Autopay, Notifications, and Dormant Accounts

Avoiding interest and late payment penalties isn't hard to do - or at least it wasn't.

II wrote before about credit cards and how dangerous they are - several times.  It takes a long time to figure this out.  As a young adult, I thought credit cards were fun and a sign of my fiscal responsibility.  After all, they don't just let anyone have a credit card, do they?  Do they?

They do.  In fact, the worse your credit rating is, the more eager they are to offer you a credit card, usually on onerous terms.  If you have good credit, they will make you fantastic offers with frequent flyer miles and bonus points and cash-back dollars.  They are hoping you become the person with bad credit, as a result.

A credit card is a like a loaded handgun.  Treated with respect, it can be safely used and even be useful - although it is still dangerous, by design.  A handgun that isn't dangerous is a pretty worthless handgun.  The gun that just pops out a flag saying "bang!" isn't good for much except old vaudeville routines.

Similarly, with a credit card, you need to know your closing date, your payment due date, interest rate, credit line, and balance (at all times).  And you can't let them "congratulate" you by upping your credit limit - this is how you end up with a $20,000 limit card (or more).  There is nothing on this God's Green Earth that costs twenty grand that you would want to put on a credit card.  You go to a car dealer and try to buy a car with a credit card, they will tell you to get fucked.  They aren't taking a 5% hit on credit card processing fees.  I mean, they might, if they jacked the price of the car by 5% - is that really a smart financial move?  No, it is not.

Fortunately, today, you can monitor your credit card balance daily online, through most bank portals.  We do it every day and I usually make a payment daily and my credit card balance is usually near zero and reaches zero at least once during every billing cycle.  You let the balance creep up, with groceries, gas, and restaurant meals, and, well, that's how you end up with a $20,000 balanace on your credit card and no way to pay it off.

If a credit card is like a loaded handgun, a high-limit card is like a loaded howitzer.  Once you rack up thousands in credit card debt and can't pay the balance every month, you drown in interest payments, particularly for a high-rate "rewards" card.

So, I check my balance every month and also set up "autopay" just in case, so the minimum payment would be made every month, just in case I forgot.  This avoids any late fees or charges to the account.  It is a good idea for anyone.  Why the minimum payment?  Well, if you set it up to pay the entire balance, that might drain your bank account, leading to an overdraft fee.  It is a backstop, not a payment plan.  I've had "autopay" for over a decade and never had to use it.

Well, that is, until now.   Mark is doing the balances on our local checking account (small bank) and his credit cards (one low interest, no frills, the other a cash-back, high-interest loaded handgun).  I take care of our national checking account (big bank) and the cash-back high-interest loaded handgun card we have with them.  I also have two other low-interest cards which are dormant.  And Mark has a dormant cash-back card with the big-bank.

You see the problem right away - we've accumulated too many credit cards, and we should probably get rid of at least four of them.  It isn't hard to do - you get offers all the time in the mail.

Anyway, we went camping a month ago, and we extended our stay by a couple of days and the clerk at the front desk said, "I'll put this on the card we have on file!" and he did - on Mark's dormant rewards card.   Since the balance was zero (and had been for a year) I got out of the habit of checking it.  I logged in today and was chagrined to see the payment was "past due" and we had paid interest of $1.55!!!

A BUCK-FIFTY!    Hey, that's a half-gallon of gasoline right there!

I was embarrassed, ashamed and angry with myself.  But it was a learning moment.  First of all, the big bank (BoA) will send you a daily notice as to the balance on your checking and savings accounts.  But for some reason, they won't send you a daily notice of your credit card account.  They will send you a notice that you made a payment and whatnot, but the real important things - payment due date, balance, payment due, is not part of their "notifications" system.  How convenient for them - it encourages you to run up a balance.

UPDATE:  With BoA, you can set "reminders" but only if you are within so many dollars of your limit.  No "reminder" of your daily balance like Capital One does.   However, if you set up AUTOPAY, any "reminders" are disabled.  You are only reminded - via e-mail - of the coming payment due date and amount to be paid by AUTOPAY.   BoA really sucks, doesn't it?  Maybe it is time to move on....  Capitol One certainly pays more interest, that's for sure!

I might note that Capital One DOES send out a daily reminder of your credit card balance.  Hmmm.....score one for them.

So I went on the BoA website and paid off the balance and then spent nearly an hour spelunking their unnecessarily complicated system of menus and 6 point font.  I am still seeing double.  Turns out, to get "notifications" on a credit card account, you have to set it up so you are notified when you balance is within $X of the credit limit.  So you can spoof this by saying, "Within $10,000 of a $10,000 limit" for example.

But autopay?  You have to set up eBills (not just paperless!  That's different!) and once that is set up, you can set up autopay for the account.  I had neglected to do this for the new credit cards.  Needless to say, it is done now.

Of course, that is not the end of it.  My next project is to figure out what cards we want to keep and what we want to dump.  And I think we will keep the Capital One rewards card and low rate card for Mr. See, and cancel his BoA "dormant" card.  I will keep my BoA rewards card and my Simmons First low rate card and cancel my dormant Capitol One card (or vice-versa).  Six cards is way too many, particularly when you are not using four of them.

Maybe $1.55 isn't the end of the world, but it is the first interest payment I've made in nearly a decade.  Being debt-free means owing nobody and paying nobody any interest.  It is really hard to get back on the interest payment bandwagon, once you've gotten off.

Maybe also, this idea of "cards on file" is dangerous as well, as if you change cards, and they charge the old one, well, you'd better be checking the balance on the old card, too.  Bank of America signed us up for "paperless" statements, but that only means you get a notice of a statement by e-mail, not the actual statement itself.  So maybe we will get them to delete the "card on file" and revert to an active card instead.

But lesson learned - and life is a never-ending series of lessons, that end only at the grave.  But more on that in another posting.

GOP Participation Trophies

You can't graduate from preschool.

I saw this tweet posted online and everyone was chiming in about trans this and trans that but seemed to miss the entire point.

The GOP has decried "participation trophies" as a talisman of leftist thinking - that "everyone wins" and the next generation is being rewarded for just showing up.  This is setting expectations that just showing up is all you need do, and thus setting up the next generation for failure.  And maybe there is a nugget of truth to that.

So I laughed out loud when this REPUBLICAN State Senator complained about "missing her grandchild's preschool graduation."

Graduating?  From a school that, by definition, is not school at all, but preparation for school?  Why on earth would anyone celebrate this?  You don't graduate from preschool, you age out of it. It is physically impossible to flunk preschool, and thus you cannot celebrate a "graduation" from it.  It is not a milestone in life - and certainly not one worth celebrating.

Likely, any "graduation" ceremony would be bewildering to the kids.  Half of them would toss off the mortarboards the moment they were put on their heads.  About a quarter would be wetting themselves, and there is always one kid shucking his clothes and running around in his underwear, screaming.  Yes, that is what 4-year-olds do.

Graduating from preschool - sheesh!

I never had a "graduation" ceremony from preschool simply because I never went to one.  I went to Kindergarten when I was five years old, and no, no one had a "graduation" from Kindergarten.  In fact, it was only a half-day class.

Ditto for all other grades - no "graduation" from fourth, six, eighth, or any other grade, other than leaving high school. And quite frankly, I could have skipped that. I never went to my college graduation - Syracuse University puts thousands of graduates in the Carrier dome and they spray cheap Korbel "Champagne" all over each other as each major is graduated en masse.  I did go to law school graduation, but in retrospect, it was also a waste of time.  The keynote speaker was Dick Cheney or some such Republican nonsense.

I guess I am shocked - shocked, I say! - at the hypocrisy of Republicans.  They spent the last decade lambasting liberals for "participation trophies" and here we have a Republican politicians whining about missing her grandson's graduation from preschool as if he was graduating summa cum laude from Harvard Medical School.  Let me guarantee you that this kid won't remember that fateful day when Grandma failed to show at one of his pivotal life events - no doubt it will be all downhill from here.  He will end up as a homeless crack addict as Me-Ma-Ma did a no-show at pre-K grad.

Make me puke!

I weep for the Republican Party as it used to be a party of policies and had some internal consistency in the positions it took - lower deficit, lower taxes, less government, and less government spending.  But somewhere along the way, they found that voters were bored by all of that - and what's more, their cronies wanted more government spending and deficit spending to boot - provided that the government largess is sent their way.  It is no mystery why Elon Musk turned Republican - all of his companies are suckling at the government teat and he wants to be first in line come milking time.

Speaking of which, did you notice Jeff Bezo's Blue Origin was awarded a contract for a lunar lander?  Apparently NASA is skeptical that Musk's big stainless steel aerial bomb is capable of landing on the moon. It seems that the only thing the "Starship" is good at doing is destroying launch pads and blowing up into tiny bits - again and again.  The whole concept of building a rocket that looks like, and uses the technology of, 1930's Science Fiction, seems a little weird.  So maybe NASA is hedging its bets with a more conventional lander.  But I digress.

The new GOP seems more interested in grandstanding on social issues and "owning the libs" and whatnot.  Part and parcel of this was a decades-long mocking campaign designed to ridicule the left.  And front and center of this was "participation trophies" which - to the extent they were actually real - were a stupid idea.  So was Ebonics, but that turned out to be a non-issue and an obscure idea practiced by a few scattered individuals.  You don't hear much about it anymore, doya?

And so it goes with "participation trophies" - once a staple of Fox News Lampooning, it has apparently gone mainstream along with "gender reveal parties" and other atrocities of this new Century.

So, give it a decade or so.  If the GOP can embrace participation trophies and preschool graduation ceremonious, they will probably embrace the whole "trans" thing in short order.  Hey, after all, the most famous "trans" person is, in fact, a Republican.

They're already halfway there.

Why Are Apple Users Poor?

Spending money is not wealth!

I saw this recent video online about how Goldman Sachs stepped in the dogshit, trying to expand into retail banking by partnering with Apple to provide the new "AppleCard" credit card.  Here I was, thinking "AppleCard" was a piece of hardware you put into an expansion slot in your Mac.  How times have changed.  Expansion slot - OK, Boomer!

What struck me dumb, though was 6:48 into the video - where it was revealed that the "charge-off rate" of AppleCard users was twice that of the industry norm.  Wait.  What?  Apple users are supposed to be sophisticated rich people who can afford all the luxury items, such as a cell phone that costs ten times as much as an ordinary one - or a laptop that costs thousands, instead of hundreds.  Surely they all drive Maserati's and have buckets of cash laying around. Why would they be twice as likely to be delinquent on their credit card payments?

I searched online, and yes, it is true, the average income of an Apple user is higher than that of an Android user.  Funny thing, though, the statistics from 2014 show all of us making substantially more money back then than we do in 2018.  Maybe these statistics are inaccurate?  Perhaps they were based on surveys?  Maybe Apple people are more likely to lie about their income?  Who knows.

But another article drives home the point - Apple users are more likely to spend more money on technology, which is sort of self-evident when you realize how overpriced an Apple phone or Apple computer is, compared to the competition.  It is like saying a BMW owner spends more on cars than a Toyota owner.  He has to - they cost more!

That doesn't mean, however, he has greater wealth, just a more expensive lifestyle.  It is like my friends in the big city we left behind.  Sure, they are making six-figure salaries, but blowing it just as fast on mortgages on mini-mansions, leased cars, delivery foods, private schools, all the cable channels, and of course, Apple phones for everyone in the house.  When the credit cards are maxed out, they take out a home equity loan to pay them off.  "I'll never retire!" they say.  They can't afford to.

So "income" and "spending" are one thing, but unless your spending is less than your income, you can't accumulate wealth.

Apple used to make a basic PC in the days before the IBM-PC came out.  Once the IBM-PC became the default PC, well, Apple had to innovate.  So they took the technology from Xerox PARC and came up with the Mac - complete with a mouse and graphical user interface.  Thanks, Xerox!  But it was a weird little thing with a tiny, monochrome screen, marketed as a tool for artists and college kids.  "A computer for the rest of us!" they crowed, because learning the arcane commands of DOS was too hard for most people.

And that has been their battle plan since then - to make computers and later on, smart phones, more "intuitive" and easier to use.  For some of us, this is a mixed bag.  Apple has one button instead of three, so you have to get used to not having that handy "back" button to take you back to where you came from.  And most of the configuration utilities on a Mac are hidden from view (Sadly, Windows has gone in this direction as well) so  you no longer feel you have control over what is on your computer or your phone.

The "rest of us" translates to "clueless idiots who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground."   Imagine a car company advertising that way - "the car for those of us who are really shitty drivers and have no clue how any of it actually works."   Actually, that would sell a lot of cars these days.  Ignorance is indeed bliss, for a lot of people.

But what is also interesting is that according to one of the "survey" articles above, Apple users spend more time on their phones and download more apps as well.  Android users have a life, instead.  I think that is a better deal.  So there is the profile of the Apple user - working at an overpaid job with a lot of time on their hands to play Farmville or whatever, blowing every last dollar on status items.

Ah, yes, status. Apple made big news when they changed their chat feature so that any message from anyone chatting from an Android phone would appear in a green "bubble" as opposed to the blue, and apparently pixellated as well.  The subliminal message sent to Apple users is "this is how it looks on an Android - ugh!" when in fact, Apple was just degrading the images to make Android look bad.

Worse yet, superficial people on the dating scene would reject suitors based on these green bubbles.  Quite frankly, this is probably a good thing.  If your potential mate is so shallow and materialistic to judge you based on the brand-names of products you buy, chances are, you will end up divorced in short order, as the relationship becomes a race to the bottom - to see who can accumulate the most consumer goods in the least amount of time.  This is the shallow end of the gene pool.  Avoid at all costs.

So why are AppleCard users defaulting on their credit cards at twice the rate as ordinary credit card users?  I speculate it is because they are juggling their finances - money going in and money going out - to the point where one hiccup upsets the whole apple cart (pardon the pun).

I speculate also that many Apple users are quite poor.  Status items are, ironically, less popular in rich communities than poor ones.  The poor and lower classes crave the symbols of status more than the upper classes do.  If you are filthy rich, chances are, you don't need to show other people that.  Your demeanor and home address tell that tale.  In fact, you probably want to hide the fact you are wealthy, as people will target you if they think you have lots of money.  The lower classes, on the other hand, desperately want others to think they are rich.

Around the local Walmart "Ghetto Gourmet" (Neighborhood Market) is a ring of stores catering to the poor. They are selling renting bling rims for your car, selling or even leasing sketchy used cars for people with bad credit, renting-to-own furniture (for 4x the cost of buying) and of course, offering payday loans and title pawn loans so you can have it all now and pay for it later.  People, particularly poor people, crave status items, and they would rather have a shiny new set of particle board furniture than save up for a few months and buy one piece at a time.  I've slept on the floor more than once in my life - in fact, fairly recently.  Others are less willing to make sacrifices.

So you can sell more $300 sneakers in the ghetto than in The Villages, because the ghetto kids crave the status of having the "right" sneaker.  Lower class people will actually collect sneakers like lower class people used to collect beanie babies - convinced that real wealth lies in junk you own, and not in money in the bank.  Appearances trump substance.

Granted, there are the nouveau riche who flaunt wealth, which again, they may not actually have.  Instead, they have income and spending - neither of which is real wealth.  But you see this all the time - middle-class people talk about wealth in terms of how much they make per year or how much they are approved to borrow.  Few talk about seven-figure balances in their investment accounts.

In terms of personal bling, the iPhone fits right in.  If you buy a case for your iPhone, there is an apple-shaped hole in it, so people can see the almighty Apple logo on your way out of Starbucks, holding your coffee-drink high, elbow up, cup logo facing out.  You don't want people to think you are some dweeb who makes his own coffee, doya?

I suspect that explains the high default rate.  Because while many Apple users might have a higher income (if surveys are to be trusted) many others are dirt poor, at least from what I am seeing at the local Walmart.  And such folks have a credit score that is an irrational number.  It is no wonder they would be deliquent on an Apple Card - and no wonder they would actually want one.

Of course, the story of the Apple Card is more complicated than that.  Deliquency is just one aspect, although an interesting commentary on Apple users.  Apple screwed over Goldman Sachs on the deal - and Goldman - so eager to get into retail banking - ignored the warning signs, such as two other banks walking away saying, "Uh, no thanks, Apple!"  Apple felt, apparently, that their shit didn't stink and they could dictate terms to banks - and did.  It is sort of like how Apple skims user fees in the Apple Store, much to the chagrin of Mr.. Musk.

I guess that is the other reason I am not an Apple fan.  Any company that acts like they are doing you a favor by allowing you to buy things from them is just a raw deal.  But you'd be surprised how many companies do this - particularly many luxury brands.  Some high-end handbag makers won't let you just waltz in and buy a $30,000 handbag.  No, no, you have to start out with a "starter" bag first, and work your way up the scale.  Jay Leno said in one of his YouTube videos, that he never got into Ferrari, as he went to the dealer and they told him he would have to buy a "starter" Ferrari and work his way up, before they would let him buy the top model.  Lamborghini had no such qualms, however.  They wouldn't sell a Ferrari to freaking Jay Leno.  That tells you more about what the cars are really about - status, not performance.

And status is an idiotic way to drain your bank account!

I'll Get Back To You... (Procrastination or NoOneWantsToWorkAnymore?)

Getting people to do basic jobs is harder and harder to do.

When we (briefly) moved to Florida many years ago (has it been 20 years?) we laughed when we saw a plumber's truck with the company logo on it and below that, the notation, "We Show Up!" which was their company slogan, as it turns out.  We Show Up?  That sort of seems like the minimum you have to do, besides the job, doing it right, doing it well, doing it at a decent price.  Just showing up isn't something to brag about, right?

Well, after a few months in Florida, when we needed plumbing work, we called the "We Show Up!" people because nobody else did.  You would call a plumbing company or other contractor and someone would answer the phone and take down your information and make an appointment for their service person to be there.  You would take time off from work to wait for them and.... no show.

Worse yet, no phone call, no apology, no nothing.  And you'd call back and they would say, "Oh, sorry, we couldn't make it, something came up!" and they would offer to reschedule.  If you rescheduled, it would be the same deal.  And if you did it a third time, same deal.  Eventually you'd give up and try someone else, often with the same outcome.

One wonders why they bother hiring someone to make all these appointments?  Why not just say, "Sorry, we are busy!  Try someone else!"  - they could fire half their phone and office staff.  Why bother making appointments you have no intention of keeping?  Seems like it would ruin the reputation of your business.

And it did affect their reputation. I mentioned this to a neighbor and he said, "Oh, those guys never show up!  You want to call so-and-so, they show up!" which was, indeed, their motto.  We realized, after living in Florida for a few months that just showing up was a big freaking deal.

That was 20 years ago.  It hasn't gotten better, in Florida, or indeed nationwide.  Three recent experiences seem to reinforce this lesson.

I tried to get an estimate on the damage to the camper from the sideswipe incident.  Now, with cars, you go to the GEICO service center and the guy will look it over and cut you a check on the spot.  When our truck was hit with hail damage, they did this for us.  No big deal.  With a camper, it is a little harder.  But I called two RV repair guys and they said they could do an estimate for me.   One made an appointment two weeks in advance (!!) as he was "busy."  The other said he could come over the next day, and that sounded like a better option.  He did show up, took notes and said he'd get back to me next week.

Well, weeks have gone by and nothing.  Well, I bug him, and he says he'll have an estimate "tomorrow" or even "later today" but that was a week ago.  We are leaving on a trip so I would like to button this all up, but now I am stuck with this guy - maybe I should have gone to the first guy instead?  It is hard to say.  But I guess he is busy, and this is low priority for him.  The lack of communication is frustrating - and the waiting.

The second incident was the generator at the Parcheesi club.  The guy said he would come out and service the generator - doing oil and filter changes and fixing some broken hold-down clamps.  He never showed up and doesn't return my text messages.  I am not to worried about this, but hey, it would be nice to say, "I couldn't make it - I will reschedule" instead of ghosting me like  Tinder date.

The third incident involves the Parcheesi club again - they have a machine that extrudes Parcheesi playing pieces, which is only cost-effective if you have 100 people playing and need new pieces constantly (they break).  The machine is 17 years old, abused, and broken.  So I took it apart, cleaned it, and fixed the broken bits (someone put their cocktail napkin down the intake manifold) and reassembled it.  I changed the oil and lubed the joints, too!   It works, but it needs some new parts to be 100% like new.

So I went on the company website to see.  No parts list and the machine is listed as "out of stock" - all models.  So I call them and they tell me they are looking for "a new supplier" (I thought they were the manufacturer?) and then tell me to submit a "tech request" form online and give me the URL.

So I do that - a phone call to make an e-mail.  A few days later, I get a phone call, and they ask me for my e-mail address (which was in the tech request) and I give it to them.  "Someone will get back to you" they say.  This is a small company, too - but no one has a name, apparently.

Today, I get an e-mail giving me the parts numbers, but telling me to call "tech support" to get pricing and submit an order.  I call the 1-800 number provided and get a recording telling me to call the 1-800 number I just called.  WTF?   It beeps, so I leave a message.  I doubt anyone will call back.  It's like they just don't care.

But their recording talks about their award-winning stellar customer service!  Maybe if you say this enough, it will become true, I don't know.

Anyway, we've kind of given up.  We can fabricate one of the parts we need, and maybe the other is nice to have but not essential.  The damn thing is 17 years old and maybe at the end of its design life.  Sadly, a new one (of any brand) is about $5000 - which is a lot of money for Parcheesi.  You could just buy pieces commercially - a lot of them - for $5000.

UPDATE:  I got yet another e-mail from them, telling me to call again and press "2" for sales, even though the recording says "2" is for general sales excluding Parcheesi extruders.  I call and get a young woman who says, "All lines are busy, can you hold?" - musical hold for ten minutes and then I hang up.  Is there that much of a demand for Parcheesi extruders?   Weirder still, the guy in the e-mail says "technical support" is "offsite" (overseas or work-from-home?) and "isn't taking any calls anymore."  Why are they bothering to pay them, then?   Weird.

What is going on here?  Is this part and parcel of this "No One Wants To Work Anymore" deal or something? Are companies so understaffed and overworked that they just blow off any customer job that seems less lucrative or not as profitable?  It is like the Door Dash drivers who just refuse to pick up your food if you don't add a big tip when  you order.  I have no personal experience with that, by the way, just what I read online.

But of course, you have choices - you can just go get your own food, or better yet, make your own food at home.  Having a hamburger delivered cold from McDonald's after waiting an hour sucks.  Mark and I grilled burgers over a charcoal fire last night.  It cost less than what the delivery fee from DoorDash would be - but for a lot of people, it is "too hard" to do and they are "too tired to cook."

That has to be pretty tired, because Mark and I were exhausted from a day of working on the camper.  Yes, rather than wait around for a repair guy to not show up, we decided to take matters into our own hands and get the camper ready for summer.  We installed a new bathroom faucet and a new shower faucet in the bathroom (they were combined into one, cheap, plastic unit, which is typical of most RVs).  We put in our old "memory foam" mattress into the camper (after cutting it to size, which we found we could do after watching a YouTube video).  A friend gave us a very lightly used Temperpedic mattress for free, which is now our new home mattress.  If you wait long enough, everything you want in life can be found for free.

I was able to even fix the broken pipe on the grey water tank.  Turns out the coupling had snapped off (because of the sideswipe) and nothing but caulk was holding it on (why caulk - on a threaded fitting?).  I was able to get the remainder of the threaded portion out and thread it a new PVC fitting (with lots of teflon tape - no caulk!) and it all looks like new.  I put a rubber flex fitting inline with it, so it has some "give" to it going down the road - at the suggestion of some fellow owners on an Escape forum.

So that is what it comes down to these days - you have to either do-it-yourself or forgetaboutit!  Getting anyone to actually show up is next to impossible.

And quite frankly, I don't think this is about "No One Wants To Work Anymore!" but demographics.  Baby Boomers are retiring in droves - often early retirement - and the next generation is much smaller.  So that is a big problem.  Then there is the trend of young men living with their parents and playing video games all day long, working occasional odd jobs to be able to afford new computer parts, guns, and Samurai swords (hey, you have to be ready to kill your parents or do a mass-shooting, right?).   So a lot of the next generation is out of the job market or has no desire to work, as their parents are supporting them.

That puts a huge burden on those who are working, who have to handle the jobs of two or three people.  And even those who don't, use this an excuse to do as little as possible.  A friend of mine runs a restaurant and he hired this guy (a boomer) who just hates life.  If you go there, he tells people they are so "slammed" (three tables?) that it will be a half-hour wait.  So people leave and he doesn't have to serve them.  Sadly, my friend is running a second restaurant and doesn't realize what is going on - and no one has the heart to tell him.

So, we are left to our own devices.  We are able to cook for ourselves - everyone should be able to - so it doesn't affect us that much.  With restaurant prices the way they are, and with service so abominable, why bother?  The local "sub shop" charges $20 for a foot-long (with chips, soda, and tip).  Wasn't that long ago that Subway had  $5 foot-longs, even if they were 10" (which I think they still are, even at the $20 sub shop).

Of course, one way to avoid this problem is just to own less crap.  If you want a lot of fancy garbage and equipment, you have to pay for it - and pay someone to maintain it.  And in that regard, we are lucky (or smart) that we can do a lot of this work ourselves.  Not everyone can do that, of course.  But for things like RVs, well, you have to be handy, because it is like owning a small home that is constantly in a 70MPH hurricane and an earthquake as it goes down the road.  Not expecting things to break is unrealistic.

So, we will rebuild rebuilt the Parcheesi machine with fabricated parts.  It works fine.  I will change the oil on the generator and replace the hold-down clamps myself.  And the RV - well, I've already fixed most of the broken parts myself, while waiting for the "repair guy" to do it.

Of course, I am not quite ready to re-roof my own house, but I did shingle the roof on Mark's Studio - which goes to show you, if you own a simple, small home,  you can fix it yourself - or even build it.

Quite frankly, the way things are going, we may not have a choice.  No one will show up!

Gay Bashing

For a while in the 1980s, gay-bashing was a fad.

You may remember a scene in the film Milk about assassinated city Supervisor Board member Harvey Milk, where he is confronting the police over a series of gay murders.  Some nutjob was going around the Castro district and stabbing gay men and the police weren't doing much - or anything - about it.  "Probably just a fight between some queens" they say, or, "his trick stabbed him" - as if that excused murder even it if was true. Which it wasn't.

(Say, whatever happened to the guy who killed Milk and Muscone?  Oh, right, the "twinkie" defense - junk food made him do it!  You see how people bend over backwards to not find a crime against minorities!)

But it was typical of that era, or indeed, even today, where marginalized groups of people are often victimized and no one really seems to care much.  People make jokes about dead hookers - as if being a prostitute merits a death sentence.  And when they are found dead, people complain their rotting remains are a nuisance to dog-walkers!  Young indigenous women are being murdered across the Pacific Northwest and the only thing we've done is give this a trendy name, "The Trail of Tears."  But not much is being done to actually solve the crimes.  (Sadly, a similar trail of tears exists across Northern Mexico, where young women are murdered for some sicko's sexual perversion.  Again, not much is done).

The homeless have been subject of such marginalization, at least in the past.  There were stories - and indeed, even jokes told (shame on you Jon Stewart!) about beating homeless people with baseball bats and other implements.  Today, the stories are more about homeless people victimizing others or each other, which is why I say, we need to bring back the mental institution - for the safety of everyone involved.  Letting mentally ill people live on the street is just a bad idea all around.  But I digress.

Once a group is marginalized, it is much easier to abuse them, victimize them, and even murder them. One neat trick is to tell people that the marginalized group is not even human, and thus proscriptions about murder no longer apply.  This has been done, historically, against religious minorities, who, being unbelievers or apostates, were deemed not to have basic human rights.

In the 1980's it was "Morning in America" and Ronald Reagan was elected President. The HIV epidemic was also in full-swing and gays, as a result, were getting a higher profile in society - but not because they wanted to, at least in that way.  Many on the far-right, particularly the religious far-right, claimed this was God's vengeance against the gays.  They invoked Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of the retribution of God against those who practiced fornication.  There is some debate, however, about what those passages in the Bible actually mean - presuming you believe the Bible is more than just silly stories.

Of course, these religious and political leaders weren't calling for violence against gay people - well, at least most of them weren't.  And yet some other Republicans proposed forcibly quarantining gays that tested positive for HIV (no doubt the same Republicans who were against CoVid testing and vaccines). Many wondered whether these were "wide stance" Republicans who were just afraid of catching HIV and wanted a safe playing field - as they were in the closet.

The end effect, of course, was to make it seem acceptable to attack gays, and a few mentally deranged or just violent people decided to do just that - secure in the knowledge that "society" approves of their actions and the consequences, if any, would be minimal.  In many cases, perpetrators were not caught, or if caught, given light sentences or even suspended sentences, due to their young age.

When we moved to Washington, DC, the gay-bashing era was in full swing - if you'll pardon the sick pun.  Teenagers would drive into the district from the suburbs and go to some place notorious for "cruising" such as the P Street Beach, and the beat the brains out of some hapless gay, with a baseball bad.  Beating someone in the head with a bat is a particularly nasty and personal crime.  It isn't as abstract as merely shooting someone, rather you are trying to destroy them, quite literally.

Oddly enough, these perpetrators, on the rare occasions they were caught, would use the scourge of AIDS as an "excuse" for the attacks and murders.  You want to avoid getting HIV, it probably would be a good idea not to let someone bleed all over you, for example, when you are beating them to death.   HIV was just a cover-story for violently inclined people to have an outlet for their violent fantasies.

You read all the time in the papers about someone surviving an attack, an accident, or a shooting, with the notation that they had "non-life-threatening injuries."   This sounds benign, like they needed a band-aid or something.  But non-life-threatening injuries could include being paralyzed from the neck down, losing a limb or limbs, or having severe brain damage.

I met a young man who had this happen to him.  Someone whacked him on the head with a club, simply because he was gay.  He survived, but had double-vision, loss of balance, and memory problems - plus a huge scar across his forehead, like Frankenstein.  He could never again drive a car, operate machinery, or even hold most jobs.  He was fortunate to have a partner to support him, but his life was changed forever.  The teenager who did it?   Out on bail in 24 hours, and given a suspended sentence due to his "youthful offender" status.  In other words, the judge and prosecutor wanted to get rid of some icky gay case as quickly as possible.

Of course, this was not merely a Washington, DC thing or even an American thing.  Australia is coming to grips (somewhat) with its history of gay-bashing.  At one time, closeted gays would "cruise" a cliff area near Sydney,  Vicious teenagers would then confront these gays, beat them, and push them off the cliff to their deaths.  The Police, taking the easy way out, would claim these were suicides - the gays hating themselves, after all. Only recently has this come to light and people are actually being prosecuted for it.  But likely, most of these "suicides" will never be solved.

I ran into this, personally, in the 1980s when I was at Syracuse University. A friend of mine told me about a shortcut diagonally through the park, which I thought was a bad idea, as it was at night.  Sure enough, we were only a few hundred feet from his apartment when a car of young men rolled up and they started shouting epithets at us.  They piled out of the car - a 1962 Oldsmobile - and the lead one was swinging a length of galvanized pipe.

"What do they want?" my friend asked, frozen in fright.

"To kill us!  Run!" I said, grabbing his arm and nearly dragging him away.

We ran down the opposite side of the hill they were climbing, which gave us time.  By the time the foursome got to the top of the hill, we had swung around and headed toward the street and the commercial district.  Incredibly, they kept chasing us, getting closer and closer (and their compatriot was driving the car behind them).  Finally, we got closer to "civilization" and the pursuers realized they might get caught, and they piled into the Oldsmobile and left.

We got back to his apartment, tired and panting and his roommate complained we were making too much noise. After our heads cleared, we called the Police, who sent an undercover officer to investigate.  We described the four youths and the car - which was rather unique - and the Police officer said, "Oh, I know those guys, they were just messing with you!" and he left.  He knew the perpetrators and yet refused to arrest them.  We were too stunned to do anything, other than to realize that shortcuts at night were a bad idea.

That was 1985. Things got better in the coming years. Police forces started to take crimes against minority groups more seriously.  But still, there was this dichotomy between the response to a crime against a wealthy, white male, and a crime against a poor black female - particularly if she was gay.  I've seen it firsthand, how many Police officers decide, within seconds of rolling up on a crime scene, to decide who is right and who is wrong in a situation - and often these decisions are made based on personal prejudices.   The Police often side with the guy who looks, acts, and talks like them.   And once they've made up their mind that you are the bad guy and the perpetrators are innocent, well, you're screwed.

But the real reason gay bashing fell from favor was that society stopped sending signals that gays were less than human or needed to be eliminated.  In the 1990s and 2000s, gays were more tolerated and even celebrated, which of course made me nervous.  Once you are no longer the flavor-du-jour you get kicked under the bus in short order.

Turns out there are a lot of folks under that bus - again, pardon the pun, because sometimes it is quite literal.  Bus - or subway train.   Anti-immigrant and Anti-Asian sentiments were shouted in the 2010s, with (again) Republicans announcing these groups as threats to America.  Violence against immigrants and Asians started to rise.  All you have to do is create the aura of fear and then the wind-up soldiers will take charge.

Hitler knew this.  Long before there was official state-sanctioned violence against Jews in Nazi Germany, there was unofficial violence that often occurred with little or no consequence to the perpetrators.  Brownshirts knew the could beat up a Jew - right in front of Police Officer - and not be arrested.  They even ran unofficial concentration camps - incarcerating Communists and others they disagreed with - without any legal sanction to do so.  Of course, once they were officially in power, those concentration camps escalated to a whole new level of violence and death.

Given the history of this kind of violence, it is laughable that Republicans can say, "who, me?  I didn't attack anyone, I'm just exercising my free speech rights, and by the way, Jews control the banking system!"   It is hate-speech and it sets others off, which is the intent.  Not a specific intent, but the intent all along that someone will hear their call and take up arms against the out-group and that someone else will be a victim.  They can say they never saw it coming, but given the history of hate speech and its consequences, it is hard to claim ignorance.

And maybe that is why we had a lull in this kind of violence in the 1990s - we decried hate speech and even Republicans admitted it was abhorrent. That was the old-school GOP, before hate-mongering became a campaign strategy.  Sadly, an effective campaign strategy.

Much ado is made about a recent mass-shooter who was Hispanic, and yet claimed to be a White Supremacist.  Elon Musk is claiming it was a "PsyOp" - do you really want to buy a car from this man?  Maybe the Swastika will be the new logo instead of the stylized Tesla "T".   Republicans are once again claiming innocence (or denying it even happened) and pointing out that the clearly mentally ill young man was nutzo.  How can you be a white supremacist with a name like "Garcia"?

And yet the leader of the "Proud Boys" is an Afro-Cuban - what the ever-loving fuck?

It just goes to show you how this all works.  The GOP puts out noise about how blacks are all on welfare, Latinos are gang-bangers, Asians are taking all our jobs, and gays are pedophiles and so on and so forth.  "Just exercising our first amendment rights!" they say.  But they know that some mentally ill person will exercise their second amendment rights as a result of these "dog-whistles."  The problem is, wind-up soldiers are usually crazy and thus will seize upon this sort of stuff (conspiracy theories and whatnot) and end up going off the deep end, thinking they are heroes for shooting random people (or often, not-so-random people).

You create an environment of hate, violence will soon follow.  The GOP has blood on its hands.

So, here we are, nearly 40 years later, and the GOP's main platform plank is that "trans" people are bad, and ergo, drag queens (who generally are not "trans") are also bad and somehow "grooming" children, and thus, all gays are all pedophiles - and pedophiles deserve the death sentence.  And that's just Florida, folks!

How do you think this will play out over time?  How long before we have another Pulse nightclub shooting?  Not long, it seems.  Even today, indifference and inaction by the Police is part and parcel of the problem.  People have gone to great lengths to explain that the Pulse massacre wasn't an anti-gay thing, but that the shooter had a grudge against night clubs in general.  What the ever-loving fuck?  I mean, that is going to extremes to not see a hate crime here.   And I wonder if the Police would have waited four hours before going in, if the target of the attack was an F.O.P. lodge?

The sad thing is, this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.  The demonization of political discourse, even, is getting out of hand.  Yesterday, I was nearly run off the road (in our golf cart) by an F150 with a bumper sticker that read, "You're either an American or a Democrat!" - as if believing in health care meant you were a traitor to your country (but storming the Capitol to overturn an election makes you a patriot).

This too, shall pass.  But how many will die in the interim?