly, people who have taken the time and effort to link to me and say “Check This Out.”

Today I would like to take a few minutes to say “Thank You!” to some of the people and websites without whom most of you would never have known I was here.

This includes — in no particular order! — Flea at One Good Thing, Cynthia C at Shorty Stories, Jill at Brilliant At Breakfast, all my colleagues and co-authors over at Central Sanity, the wonderful people at The Moderate Voice, Maya’s Granny at her eponymous site, NYC Educator at his self-named site, Robaato Bureedi, er Robert Brady at Pureland Mountain, Elisa Camahort once, twice, three times, four times! (busy lady!), Bradford Plumer, and finally (at least for today’s list) Dean Paxton of Paxtonland. With a list like this, you will have to forgive me if I have forgotten somebody.

Thank you!

Go check them out!

I have been asked to become a regular contributor at Central Sanity. You may know them from my link list at the right. I consider this a great honor, and I have accepted the offer. Have no fear, I will continue posting here as well, particularly those items that just don’t fit well over there. I will also cross-post when appropriate. Many thanks to Pete Abel and everyone else at Central Sanity for letting me join them.

The events I will describe are true. If WAMU would like to comment on this entry, their representative should contact me. Once I have verified the origin of such comments and the authority of the representative to send such comments to my satisfaction, I will gladly post their reply in an update to this post.

I have been a customer of Washington Mutual Bank for about 5 years now. I have had business and personal accounts; I have had accounts in two states. The nice people at the Harbour Pointe Banking Center have been very helpful, in particular a young man named Kyle.

However, since I have moved back to Nevada, it is a good idea to change my banking accounts to Nevada accounts. We have been through this before, and do not want to hear things like “I’m sorry, there’s a 5 day hold on your paycheck because it’s from out of state” or “I’m sorry, I can’t process a cashier’s check in that amount because you have an out of state account.” Problems like this are why we changed from
Bank of America 5 years ago. Well, that and charging me $0.25 to talk to customer service “too many” times and clear up a problem caused by their error.

So this morning I assembled all the various documents I would need to open a new checking account at the WAMU branch just 5 minutes away. To my delight, they were actually open a few minutes before their stated opening time of 9 AM. Within moments we were talking to a customer service representative, one of those folks we used to call a “bank teller”.

This representative told us that no, there was no need to open a new account. Not only would there be no problem continuing to bank using our old account, there would be no problems with checks and so forth (not even with the pizza guy? I think not!), but opening a new account would in essence be starting “a new banking relationship” and they would have to treat us as a brand new (implying “untrustworthy”) customer. We were furthermore told that the only services she could not do for us right there on the spot was address changes and ordering checks.

Ok, now remember that after a cross country move, two things I desperately need are to change my address with the bank, and get checks that reflect that address.

To do those things, all I need is to make a “quick call to customer service.”

I’ve had the occasion to talk to customer service over the years, and “quick” is never a word I would use to describe the experience.

But nevertheless, I went home and poured a cup of coffee and grabbed the telephone. It was now about 9:15 AM. After navigating an arcane voice-routing system, punching in my account number, giving it a phone password I didn’t even know I had, it insisted on giving me my balances before offering me any opportunity to speak with a human. Hint: just because a particular kind of information is commonly needed doesn’t mean everybody needs it every call before dealing with every problem.

I finally got to talk to a human. As nearly as I can tell, this human was Charlie Brown’s teacher. If calls really are recorded, some supervisor will hear me say multiple times “I’m sorry, I can’t understand what you are saying.” All I could hear was a woman’s voice and lots of background noise. It was as if she’d called in from one of those trendy restaurants that are way too loud so patrons will eat and leave right away. I finally told her that something was clearly wrong and I would call again.

I hung up and called again. Again the punch this number and that and listening to my balance which has not changed in the last 5 minutes and don’t I want my 5 most recent transactions…. At least these calls are toll free. For me anyway; who knows what this costs them every phone call.

Human Two was at least understandable. I explained that I needed two things today, and the first thing was to change my address. She told me that was fine, but it would take 30 days for the address change to go into effect, and in the meantime I would not be able to do things like order checks.

Um, that’s the second thing I needed to do.

She replied: Oh, If I need this done right away I could do it at my branch bank (where they just told me I need to call customer service).

She continues: Or I could do it instantly online, and then call her back to order checks.

So let me get this straight, if I change my address with customer service it takes 30 days, but if I do it instantly online then I have to order checks from customer service?

She replies: No, you can order checks online too.

Ok fine thanks for your [lack of] help I’ll go do that now. Click.

But wait! There’s a punchline!

By now it was past 9:30, not quite 9:45. I calmly walked over to my computer and logged into my online account. After a minute or so, I found the “change address” option buried in the “change personal information” section. I punched in my information and clicked the box marked “NEXT”.

A moment later, my computer screen informed me that this service was not available at this time, and that I should call customer service.

That’s when I screamed in frustration.

I spent the rest of my morning shopping for a new bank. I’m going with one that has competitve products/rates, and posts the phone numbers of individual branches on their website. When I called, the phone was picked up on the second ring by a human. No voicemail tree, no requests for my account number (which I don’t have yet), no press-this-to-get-that. Within 30 seconds I was talking to a New Accounts Specialist who told me all about the features of the various accounts they offered, asking helpful questions to eliminate products that would not suit my needs. She told me about branch locations, and pointed out that as a full service bank they had additional offerings such as investments and mortgages. WAMU could learn a lot from Colonial Bank.

In closing: It’s ok for a General to say Iraq must live with “sensational” attacks, but it wasn’t ok for John Kerry to talk about reducing terrorism to “nuisance” levels, go figure; The FDA knew about food that could kill us and did nothing; eventually I will get around to my own thoughts on the 9th Amendment; welcome back to the ’50s, a radio station is ditching traditional commercial spots in favor of sponsored hours of programming; fossil filter, fossilized rain forest and mystery fossil turns out to be a giant fungus; bad legislation on the horizon, “Let’s sum up. If the Spy Act become law, hardware, software, and network vendors will be granted carte blanche to use spyware themselves to police their customers’ use of their products and services. Incredibly broad exceptions will probably allow even the worst of the adware outfits to operate with legal cover. State attempts to deal with the spyware problem will be pre-empted and enforcement left up almost entirely to the FTC”; here’s a list of 50 places where you will probably never eat; must read item, 10 steps to fascism; clever wording, Muslims show only partial support for Al Queda rather than no support at all; I hate to agree with rightwingnews.com, but he’s right…. er, correct; someone who may have figured out why free trade isn’t a panacea; turnabout, a religious group says that if they want God in their personal reproductive issues, they will ask Him!; if you ever thought that what you got at the end of the fast food line didn’t look like what you wanted, you need fast food ads vs reality; a must bookmark item, how to reach a human in a voicemail maze and finally, How to Prepare for an Alien Invasion.

This morning whilst reading the news I came across this CNN item entitledWoman Allegedly Advised by Geese Not Guilty in Tot Death.

Yes, you read that correctly. Granny has apparently been in the mental hospital before, and one fine day she killed her grandchild with a chef’s knife. “Authorities said Pappas had told her son she had been receiving spiritual advice from geese flying over his house, where she was living,” according to the article.

Yes, Geese.

Now think about this a minute:

HONK! HONK! HONK!

“Yes! Of course, I see it now! Thanks!”

Make no mistake. This woman is clearly insane, and clearly needs to be in the mental hospital for a good long time; what a shame that she had to kill somebody for that to happen.

But what about charges for the parents who left their toddler in the care of a woman who had been admitted to a mental hostpital 6 weeks previously and gets spiritual advice from geese?

If you are looking to read something with a bit more substance, may I recommend The Nation’s article “The Care Crisis.”

According to the word experts over at Merriam-Webster:

Universal: 1 : including or covering all or a whole collectively or distributively without limit or exception; especially : available equitably to all members of a society [universal health coverage]

Now look at that. They even use the specific example of universal health coverage being available — equitably — to all members of a society. So if you have a problem with my definition of universal health coverage, please take it up with them. Very handy, those clever people at Merriam-Webster. The people over at the Associated Press are by comparison not so clever.

They printed an article today entitled California Governor calls for universal [healthcare] coverage . The people over at the International Herald Tribune make the same mistake! This is yet another one of those plans that calls for every citizen to get coverage or face the consequences; larger businesses will be required to buy policies for employees; the 80% of California businesses that qualify as “small” will be exempt; if Joe Average does not have coverage, he will be forced to buy it; if he cannot afford it the state will darn well help him buy it. In fact, the Chicago Triubune is most accurate when they call it Mandatory Health Insurance.

At least this program would cover all children under a statewide program. Remember, kids don’t have employers. But otherwise, this isn’t universal. One is forced to wonder whether the program will cover students until they finish high school, or whether 18 year olds will have to buy a health insurance policy.

First, 80% of employers are not required to get with the program at all. Think about that; only one out of every 5 employers will be effected by this in any way shape or form. The employees of the overwhelming majority of businesses are still left to fend for themselves. They are in good company, in the same boat as every contractor, every unemployed person, every self-employed person. All of these people will now be required to pay through the nose for an individual health insurance policy.

Second, although we must give credit for the fact that “insurers would not be able to deny coverage based or age or pre-existing health conditions”, that does not mean that insurers will be required to charge affordable rates. Nor does it mean insurance companies can’t charge a premium to cover those with chronic health conditions. The very people who would be most helped by an actual universal health coverage program will instead find themselves bled dry by premiums.

This plan may indeed cover everyone, but it will not be equitably available. It isn’t universal, unless of course you’re a kid. The biggest risk of this program and others like it is that someday, it will be used as “proof” that universal coverage does not work, when in fact all it proves is that forcing customers to participate in an unfair market does not work.

In closing: a net gain of 167,000 new jobs in December, which sounds great until you realize that the majority of them require an specific degree you don’t have and as for jobs you could get, “Factories, however, cut 12,000 positions and construction companies eliminated 3,000 jobs — casualties of the souring housing market and the struggling auto industry. Retailers shed just over 9,000 slots” (more on where job openings are here at least locally speaking); 2007 expected to be warmest year on record but remember that some people still think global warming is just a crackpot theory; What Does 200 Calories Look Like; is there a Zombie next to you right now?; Terry Jones on the value of human life in the War on Terror; and ok, you’ve finally got your dang iPhone, along with a MacTV. Where have I seen that before?

There have been a few changes here at ShortWoman. One of them, the new look, is obvious. One of them, the new server, is not.

One side effect of these changes is that some static links may have become mangled in the migration. We regret any inconvenience and/or 404s this may cause.

All times approximate, Pacific Time Zone

Tuesday, September 11, 2001
5:50 AM

The alarm clock said 6 AM as it went off, but even half asleep she knew it was really ten minutes earlier. She rolled over, slapped the OFF button, and grabbed the TV remote. The TV — still tuned to CNBC from yesterday morning — turned on, and she saw a skyscraper on fire.

That looks like New York City, she thought, but if it were, there would be two of those towers instead of just one.

The phone rang. It was her husband. He was out of town on business. He said “I hoped I could reach you before you turned on the television.” She was still a little sleepy, trying to figure out what he was saying, and make sense of what Mark Haynes was saying on CNBC at the same time.

“What our people on the scene do not realize,” Mr. Haynes said evenly, “Is that the South Tower has collapsed.”

She came to understand what had happened: that several madmen had flown fuel-laden planes into the buildings; that another plane had hit the Pentagon; that a fourth plane was missing and presumed hijacked. The footage was live, and so she saw a person jump from the remaining tower. With a sinking feeling in her guts, she thought Well, I suppose if you know you are going to die anyway…. Within a half hour, the other tower fell.

Data was coming fast and furious. The markets would be closed until further notice. Air traffic closed until further notice. Lists of companies — including many brokerage houses, the IMF, and the World Bank — that had offices in the towers. Phone numbers for employees and families to call for information. Data about the square footage and height of the now demolished towers. Hastily prepared maps of Lower Manhattan with the towers and other landmarks labeled. Estimated 80,000-90,000 people visit the towers for business or tourism daily — needless to say the worst case had to be assumed until proven otherwise.

7:45 AM

After she had showered and gotten dressed, it was time to wake her son and take him to preschool. She had decided he didn’t need to know a lot of details about what had happened. She also hoped air traffic would be back to normal by the time his Dad was supposed to come home. Pretending nothing was wrong, she packed his snack and helped him pick out clothes. She had already scribbled a note for his teacher, reading “He does not know. I trust you will do what is best for the kids.”

They got into her car, and she made sure he was safely strapped in before starting the engine. She pounced on the radio’s OFF button as she realized her regular station was going to be talking about what had happened in New York, and probably nothing else.

Then she drove. The only sounds were the car engine, and her son singing the same four notes over and over again. They formed an odd little minimalist composition, repeating endlessly for most of the ride.

8:50 AM

They arrived at school. Before she could offer the note, the teacher asked simply “Does he know?”

She replied “No.” They both nodded.

The teacher, with effort, put on her happy preschool teacher smile and turned back towards the class. The mother went back to her car.

Alone, she turned on the radio. She changed the channel three or four times, before coming to the conclusion that everyone was talking about the same thing. The same meager set of facts she had learned a couple hours earlier was being repeated, some details superceded by more accurate ones. Now they thought only 40,000 or 50,000 people might be dead. Rescuers were searching for survivors. Interviews with people who had been fortunate enough to be late for work on that particular morning. Locally, there was talk about the air traffic situation, and the fact that the ferries would be running, but no vehicles would be allowed. Well that’s sure going to mess up traffic.

She tried to leave the school parking lot. Traffic was awful; she couldn’t make a left turn. Finally she gave up and turned right. I am going to the beach, she promised herself. As she drove the mile and a half to the beach, she passed multiple churches. One of them was even the denomination she belonged to. She half-thought about going inside, but then changed her mind. God isn’t in there. He’s out here.

She arrived at the rocky beach. It was cold, windy, and she could see the huge ferry coming in, loaded with people but no cars. She could hear the radio of the car parked next to her, continuing to stream the same facts and theories. She crossed the railroad tracks to a little coffee shop. As one barrista made her a cappucino, the manager was talkig on the phone to a second barrista who wasn’t sure she would be able to come in to work because she didn’t know if the ferries would be running. The woman helpfully relayed what she had heard on the radio. The manager thanked her, and the barrista handed her the drink.

She has no idea how much time she spent standing on the rocky beach, sipping a cappucino, staring out across the water and at the mountains beyond. The same four notes her son sang rang in her head.

Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Various Times

As she looked back upon this week, she always felt that Mark Haynes and Alina Cho deserved some kind of award for their coverage of 9/11. Maria Bartiromo was starting not to look quite so shaken. Bob Pisani was starting to look quite frazzled; clearly he was not sleeping, and frankly she couldn’t blame him. She was shaken herself, and she hadn’t been in New York City.

As a mere viewer, she knew they had all lost people they knew, people they had interviewed, people who had been regular guests. She began to wonder about friends and business associates in New York City. Are they alright? It would be weeks before she knew: One friend had watched the towers drop from his office; Another had been in Building 7.

More details became available. Akamai had lost their CTO in one of the planes. Other companies were disclosing lost high-level personel. Some companies, like Cantor-Fitzgerald, had lost over half their staff. The New York Stock Exchange is talking about hoping to be able to open for normal business next week. Miraculous rescues were still happening. Details about what the President and Vice-President had done the day before were now becoming widely known. Now they thought probably only 5,000-10,000 people were dead.

Still, those same four notes rang in her head like an endless tape loop.

CNBC’s David Faber apologized for the fact that they are a business news network, and that in addition to the terrible events that happened yesterday, they will be reporting important business, national, and international news as it happens. Various guests talk about what will happen next week when the markets reopen. Sell airlines, because air travel is changing forever! Sell aviation manufacturers! There will almost certainly be a recession so sell everything! No, buy defense contractors!

Sometime amidst this, she thinks with alarming clarity Well, no matter what else happens, people will need to get from place to place, and American Airlines and United Airlines both have planes to replace. And no matter what gets built at “Ground Zero,” it will need air conditioners and elevators. Buy United Technologies when they open.

At some point she went outside. The eerie quiet of the skies was broken by a fighter jet from a nearby military base.

Thursday, September 13, 2001
Various Times

As she was out and about, she noticed American flags everywhere. It was like the Fourth of July on steroids! She was even noticing people who had painted their old beater cars red, white, and blue. She couldn’t help but wonder if those people were going to be quite so proud of those paint jobs 6 months from now.

She still made sure the radio was off when her son was in the car. There was still too much talk about what had happened than she really wanted to expose a preschooler to. She was also very very cautious about turning on the TV at all. Luckily, she was already in the habit of taping Sesame Street for later viewing.

The four notes were not in her head anymore — at least not constantly — but she still couldn’t go an hour without wondering why Tuesday had happened.

Friday, September 14, 2001
9:15 AM

The moment her son was safely in school, she went back to her car and turned on the local NPR affiliate. They were supposed to run the memorial service live from Washington Cathedral. Billy Graham was supposed to give the sermon, and she desperately hoped he had something truly inspired to say.

“…And now they are passing the offering plate…” the announcer said.

Stunned, she stared at the radio for a moment before turning it off and driving away.

So maybe gas prices are down a little bit — and my inner cynic supposes they will remain so until at least November 7 — but they are still higher than they were 2 years ago.

Meanwhile, traffic congestion has become a serious problem in pretty much every major metropolitan area, and it’s only getting worse. Now, nobody likes being stuck in traffic. Really. But there are reasons not to like it beyond the simple waste of time: it’s stressful; it’s a waste of gas; it pollutes the environment for no good reason; it is a drain on productivity, particularly for workers whose jobs involve driving; it can give a city a bad reputation; it might even cause heart attacks. If you want to know more about the problem, you can start with these studies.

One ongoing argument in this arena is whether we should solve this problem with more roads, or with public transportation that gets people off the roads in the first place. Rarely does anybody talk about doing the best we can with the traffic situation we have.

The Washington Department of Transportation, however, is in the middle of a project that will make traffic run more smoothly whether you drive a H2, a Prius, or ride the bus, and they are doing it without a single construction zone! For some years, Washington commuters have been able to select routes based on traffic conditions before ever getting into a car. Now the WDOT is smoothing traffic by precision monitoring and adjustment of traffic lights. It requires no action on the part of motorists, other than to obey traffic laws.

It’s one of those “why don’t they do this everywhere” kind of ideas.

In closing: yet more follow up on McGavick, who it seems has a lot worse than an old DUI to worry about; new story on old news, David Cope was writing computer music well over a decade ago, but Wired just noticed; sharp drop in terror prosecutions “because of weak evidence and other legal problems”; “For young people, U.S. wages trail costs” but tell them something they didn’t know; cutting edge study suggests that fat toddlers become fat teenagers; reality, working, and lactation; and finally, Welcome to the World, Little Prince.

One news item that probably escaped your attention — and who could blame you as many things as are going on in the world — is that a coalition of industry, government, and academic experts are forming a center whose purpose is to study and come up with ways to prevent identity theft. Identity theft is a serious problem. Here’s what the federal government has to say about it. As we speak, legislation is circulating around the Senate and House that — although it would not prevent identity theft at all — would at least attempt to create uniform guidelines about what financial institutions would have to do in the event that consumer data is compromised. Some experts opine that many problems could be avoided if common sense were more common.

Here’s a radical thought: let’s start preventing identity theft by agreeing not to pass financial information around like mashed potatoes at Sunday Dinner!

We can start by not putting Social Security Numbers on documents such as health insurance cards and school ID cards. We can continue by not putting Social Security Numbers in state driver’s license records. Let’s limit access to Social Security Numbers to entities who have a legitimate tax, credit, or financial reason to know. Your boss needs your Social Security Number so he can pay the taxes associated with your employment. Your High School has no legitimate reason to know your Social Security Number. Your college might need it if you receive student aid, but your professors don’t need it.

Then let’s have a long hard look at the sorts of data corporate America has. Some of it they have — legitimately — because of doing business with you. Some of it they have because they bought or “shared” it with another business. And some of that data is in turn bought or shared from yet a third or fourth or fiftieth business. Company A might know you own a microwave oven made by Company B, purchased at Company C, through a data purchased from Company D, but what business is it of theirs? I mean really. Why do they need to know? And are the big data warehouses of aggregated consumer information really a benefit to real people? Or are they just a way for corporate America to sell us more stuff and have more information about us? Such databases are already being used by law enforcement to get around petty little things like search warrants. Not surprisingly, they are also being used by criminals to find targets.

Maybe then we can deal with computer security, and seriously ask companies why Social Security Numbers would ever be kept on a laptop computer, and why a computer with such information would ever be allowed off the premises. Yes, those are all different instances. I guess it’s hard to learn from the mistakes of others.

In closing, The President calls the press a tattle-tale for daring to say things that are unflattering but true. Wisely, he doesn’t look in his own back yard.

You know I don’t usually do little stories like this, but this one was so interesting I double checked to make sure it wasn’t released last Saturday.

Scientists have found fossils of a new dinosaur in Utah. It resembled a 7 foot tall turkey. It had brightly colored feathers, but did not fly. It had a strong, toothless beak, and hand-like claws.

Upon reading this description, all I could think was “Oh my! They’ve found fossilized Big Bird!“