Bad Company / Good Company

Posted on June 20, 2013 by The Old Wolf

Bad Company

“Too big to fail” apparently means “continue to screw the consumer.” Despite a rash of revelations about how big banks, most notably Bank of America, have resorted to outright criminal behavior to squeeze money from consumers, their abominable tactics continue.

A small example:

Our mortgage is with BoA (not the original lender, but mortgages are still basically hot currency and almost all are sold to other servicers as soon as they are issued). We’ve had the mortgage since March of 2011, and have always been current with the payments. The loan is actually in the name of my now-deceased mother, because I had an employment gap and banks would not even look at us despite having sufficient income.

So this month it turns out that our payment was a bit late – teaching hours have been down this last month, and Social Security doesn’t kick in until August. This morning I got a call from Bank of America; it was a dun call, and they wanted to make sure I knew there was now a late fee due, and when would the payment be made? 4 days past the due date.

Up yours, Bank of America.You don’t start dunning people if a payment is 4 days overdue. ^[1] It makes you look cheap, grasping, and insensitive. Oh wait, that’s what you are… my bad.

Good Company

Tales like the above are all too common these days. Corporations are looking only at the bottom line, and they couldn’t care if they lose a significant percent of their customers to increase their bottom line (I’m looking at you, Netflix.) Customer service – this is an oxymoron these days, as the level of service at most companies is bare bones, outsourced to India or the Philippines, and you’re lucky if you can get anyone on the line that knows how to solve your problem, let alone give a rat’s south-40.

Happily, there are the exceptions.

Back in 1996 we bought a living room set from the now-defunct Granite Furniture Company.

(♫ Granite’s on the railroad tracks,
Greater Savings, that’s a Fact
Buys in carload lots for you
Try the Granite, you’ll save too! ♫);

Granite Furniture Ad, Deseret News and Telegram, September 5, 1960

it’s a great set and has provided good wear for almost 20 years. Some years ago, however, one of my oldest son’s friends accidentally snapped off one of the recliner release handles on the sofa (you know who you are, Bing), and we’ve been unable to use that side of the couch as a recliner since then.

On a whim, I looked around inside and found a tag indicating that it had been made by Action Manufacturing, Inc. A bit of Googling let me to the Lane Furniture Company – apparently they either acquired them, or Action was always a subsidiary. Anyway, I dashed off a note to Lane from their website, describing the problem and giving the model and ID number of the piece. Less than a week later, I had confirmation from their service department that a new handle would be sent out to me… no cost, under warranty. I just about messed my britches in astonishment.

Today the parts arrived. Not one, but two handles… so I have a spare if another one ever breaks.

A huge shout-out to Lane Furniture for making awesome furniture, and for standing behind it for so long. Thank you, from a very happy consumer.

[1] If any of you feel tempted to leave comments about how BoA is within their legal rights, I’ll just delete said comments, and say rude things about you behind your back. Times are tough, and we need more people like George Bailey, and far fewer like Henry F. Potter.

In Praise of Darwin. In defense of faith.

Posted on June 19, 2013 by The Old Wolf

While hunting for the Greek proverb I used in my last post, I came across this article I had written over at LiveJournal on the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s Origin of Species. I thought it worthwhile enough to share here, slightly modified.

Around 153 years ago, Charles Darwin published his “Origin of Species“. And then the fight started.

The man was a genius of observation, analysis and synthesis. He looked at a jigsaw puzzle spread out all over the world, with virtually millions of pieces, and managed to pull together a single, coherent picture, even though it still has many gaps in it where pieces are missing.

I know of no scientist more praised and more maligned at the same time.

I remember when the Macintosh computer was a relatively new phenomenon, there was this great game called “Darwin’s Dilemma”, which required you to solve puzzles by pushing life forms around on a board and causing them to evolve. The version I had was won when the last two pieces combined to create a tiny image of a nude couple. Sweetly ironic. And, it was a ruddy difficult game to beat, and terribly entertaining to play.

Screen capture from a PC version of Darwin’s Dilemma. The Mac version had better graphics. As usual.

Today, the atheist community is holding up Darwin as a standard to which they hope humanity will flock. And militant atheists, just like militant Muslims, or militant Christians, or militant segregationists, or militant anything, are anathema to a society that works for everyone; any ideology which seeks to impose itself on others by dint of coercion must be fought with all the vigor we can muster as a global community, or we are doomed to perpetual servitude.

The Greeks have an interesting saying: “Η γλώσσα κόκκαλα δεν έχει και κόκκαλα τσακίζει” (the tongue has no bones, but it breaks bones). An ideology can also be imposed without physical weapons; money, lawsuits, media, spin doctors, mockery, academic intimidation and peer pressure can often succeed where violence and terror would not. And today’s evangelical atheists seek to mainstream two main ideas:

1) Religion can be proven false, and
2) Religion is usually or always harmful

The irony in using the Darwin flag as a vexillum for the armies of the unchurched is that Charles Darwin himself professed only to be an agnostic. In Francis Darwin’s biography, (among others), he is quoted as saying, “In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of God.”¹

Whether religion can be proven false is irrelevant – since the dawn of consciousness, there have been those who have looked outside themselves for a source of strength, and those who have not. Whether religion is a force for good or evil is irrelevant, because religion is like a weapon: only the person who wields it can decide how it will be used.

On this pale blue dot, there’s room for everyone’s personal beliefs about our place in the universe. If you believe in a power greater than yourself, and it moves you to improve yourself and raise the human condition, that’s a good thing. If you believe in the notion of the greater good because it’s logical and reasonable, and this moves you to improve yourself and raise the human condition, that’s good. And, our great freedoms of thought and speech guarantee you the right to share with others what makes you happy. But to impose your beliefs by the sword is ungood. And to impose your unbelief by social activism is equally ungood. Either way, if you’re a jerk, your personal philosophy isn’t working.

Remember:

So whatever you happen to believe, let’s lift a glass to Darwin today. His life’s work has gone a long way towards explaining the miraculous diversity of earth’s biosphere. And if I were God, I’d pin a medal on his chest. ^[2]

The Old Wolf has spoken.

¹ Darwin, Francis, The Life of Charles Darwin. London: Tiger Books,1995, 55.
² So it’s incongruous. So sue me.

Father’s Day in Retrospect

Posted on June 19, 2013 by The Old Wolf

My own father passed away in 1989 at the age of 80. Last week, he would have been 104. Interestingly, we shared a birthday. His portrait hangs above our fireplace during the month of June to commemorate the twin holidays.

I miss him something terrible… and he was a toxic son of a bitch.

As I contemplate the incongruity in that sentence, it does not escape me that there are people out there for whom Fathers’ Day is a yearly reminder of inescapable horrors. How do you celebrate this national day of remembrance if your father raped you every day from the time you were three until you finally ran away from home? What kind of holiday is it for you if your back and your psyche still carry the scars inflicted by leather belts and cutting words? Not all daddies are the warm, loving, protective creatures we see in the memes and glurges.

This picture hurts to look at; it’s very close to home.

It was difficult to forgive my father for his shortcomings while he was still alive, because he was so damned difficult to be around. People who knew him from afar thought he was debonair, witty, dashing, charming, and suave. He was, after all, a prominent actor with an IMDB rap sheet as long as your arm, and he moved in some fairly interesting circles. He was a gifted sculptor, spoke several languages, was an accomplished dialectician, and during his heyday was in large demand for playing heavies, Mexican banditos, Italian gangsters, tough attorneys, and the like. He was all of that, but for those who dwelt inside his intimate circle, he was mean, stubborn, selfish, violently angry, combative, aggressive, immovable, and not a little psychotic. The trouble was that he also had a good heart, loved his family, and wanted only what was best for them (filtered, of course, through what was best for him.) As a result, the situation for me was never black and white – which made reconciliation even more difficult.

I wish I could have come to terms with all of it while he was still alive, because there is so much I could have learned from him, if I was willing to receive it. I can only be content with having laid the demons to rest, and celebrating what good there was to celebrate. Even after his passing, it wasn’t easy – because he never really recognized how much pain he inflicted on those who were the closest to him. But harboring resentment, they say, is like drinking poison and expecting it to kill the enemy, and I’ve found that to be true. Forgiveness is a healing balm, and a space I’d much rather live in.

As alluded to above, I had it fairly easy. While my father’s words cut like knives ^[1], he never violated me, never hit me. I cannot hope to understand what some others have gone through, and the journey to peace is going to be different for everyone; I always think of Forrest Gump knocking down Jenny’s childhood home with a bulldozer as part of her symbolic journey to wellness. Ultimately, people who hurt us die – but the issues we carry inside us go on forever unless we ourselves put them to rest.

A beloved mentor of mine fell by the wayside in life as a result of being unable to forgive a perceived insult. It changed his life completely, and isolated him from a massive community of friends, associates and supporters. I lost contact with him about 7 years ago, and I can only assume he passed away; but I would have loved to see him set aside his stubbornness and return to the company of those who loved and honored him.

When it comes to understanding the power of forgiveness, there is one I look to as a guide who embodies the power of letting go. Azim Khamisa lost his son in a tragic gang-related incident; a 14-year-old boy, given a gun and told to “make his bones,” shot Azim’s son Tariq while he was delivering pizza to a false address as part of a gang initiation. Instead of falling into the trap of a lifetime of hatred, he realized that there were victims at both ends of that gun, and partnered with the shooter’s grandfather, Ples Felix, to establish a foundation that teaches young people how to reject kid-on-kid violence. The young triggerman, Tony Hicks, has been influenced by this unusual choice, and has been offered employment by Khamisa’s foundation when his 25-year sentence has been completed.

Everyone’s situation is different, and I cannot speak to each person’s horrors, nor do I attempt to minimize their suffering. But forgiveness is a gift that we give largely to ourselves, and I know from personal experience that coming to terms with injustice and letting go is much preferable to internal anguish carried around for a lifetime; my soul is cankered enough on its own without deliberately adding acid to the mix.

For some, there may never be reason to celebrate, other than to hoist a glass and say “thank God the bastard is gone.” But I know it is possible to come to a point where the day of remembrance is no longer torment; when one can take joy with friends or family who had better experiences, and honor the vast majority of fathers out there who – despite personal failings – did their best to shelter and nurture and protect and raise their children into responsible, caring and contributing adults.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

[1] The Greeks have a proverb for it: “Η γλώσσα κόκκαλα δεν έχει και κόκκαλα τσακίζει” (the tongue has no bones, but it breaks bones).

Innsbruck, ca. 1920

Posted on June 18, 2013 by The Old Wolf

Herzog-Freidrichstraße and the Goldenes Dachl in Innsbruck. Stadtturm visible on the right. I’m dating the photo based on the look of the autos; I could be off by a few years.

Goldenes Dachl, Christmas 1976

Illuminated Stadtturm (city tower) at Christmastime in 1976.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Judge not. Period.

Posted on June 18, 2013 by The Old Wolf

Found this story on Reddit, posted by user dk0, and felt moved to share it here, mildly edited for clarity.

A man who worked as an archaeologist was leading a tour group through a museum as part of his summer job. He had a large and prominent tattoo in a visible place, not anything obscene or even particularly challenging.

A person in the tour group, a middle aged woman, was persistently very snippy and dismissive of his lecture and when he finally confronted her about it in front of the group, she said she couldn’t take him seriously because he was tattooed.

He replied “this isn’t an ordinary tattoo, you see.” while slightly tilting the tattooed extremity, almost as if he expected it to beam a glint of light back at the viewer if cambered just right, “this tattoo is magic.” he said with a twinge of mysticism in his voice.

“If i hold it just right, it exposes the prejudice and ugliness of small and petty people.”

It puts me in mind of the little vignette by St. Ex found in The Little Prince:

I have serious reason to believe that the planet from which the little prince came is the asteroid known as B-612.

This asteroid has only once been seen through the telescope. That was by a Turkish astronomer, in 1909.

On making his discovery, the astronomer had presented it to the International Astronomical Congress, in a great demonstration. But he was in Turkish costume, and so nobody would believe what he said.

Grown-ups are like that…

Fortunately, however, for the reputation of Asteroid B-612, a Turkish dictator made a law that his subjects, under pain of death, should change to European costume. So in 1920 the astronomer gave his demonstration all over again, dressed with impressive style and elegance. And this time everybody accepted his report.

One would think that certain subsets of society would get the concept of judgment; a man named Jesus is reputed to have said, around 2 millennia ago,

“Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.”

Certainly those who follow the teachings of that individual understand this, right?

These are “Christians”:

The Westboro Baptist Church condemns just about everyone to Hell, without knowing a thing about who they are.

These are Christians too:

Evangelical Christians sending Latter-day Saints to Hell, because they happen to understand God differently than they do.

Of course, debates of this nature always seem laughable to humanists, sort of like fighting over this:

So of course, humanists have a firm grip on the destructive nature of judgment, right?

Humanism is a worldview which says that reason and science are the best ways to understand the world around us. Dignity and compassion should be the basis for how we act toward others.
-American Humanist Association

And yet we see statements like the following from Ernest Hemingway: “All thinking men are atheists,” which banishes 4/5 of the world’s population from the ranks of thinking humanity.

To people on both sides of the fence, I say this:

Atheism has taken a prominent place in social dialog since – it seems to me – Madalyn Murray O’Hair entered the scene. It’s hip to be atheist, and in most academic circles it’s de rigeur. People of faith are ostracized, belittled, humiliated, and sidelined. The only acceptable topic of discussion when it comes to religion is its excesses and abuses. By the same token, in other communities, standing up for documented scientific realities such as evolution or global climate change are enough to get you excommunicated, or at the very least subject to the same ostracism and denigration.

That’s no way to run a railroad; it’s no way to run a planet.

I have massive respect for the likes of these gentlemen ^[1]:

Each one has been, in his own time, a crusader for reason and fact. Some have been combative, others encouraging. Some take the position that religion is an evil to be purged from the face of the earth, others put more energy into encouraging free thought and curiosity. Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s quote is one of my favorites:

“I don’t have an issue with what you do in the church, but I’m going to be up in your face if you’re going to knock on my science classroom and tell me they’ve got to teach what you’re teaching in your Sunday school. Because that’s when we’re going to fight.”
The Amazing Meeting, Keynote Speech, 2008

But I have to say this: I’ve read their writings, and at least two of them sound more than a little hopeful that this empirically-observable universe is not all there is. To their credit, all of them have subjugated any personal hopes or beliefs to the rigors of empirical observation.

There must be room at the table for everyone. No faith is going to convert the world with persuasion or the scimitar, and the passage of time will not still the yearning in the breasts of billions for something higher than themselves, something more personal than the thought of hydrogen atoms evolved to consciousness.

Judge not. Just stop it. Promote what you love, but don’t put down those who don’t fit your mold.

Of the faithful, I beseech: Believe what you will, but don’t deny empirical evidence. Of the humanists, I implore: Promote scientific truth and awareness, but stop relegating believers to second-class intellectual citizenship. Neither of these positions are worthy of a world that works for everyone, with no one left out.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

[1] Asimov, Sagan, Dawkins, Nye, Tyson. It does not escape my attention that there are no ladies in this lineup; I have no doubt that I could find an equal number, but in this case the reality is that the spokespeople for the triumph of reason via science happen to be overwhelmingly male at the moment.

My first car – the 1950 Chevrolet

Posted on June 17, 2013 by The Old Wolf

The year would have been 1972, and I was living off-campus for the first time. A buddy of mine offered to sell me his car for $75.00, and wheels sounded like a great idea.

1950 Chevrolet flyer

Mine was a dark green, about the same color as the top of this one. Sadly, I never had the presence of mind to take any photos of it.

The interior dashboard; three on the tree. Notice the starter button to the left of the speedometer, with the choke just below it.

The straight six left enough room under the hood to house the entire Green Bay Packers starting lineup, along with your tools to boot; it was a joy to work on. A simpler engine I have never seen.

Sadly, the car was not in the best of shape… but I was young and very naïve. I ended up spending about $600.00 on brake work and front suspension (the kingpins were bad and had to be replaced, among other things); after that it ran OK, but had some compression issues. I decided to use the beast as a teaching machine, found a manual, and ripped the engine apart. I took the head down to a machine shop and had it re-worked, along with the valves – replaced a few worn-out parts, and put the thing back together again. It ran… sort of.

Life moved on, I stored it in various places and was later given a 1963 Ranchero by my dad… the Chevy ended up being towed to a junk yard where I bid it a fond farewell.

1963 Ranchero with 260 V8. I loved this car too.

If I had it to do over again, I would have done many things differently… but I wish I had that car today. It was like driving a battleship, and had enough room inside for a whole lot of people.

Reminiscing, nothing more.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Improving the psychokinetic tester (Fringe humor)

Posted on June 15, 2013 by The Old Wolf

A rare picture of an elderly David Robert Jones^[1], having improved upon the psychokinetic testing device for another evil plot.

By the silken breast of Mogg’s mother, I miss “Fringe.”

Olivia Dunham uses her Cortexiphan-induced psychokinetic powers to defuse a biological bomb. Fringe, Season 1, Episode 14: “Ability”

In actuality, this 1928 photo, taken in Washington, DC is Charles Francis Jenkins (1867-1934), pictured here with what might be considered an early flat-panel video display, its 48-pixel-square grid composed of small neon lamps. Found at Shorpy.

[1] From Universe 39

Book Review: Inferno (No spoilers)

Posted on June 15, 2013 by The Old Wolf

It’s difficult to share a review of a book without giving anything away, and to say anything at all about Inferno might take the delight out of some tiny plot twist for someone else. All I can say is that I enjoyed this book immensely – it was a page-turner and no mistake; I started to read at about 2:00 PM, and finished around 11:30 that night. I found it a lot more plausible in story line than Angels and Demons or The Lost Symbol, and I got a huge amount of enjoyment out of the fact that I had been in all the cities where the action took place, spending a good deal of time in two of them. Now I want to go back… and I need to re-read La Divina Comedia. If it’s done well, this will be an outstanding movie. On that note, why they’re taking so long to turn Symbol into a movie is beyond me, unless they’re finding it too convoluted. Time will tell.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Message in a Bottle

Posted on June 14, 2013 by The Old Wolf

Or a gravestone, as the case may be.

From the Oregonian, December 23, 2012

The letter came in a box of Halloween decorations purchased at Kmart, but for a year Julie Keith never knew. It gathered dust in her storage, a haunting plea for help hidden among artificial skeletons, tombstones and spider webs.

Keith, a 42-year-old vehicle donation manager at a southeast Portland Goodwill, at one point considered donating the unopened $29.99 Kmart graveyard kit. It was one of those accumulated items you never need and easily forget. But on a Sunday afternoon in October, Keith pulled the orange and black box from storage. She intended to decorate her home in Damascus for her daughter’s fifth birthday, just days before Halloween.

She ripped open the box and threw aside the cellophane.

That’s when Keith found it. Scribbled onto paper and folded into eighths, the letter was tucked between two Styrofoam headstones.

“Sir:

“If you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization. Thousands people here who are under the persicution of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever.”

“People who work here have to work 15 hours a day without Saturday, Sunday break and any holidays. Otherwise, they will suffer torturement, beat and rude remark. Nearly no payment (10 yuan/1 month, or $1.61).”

“People who work here, suffer punishment 1-3 years averagely, but without Court Sentence (unlaw punishment). Many of them are Falun Gong practitioners, who are totally innocent people only because they have different believe to CCPG. They often suffer more punishment than others.”

The letter was not signed.

The graveyard kit, the letter read, was made in unit 8, department 2 of the Masanjia Labor Camp in Shenyang, China. Chinese characters broke up choppy English sentences.

The administrative building of the Masanjia labor camp and other facilities in China.

Keith started doing homework and digging around, and the letter was widely published on the internet. Responses ranged from outraged to skeptical, including those who pointed out that her publication of this material put the writer at risk if he/she were real.

On June 11th, 2013, The New York Times published a follow-up article indicating that the writer had been found, and was no longer in the labor camp. It’s an interesting read and lends credence to the original story, although there has been no other independent confirmation from inside China.

It appears that many companies who import Chinese products have no policies that bar the use of forced labor.

Just something else to think about the next time you go shopping at a big box store and the label says “Made in China.”

The Totally Ghoul product – the letter from China was found in a package like this.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

The Roundhouse.

Posted on June 13, 2013 by The Old Wolf

Steam locomotives of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway in the roundhouse at the Chicago, Illinois rail yards. Photo taken December, 1942

The roundhouse was an integral part of the American (and worldwide) railroad scene, typically used for locomotive storage and repair. I learned what a roundhouse was in the 50’s, from one of my favorite children’s books, Tootle:

It made perfect sense.

Roundhouses memorialized on a 2012 Forever stamp

Five locomotives lined up at Steamtown National Historic Site in Pennsylvania. “Steamtown hosted visiting steam locomotives during the Grand Opening in 1995. Five steam locomotives were posed in the Roundhouse for this photo. Historically, steam locomotives faced the other way in the Roundhouse to allow more room between the locomotives at the end where the work was done.”

Roundhouse Museum

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Playing in the World Game

As One

Monthly Archives: June 2013

Bad Company / Good Company

In Praise of Darwin. In defense of faith.

Father’s Day in Retrospect

Innsbruck, ca. 1920

Judge not. Period.

My first car – the 1950 Chevrolet

Improving the psychokinetic tester (Fringe humor)

Book Review: Inferno (No spoilers)

The Roundhouse.