Verbal Remedy AKA Denise's Open Salon Blog

$40

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:12:43 -0500

Hat tip to Kent Pitman. What follows is an answer to the White House posted on Facebook by my High School best friend, Sandi, who despite growing up strone-cold poor earned her Master's degree and has a good job at a well regarded university. She is, however, also raising two of her younger sister's children in the Chicago area and still tries to help her desperately poor elderly parents and extended family downstate.

That's a lot of generic-brand groceries for someone ineligible for any form of assistance, yet trying to provide for kids or parents (mind you, $50k earned is more like $35k or less brought home).
A prescription or 2 or a doctor's visit, assuming the person has decent health insurance, which may no longer be true.
It's more that cannot be used to pay for gas or electric for such inconsequential things as heat in the winter or lights or a working refrigerator.
It's a few round trips to work (even fewer now if one takes the Metra, which is raising it's rates while the pre-tax limit on transit is being slashed).
It's being able to put a growing child into a new pair of cheap shoes when the old ones finally fall apart and can no longer be glued back together.
It's basic hygiene products, detergent, shampoo, etc. so one can still have some sort of personal dignity.
It's the amount that has to be saved many times over to make a repair to a car that is a lifeline to school, stores, and doctors, especially in most of the country where mass transit is not in place.
It's the amount spent on a phone bill - not for texting and surfing the web, but basic phone usage to be able to call for help, check on family, be able to be contacted by an employer.
It's many times more than what a person in that situation often prays to be able to come up with in the days before the next payday.
It's what one hopes will be pieced together after bills to be able to buy a present or two for a child to shelter him or her just one more year from the reality that there really is no Santa Claus and those grossing $50k/yr don't qualify for holiday programs.
It's also just part of the amount that same person is likely to donate to others less fortunate because, at that level, one is keenly aware of how much worse it could be and thanks God often that it isn't--at least not yet.
It's what someone born into less precarious circumstances and sheltered can't even imagine as being important, let alone critical.
Even worse, it's what vile creatures in power are willing to steal to serve their own selfish, gluttonous, evil interests.

It's Almost Bank Switch Day. Will You Do It?

Thu, 3 Nov 2011 12:11:53 -0400

Bank of America and I go way, way back. When I arrived in Chicago in the mid-90s with a freshly minted graduate degree and nearly three whole digits’ worth of hard cash, I did what anybody with my level of financial acumen would do: I drove South on Western Avenue until I saw a bank, and I opened an account. Little did I know that our relationship would outlast two marriages, five employers, four home addresses, three cell phone numbers, and span more than 2,000 miles.

Over the years, I allowed BofA to tighten its grip, seducing me with promises (which, it must be said, were kept)—easy online banking. No-hassle bill paying. Fee-free checking with direct deposit. Integration with all my other worldly savings (i.e., the IRAs I finally managed to start funding three years ago once the student loans were paid off) so I could always see, in real time, just exactly how profoundly I am screwed in re: the possibility of retirement before the age of 85.

I have a longstanding hate-hate relationship with personal finance. Early in life, I learned to pretend the bottom $500 in my checking account wasn’t really there; this was the only way I managed never to bounce checks. I believe I last attempted to balance my checkbook sometime in 1988. The resulting headache put me off such pursuits in the same way college graduation put me off tequila. Fom that day forward, I dumped the monthly envelopes full of cancelled checks (remember those?) into the recycling bin.

Once I got married, I let DX1 handle the joint checking account and promptly forgot all about banking for 10 years, outside of the occasional use of my debit card. By the time I had to reclaim some modicum of responsibility for managing my own pennies (after a painful lesson in not withdrawing one's own assets during what seems to be a relatively friendly divorce and a Christmas spent with a whopping $85 to my name), online banking had come along, and everything seemed, if not right with the world, then a whole lot better than it had been before.

All things, however, must come to an end.

Last month, in what can only be described as a Double-Netflix with a Half-Twist, BofA announced it would start charging me (and millions of other its least-rich customers) $5 a month to use that debit card. (Today, in fact, they announced they would not assess those fees after all…kind of a “Oh, did we say Qwikster? Never mind…”)

Too late.

For the past six weeks, I’ve watched thousands of my fellow citizens Occupying Wall Street (and any other damned street with a bank on it, it seems). I've watched a video showing two women attempting to close their BofA accounts who were not only refused that basic request, but also detained by security and held in a locked bank until police arrived, being told they could not be protestors and customers at the same time.

Then, last month, BofA quietly transferred $73 Trillion (that’s with a “t,” Kittens) in sketchy European derivative investments from its party-like-you’re-a-drunken-frat-boy Merrill Lynch investment arm into its stodgy, teetotalling FDIC-insured deposit arm. Which, simply put, means when those $73T worth of shaky financial vaporware “investments” turn out to be worth as much as a turd wrapped in a copy of Kim Kardashian's wedding vows? You and I, through the taxes we pay, will reimburse BofA for its losses. Because, you know, we'd hate to see BofA shareholders actually lose money on transparently stupid investments, now, wouldn't we?

And that, as they say, was the straw that drained the last margarita.

Oh, HELL no.

This Friday, which has been declared Bank Transfer Day, I will do something I have feared more than an unarmed person fears being locked in a cage with 50 zombies. I am closing my BofA account.

This means I will spend several hours Thursday night painfully untangling my formerly blissful web of automatic payments to Dog-Knows-How-Many-Companies, hunting down long-forgotten account numbers and payment addresses for everything from rent to cable to credit cards and insurance and loans and cellular service and oh, hell, who the hell even knows?

I haven’t written a physical check in at least four years. Everything—every last transaction—has been electronic and largely invisible to me for nearly a decade. I was perfectly happy with that. Until Bank of America decided that I, like millions of other Americans with less than $20,000 in combined accounts, should pay them for the privilege of accessing my own damned money using the debit cards we all use to manage our financial transactions. At this point, it doesn’t matter that they reversed themselves on this fee. I know they’ll come up with other ways to charge their middle- and working-class customers for the estimated $3.2 billion that fee would have netted them (because billionaires bank for free), and I will not pay one bloody cent of it.

Instead, I’m becoming a co-owner of the financial institution that holds (and profits from) my paltry little piece of the international financial system. I am joining 219,000 of my fellow San Diegans and becoming a member of the San Diego County Credit Union.

On Monday, I crept shyly into my local branch and funded two new accounts with a freelance check that had arrived just in time for the occasion. I had opened them, quickly and painlessly, online, the day before. The manager got up, smiled, and warmly welcomed me to the branch. The teller was downright perky and unfailingly sweet. Others I’ve spoken to who belong to the Credit Union gush about the place.

So what took me so long?

Fear and loathing, plain and simple. I fear and loathe all things related to money (probably because for most of my life, I haven’t had much), and I had been lulled into complacency by BofA. I allowed them to hold onto my itsy bitsy excuse for a “portfolio” out of laziness, ineptitude, and inertia, and in the process, allowed them (along with the other huge, for-profit banks) to use it to nearly destroy the global economy.

So.

There.

I’ve admitted it.

I’ve been a totally willing victim—and kind of an ignorant tool, really—about my money until now. But no more.

If you still bank at one of the places that profits off your money, will you consider joining me this Friday? Pretty Please?

Find a Credit Union near you using the links here.

_{This piece was originally published at www.doesthismakesense.com, an open blogging and writing site dedicated to critical thinking and civil online discourse.}

Irreconcilable Differences

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 16:07:16 -0400

It's always sad when a marriage ends, isn't it? But you know, sometimes divorce is the last--the only sensible--option. When the yelling and the screaming and the throwing of pots and pans gets to be too much; when nothing is left between the two parties but contempt and simmering hostility; when every issue, no matter how small, becomes a kitchen-sink knock-down-drag-out; when the kids are suffering.

I've more or less reached the point where I think the best thing that could happen for the tattered remains of the former United States America would be to admit we've tried our best but it's just not working, and agree to part as friends.

It Just Didn't Work Out

It's not that we didn't try. Sure, we fell in love 235 years ago when we were both starry-eyed romantics, drunk on ideas like natural law and liberty and no taxation without representation. So what if we came from different classes? Love conquers all. Oh, sure, there were bound to be little disagreements between an Industrial Northern Bookish City Girl and a down-home Southern Religious Plantation Boy, but we figured, hell, we were both tired of living under the old man's roof, so we jumped the broom and ran away from home, rebelling against Daddy Britain.

We figured we could learn to live with each other's quirks. We thought we could compromise. (3/5 seemed like a good place to start.)

But things change, circumstances change, times change, and sometimes lovers just grow too far apart to even have a civil conversation anymore.

You Shouldn't Have Made Me Do That

We had that one great big fight--you remember, I'm sure, because it went way beyond ill-considered words. Things got out of hand. There was domestic violence and plenty of it. Blood spilled all over everything. If there'd been relationship counselors back in the 1860s, they would have advised us against getting back together, because no matter how much you say "That'll never happen again, Baby," a beatdown that severe is a bell that can't really be un-rung. We probably should have called it quits right there and then.

But no. We fought until we were both too exhausted to keep fighting, and then we crawled back into bed with each other because we couldn't see beyond our sick, abusive codependence.

That was, in retrospect, a giant mistake.

Hell, let's be honest. We don't even LIKE each other.

We have nothing in common today. We can't talk, we can't negotiate, we can't even stand to be in the same room together.

Yes, somebody thought it'd be a great idea to manufacture Joe Wilson "You Lie!" Automatic Rifle Parts! Image source

We've hardened in our old age--Red States and Blue States, Conservatives and Liberals.

I see no hope of compromise anymore. And come to think of it, that first compromise was probably the root of all our problems anyway.

So. Divorce. Enough threats of secession. Fine. Let's just do it.

The Settlement

We don't have to make this all drawn-out and nasty. It can be a simple No-Fault declaration. We grew apart, end of story. Let's get on with our lives.

To make things simple in terms of dividing community property, I suggest we just go back to our 1864 borders. If we think it'll work for Israel and Palestine, it ought to work for us. (At least we seem to hate each other a little less than they do.)

Map Source

Look, the kids can decide where they want to live. A simple five-year migration period ought to allow everybody to relocate to whichever region appeals to them.

The Tea Party and arch-conservatives can reclaim the South, where they'll be free to create The Libertarian States of America, a tax-free, government-free, contraception-free, abortion-free zone run by the churches, chock-full of guns, capital punishment, unregulated markets, no pesky environmental or labor protections, totally privatized services like security and education and transportation and public safety systems.You want it, you buy it from a corporation, the way Ayn Rand intended. Oh, and, nobody will be allowed in from the outside after the migration period. It'll be an immigrant-free paradise.

Meanwhile, up North where the Union once stood, The Liberal States of America will rise--a socialist nanny state in which the government is the only employer and keeps 60% of every paycheck; fatty foods and sugar are banned; gay-married teachers indoctrinate schoolchildren into atheism and cultural relativism; every girl gets a free abortion voucher from the government on post-adolescent birthdays; boys are issued condoms and porn on demand when they turn 10; criminals receive a hug and a stern talking-to; banks and health care and insurance industries are nationalized; high-speed rail replaces the Interstate system as much as possible; every house will be roofed with solar panels. Oh, and political correctness (or, as they'll try to call it up there, "simple politeness,") will be legally mandatory. Also, totally open borders. A free-for-all mess. Legal forms in 90 different languages. You get the picture.

There'll only be two things left to settle.

1) Who gets the rest of the West?

2) Who gets to claim the abbreviation "LSA?"

Sigh.

I guess we'll just have to fight over those.

Scared Witless

Fri, 4 Mar 2011 00:03:09 -0500

In case you haven’t noticed, the terrorists?

They’ve won.

Only a few hours after the recent terrorist blast at a Moscow’s airport (remember that?), a flurry of predictable stories were stampeding for linkspace on the front page of Google News.

All of them were sternly pointing out the fairly obvious: The world’s airports are... ... still not 100% secure!

We’ve taken off our shoes, stopped wearing belts and watches, resigned ourselves to flying without our favorite sunscreen, and submitted to radioactive body scans…for what? Look! We aren’t 100% safe!

Consensus formed within the first six hours that airports need to take a hard look at the newly identified gap—Arrivals—and lock things down even tighter.

Get Real

I'd like to suggest we do the opposite.

It would behoove the civilized majority of this species to deal with isolated acts of terror in the same way adults deal with dreaded toddler tantrums.

Ignore them. Keep ignoring them. Ignore them even more.

Sure, they may yell and scream and escalate for a while. But if during that period, if we could manage to keep ignoring them?

They'd stop eventually.

I'd humbly submit that if we stop reacting to and rewarding bad behavior, it just might end.

Some Perspective

There are, according to Airports Council International, 1,633 airports worldwide, operating in 179 countries, and 12,328,767 passengers pass through those airports every day.

Maybe that number is too easy to gloss over in numeric form. Allow me to spell it out. Twelve million, three-hundred-twenty-eight-thousand, seven-hundred sixty-seven passengers move through Earth’s airports EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

On that Monday, one person— not even a passenger, and therefore a member of a whole different dozen-million people who go to or through airports every day without actually flying—walked a bunch of explosives into an Arrivals terminal and blew up.

That act was, without a doubt, a tragedy for the families and friends of those who were killed or injured.

But it does not represent a giant, looming, clear and present danger to each and every member of the flying public.

Can Restaurants be Safer? Are Stadiums Secure Enough?

There’s something about airports.

With every terrorist attack (or attempted attack) that targets planes or airports, we lose our collective sense of proportion. We notice and decry a "security hole" that allowed one person out of perhaps 18 million moving through airports on that day to inflict one single, solitary dose of death and destruction.

This time around, we’re noticing that the Arrivals area of an airport isn’t nearly as secure as the Departures area.

And in point of fact, no. It is not.

It isn’t supposed to be.

The Arrivals area is the place where billions of people each year gather to greet their loved ones, or to begin a travel adventure, or tend to international commerce.

It is not, nor was it ever intended to be, a SuperMax prison.

When bad actors target other locations with open access—subways, restaurants, night clubs, Times Square on New Year’s Eve—we typically don’t hear calls for airtight, water-proof, flame-retardant security to be piled onto such gathering places. Because it would be impossible to lock down those public places the way we lock down airports.

Very few would argue that we run every single person through body scanners to get into Vegas casinos, Hard Rock Cafés, university lecture halls, or train stations. And yet such targets are also full of people. They're great targets. They're wide open. And by necessity, they're much less secure than airports.

Forget high-tech, complicated terror conspiracies that take years to put together; a couple of high school drop-outs could probably come up with a dozen ideas to exploit the "lack of security" in most of our public spaces.

For the handful of people who feel the need to strap on explosives and blow themselves (and others) up, everyday gathering spots should be even more attractive targets than airports.

With every new security measure that slams into place (generally one that closes the barn door months after the horse left the building), we reinforce and nourish those who employ terror tactics.

When we sit down, shut up, and passively accept each new restriction and screening device, we show them that we are, in fact, terrified of what they can do to us.

Isn't that the wrong message?

Don’t Track, Don’t Sell

I hope within my lifetime, the media will collectively reconsider covering acts of terror with minute-by-minute blanket coverage, detailing the carnage and bloodshed, analyzing "security holes."

That's coddling the toddler.

Wouldn’t a voluntary, cooperative editorial decision to bury terrorism stories on page 10 (or run them only between the hours of midnight and 4:00 am, or not link them on the front page of news sites) do a lot more to stamp out terror than having some poor minimum-wage schmo paw through my underwear?

I also hope that within my lifetime, “security experts” will admit that the elaborate kabuki of most “airport security” is pretty much flash and special effects. It does nothing—absolutely nothing—to prevent terrorist acts.

The exception to this sweeping generalization is Israel, which unapologetically uses multiple layers of behavioral and physical profiling to identify people who seem suspicious. But they don't make every person coming into the place strip down and semi-unpack. That system makes a lot more sense to me than patting down Granny.

Active intelligence-gathering stops terror plots. Not invasive, radioactive screenings and body searches.

In light of the fact that we're finally going to be getting rid of the moronic multicolored "terror alert" system this April, I'd like to go further.

I'd like us to stop indulging the tantrum-ing terrorist toddlers, stand up straight, square our shoulders, pack as much shampoo and conditioner as we like, skip the scanners, and leave our damned shoes on as we tromp through one of those 1,633 airports.

And if by chance, as a price for such dignity, I happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when one of my fellow 12 billion annual passengers decides to have an explosive hissy fit, at least that would be an exotic way to go out.

I mean, really. It's a lot more likely that I'll hit that jackpot (1-in-83 lifetime odds) dying in a car accident. Possibly on the way home from an airport.

(Originally posted at www.doesthismakesense.com)

Hipsta-Blogging Green Chile Sauce

Mon, 6 Dec 2010 23:12:42 -0500

It's winter in most of the country, and for that, I am sincerely sorry. But here in the land of fruits and nuts (AKA California) the growing season is eternal.

I've been a member of a Community Supported Agriculture group (CSA) for nearly four years now, and each year brings its own bumper crop that just never, ever seems to stop. A few years back it was butternut squash. Two or three new ones every two weeks, for months. Last year it was Fuyu persimmons. Couldn't walk into the kitchen without a pile of them falling on my head.

This year, the endless abundance is New Mexico Chiles.

^{These buggers are surprisingly hard to use up at a rate of ten/month.}

As an aside, I confess I treated myself to an iPhone last week, quite irresponsibly (unless you consider buying one while unemployed a form of Secreting, in which case it was the best way to tell the Universe "I have utmost, unshakable faith I will get a new position at my company in the next two weeks before my job re-homing program expires." I justified it thusly, at least.)

The first non-free app I purchased was the Hipstamatic camera. For $5 (plus a few more for extra effects) it processes photos in a way that makes them look like old photos taken on a toy camera with old film. Suffice it to say I am IN LOVE with this app.

Somehow this evening, the confluence of way too much produce, a hella neato photo app, and nothing much else to do resulted in a batch of green chile sauce. To DIE for.

I've never made green chile sauce before, so I did what any cook worth her salt (and pepper) would do.

I looked up a few recipes, scanned them for technique, and then completely ignored them for the most part.

First off: Unless you're seriously in love with heat, you've gotta chop off the head of the chile, crack it open toexpose the evil hot seeds and ribs, and get rid of them. Easy.

^{Piece of cake. Hot, spicy cake.}

Repeat X10.

Place the de-fanged and de-clawed chiles skin-side-up on a baking sheet and roast them at 375 for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile...

Another ingredient I'm drowning in is radishes. Seriously. How many radishes does the average household go through in a week? Because my CSA thinks the answer is "one quart bag."

^{No, I don't know why the radishes look like fingers. After four years with a CSA, you just stop asking questions.}

Fine. I chopped them up, too. And the last damned zucchini, for good measure. Plus an onion. The only truly important ingredient here is the onion. Everything else is just a matter of dietary fiber.

^{Some of the lens/film combos are better than others. I would not revisit this one.}

Throw some butter in a pot. Throw the chopped veggies in the pot. Saute until they're soft and brown and a fond forms in the bottom of the pan.

^{That thing I said about film/lens combos applies here, too.}

Search your spice drawer for cumin.

^{Cumin: Spice of the Mexican Gods. (I love this lens/film combo.)}

Add a tablespoon or so of the cumin.

Deglaze the pan with half of the beer you've been idly sipping.

Transfer the whole shebang to the food processor (or a blender) and pulverize.

Put the thoroughly demolished, caramelized veggie mixture back in pot. Add a cup, cup-and-a-half of chicken broth. Yes. I use the stuff in a box.

At the end of the 25 roasting minutes, move the chiles up and broil for a minute or two until you get nice, brown crunkitude in the skin.

Like this.

At this point, the perfectionist chef would remove the skins, as I have here. It rubs right off. Even so, that was too much work, so I thought, what the hell, more fiber.

And I threw the whole lot in the food processor.

^{This is what happens when you shake to randomize the film/lens combo. Sometimes, you get black-and-white, rather than vivid green. I don't mind.}

^{No, this is not a microscope slide from a college "Diseased Tissues" class. It is a Very Artistic Shot of the contents of the food processor. Really.}

Finally, combine the pureed chiles with the other stuff in the pot and simmer for another few minutes.

What's the result?

A subtly sweet, barely spicy, surprisingly buttery, incredibly delicious and shockingly smooth green chile sauce.

Recipe makes three one-cup Snapware containers of sauce.

What do do with this concoction?

It would be incredible over tamales, or nachos, or pork chops, or chicken breast, or on a cheeseburger.

Or just eaten as a salsa with tortilla chips.

I had none of the above.

So I sauteed some shrimp, chopped up some arugula (also from the CSA box) and called it dinner.

And as I finished the plate, I couldn't help notice that the dog, whom I am sitting for the week while the former Mr. Remedy is on another continent, suffered through the entire cooking process with nary a whine.

And appeared utterly forlorn that I didn't share.