Buon Natale

Christmas Dinner "To Do" List

Only a high primal thinker is capable of this much organization

Christmas dinner was great! Was it due to the ecetra?

About Charge-A-Plates

Most of us carry credit cards but my high primal thinker carries charge-a-plates as well as credit cards (What's a "high primal thinker"? Check out Living With A High Primal Thinker). This fact may tell you a little about the high primal thinker’s age. (For those of you who are still babes , charge-a-plates were the forerunner of today’s plastic credit cards. They actually were metal plates embossed with a name and account number and the size of a military dog tag . Most department stores issued charge-a-plates.) Charge-a-plates have gone the way of the horse and buggy but for some individuals a plastic credit card is still a charge-a-plate if it has been issued by a department store. Apparently the distinction is that these same individuals believe that besides generating a balance due bill a charge-a-plate has the ability to generate countless catalogs with tempting coupons which arrive in your mailbox whereas a VISA, MasterCard or Discover card merely generates a balance due bill.

Now you and I know that department store credit cards no longer are prestige cards in spite of the preferred customer label sometimes attached to them. A platinum VISA card or a titanium MasterCard are much more distinguishable as a sign of good credit. Wait a minute, platinum and titanium are metals! Could these be charge-a-plates in disguise? A call to my Titanium VISA card customer service revealed that they had never heard of charge-a-plates and assured me that my titanium card was actually a genuine plastic credit cards. What a relief! While I had customer service on the line I asked if there was any advantage to carrying countless number of department store credit cards as well as their Titanium VISA card. Customer service had no answer to my question and proceeded to transfer me to their account resolution department. I was not going to go that route so I hung up.

With identity theft being what it is today I cautioned my high primal thinker that carrying around a multitude of credit cards was inviting identity theft. She agreed but responded it was the lesser of two evils. The worst alternative would be to be placed on a department store “shit” list for having discarded their card. She also reminded me that our savvy daughter who has a degree in business administration carried a number of department store cards as well as VISA and MasterCard. Case closed!

As luck would have it during the course of a conversation my daughter revealed that she had long discarded her department store cards and had received no hate calls from the store’s customer service representative. In fact she only carries two credit cards. She emphatically pointed out the folly of seniors carrying a wallet full of credit cards. That did it - all of the high primal thinker’s arguments for carrying charge-a-plates disappeared. I pounced on the opportunity and made her an offer she could not refuse. I would store her department store card cards in our safe . If she ever wanted them she could try getting into the safe to retrieve them. I do mean try since she did not have the combination.

On our next trip to the mall she carried a purse sans charge-a-plates. Every purchase she made was sheer torture as she fumbled for a charge-a-plate and found only a VISA. Withdrawal pains were plainly visible. It was one of the most inexpensive visits we ever had to the mall. No charge-a-plates, no coupons, meager purchases.

A sulking high primal thinker in withdrawal is a site to behold. I finally relented and returned her charge-a-plates to her. It was in the nick of time . Our Christmas shopping was not done but armed with charge-a-plates and coupons it was off to the mall. All went well until my high primal thinker presented a coupon along with her charge-a-plate when making a purchase. She discovered that along with her plate she should have brought along a lawyer to decipher the fine print in the coupons. The coupons were not honored but the purchases were made and the Christmas shopping was finally completed.

The high primal thinker is very smug about getting her plates back. In fact she has them in a new credit card holder purchased with a charge-a-plate and a 15% off coupon. I lost the battle and knew how Napoleon felt as he retreated from Moscow. Unlike Napoleon, I still plan on winning the war.

The Senate today overwhelmingly approved legislation which will keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. It is a step forward. Now we need to find a way to keep guns out of the hands of the crazies who officially are not mentally ill!

Punishment For Baseball's Steroid Sinners

There seems to be some controversy as to whether the active players named in the Mitchell baseball steroid report should be punished or not. Punishment is in order but not a suspension for "x" number of games. A suitable punishment might be to force baseball's sinners to wear a uniform with a scarlet S on their jersey. This should especially go over big in Boston.

Customer Service Can Be A Pain In The Ass

Customer Service these days is an adventure , especially on the phone. Many horror stories on the subject have been written so it is not my intent to add another. I might add that I have had some pleasant experiences dealing with “representatives”. Still more frequently than is good for one’s blood pressure bad experiences do develop and overshadow the pleasant experiences. It has become obvious to me that the horror story has its beginnings one minute into a call when you suddenly realize that the person you are talking to is bored by their job and could care less about your problem. Is it possible that “Customer Service Representative” is one of those jobs that American citizens would prefer not to do? Illegal aliens have come to the rescue in labor intensive jobs such as picking fruit, plucking chickens and landscaping but I’m afraid they are not a viable alternative for manning the customer service phone calls, although Spanish would be more welcome than the garbled English practiced by many customer representatives. So how do we eliminate the problem of dealing with an unknowledgeable, rude customer service representative? Eliminate the problem which necessitated the phone call in the first place! Most inquiries deal with health insurance coverage and product quality problems. Obviously all that has to be done is to simplify health insurance coverage and make product quality the hallmark of product marketing. Healthcare insurance problems? Universal health care, that’s the answer, the rules are the same for everyone and not subject to dispute! The product quality issue calls for a more complex solution. Why not complicate the tax code even more and establish a Product Quality Tax Credit Ala the Earned Income Credit. Of course this should be available only to those having less than fifty thousand dollars in taxable income. I’m sure IRS statisticians could work out a formula basing the amount of credit on projected costs of defective products purchased by people in various tax brackets. To keep this credit under control a new Federal agency would have to be created which would establish quality scores similar to credit scores and apply these to retailers. Retailers with unacceptable scores would be monetarily penalized much in the same manner that credit card companies raise interest rates for cardholders with low credit scores. Retailers with low quality scores faced with profits being eaten away by poor product quality penalties would surely drop vendors responsible for selling junk! The vendors in turn would find sweat shops willing to further punish workers making junk or in a moment of weakness they might resort to domestic manufacturers. It seems like a lot of trouble to fix a problem caused by an unknowledgeable, rude representative and I’m sure in the final analysis it would only create a need for call centers to handle tax credit and product quality score questions and problems. Doing so creates more sorely needed jobs but it would only serve to continue the problem it was supposed to solve in the first place - the pain in the ass caused by some customer service phone calls. Would a better solution be to attract knowledgeable and courteous customer service representatives by paying them more?

Another Gun Tragedy

The Omaha, Nebraska shooting was the latest in a series of mass killings that have plagued the United States. Once again we will turn a deaf ear towards effective gun control. The White House said it was a "terrible tragedy." That’s about as far as Bush will take the issue. Not surprisingly little is heard about gun control in the presidential debates. No one wants to alienate the “sportsmen” voting bloc a.k.a. the NRA (The next time a candidate slips in a comment about how he likes to hunt I'm going to throw up). We cringe at the violence in Iraq but accept the everyday gun violence on our streets. Will one of the presidential candidates please come forward and propose a program for effective gun control or do we need more massive tragedies before a voice is heard. The Supreme Court is taking up the issue but considering the make-up of the Court I wouldn't hold my breath for anything positive other than some rhetoric about the right to bear arms.

Islamic Justice Rivals The Inquistion

Salman Rushide's "The Satanic Verses" earn him a fatwa known in the wild west as "kill on sight". The Danish newspaper, The Jyllands-Posten, publishes some cartoons depicting Mohamed and all hell breaks loose in Islamic communities. A teenage Saudi girl is raped fourteen times and sentenced to 200 lashes and 6 months in jail. The latest, a British teacher in Sudan is convicted of insulting Islam after her class named a teddy bear Mohamed. She's sentenced to 15 days in jail and lucky for her she is to be deported after serving her sentence. This evidently does not satisfy bloodthirsty Muslims who take to the streets demanding her death. Christians and Jews in their historic past have stained their religions with bloodthirsty justice so Islam is not alone in calling for torture and death in the name of a God. It is troublesome that clerics of all shades who rise to positions of power impose forms of justice which make their religion a tool of Satan.

Feeding The War God

As the Taliban threatens Kabul, NATO is pleading for more troops. When will we learn that if you are going to play War you need a lot of fodder!

Pessimism And Hope

According to a Reuters/Zogby poll released today, Americans are entering the holiday season in a dark mood, with economic worries, security fears and a lack of confidence in government. No one bothered to ask me but I fully concur. The sub prime mortgage fiasco, the falling dollar, the Iraq quagmire, the saber rattling over Iran’s nuclear activities, Putin giving us the finger, Chavez giving us the finger, Ahmadinejad giving us the finger, the rising cost of healthcare, the Middle East tinder box - where does it all stop! Like most Americans my pessimism is growing. The White House is focused - focused on pursuing the Iraq War and engaging Iran in some sort of confrontation. The Congress is not focused. There are no leaders in Congress gifted with the art of persuasion and compromise, aka bipartisanship. We need change in our government . We need a visionary in the White House. Will a leader emerge capable of igniting hope that the decline of The United States of America can be halted? I think so ! He is already making his voice heard.

Barry Bonds And Steroids

The indictment today of Barry Bonds which alleges he lied to a Grand Jury about using steroids and obstructed justice represents a black day for baseball and its fans. He is innocent until proven guilty but the mere fact that baseball's greatest slugger will in all probability be tried puts a stain on his accomplishments. Baseball owners and the players union ( Baseball And Steroids) have a lot of explaining to do as to why the baseball diamond has become a playground for drug users. This indictment coming in the midst of end of season individual awards diminishes those accomplishments. Selig may spin that effective drug use penalties are in place but the proof is in the pudding. Where is the Mitchell report?

As Time Goes By

You must remember this

A pain is still a pain, a sigh is just a sigh.

And aging will apply

As time goes by.

And when two seniors woo

They still say, "I love you."

On that you can rely

No matter what the future brings

As time goes by.

Hairdos and clothing

Slightly out of date.

Hearts full of love

Yet so much to hate.

Woman needs man

And man must have his mate

That no one can deny.

It's still the same old story
Keep from looking hoary

Aging needs a bye.
The world will question aging As time goes by.
Oh yes, the world will always question aging As time goes by.

( apologies to " As Time Goes By " composer and lyricist Herman Hupfeld )

Is there a way out of the Iraq quagmire?

The impasse between the Democrats and Bush over the Iraq War is frustrating. Little progress on ending the war has been made. In fact we are being primed to accept a long term presence in Iraq. Even the specter of war with Iran has been raised. Is there a way out of the Iraq quagmire? I came upon an excerpt from Thoreau’s essay “On Civil Disobedience” which has some relevance to the Iraq War.

“Paying taxes is one way in which otherwise well-meaning people collaborate in injustice. People who proclaim that the war in Mexico is wrong and that it is wrong to enforce slavery contradict themselves if they fund both things by paying taxes. The same people who applaud soldiers for refusing to fight an unjust war are not themselves willing to refuse to fund the government that started the war.”

The action he proposed is more extreme than I would advocate. As far as Iraq is concerned I would take his words and modify them as follows:

Our representatives in Congress who proclaim that the war in Iraq is wrong and must be brought to an end, must resolve that if the Administration refuses to heed the will of the people , they have no other alternative but to stop funding the war.

What's In A Name ?

Italian surnames can be glamorous such as deLaurentiis which evokes visions of a good movie followed by a delicious dinner garnished with Petrosino - parsley. They can be colorful such as Verdi - green, Bianchi - white, and Russo - red or Nero - black. An ancestors trade can be found in the surname of Ferraro for blacksmith, the equivalent of Smith but much more romantic, Barbieri - barber or Martelli - carpenter. That person strutting around like a rooster could very well be named Gallo and the left handed pitcher the Indians covet is probably named Mancino.

Days of the week give birth to names such as Martini, Tuesday, and Sabatino, Saturday. LaVecchia - the old one, can only claim respect. A lesson in Italy’s geography is provided by Calabrese, Salerno, Romano, Napilitano, Lombardi, Siciliano and Genovese. Italian surnames can evoke emotions: Pace,- peace, Sforza - fierce, Amato - loved. Howard Hawk visting Italy could very well have gone by Howard Falcone.

One of my favorite surnames is Passalaqua, pass water. I’m sure this was reserved for persons having an overactive bladder. Would any self respecting urologist bear the name Passalaqua? Another favorite of mine for somewhat obvious reasons is Mastrantonio - Mister Tony.

But what about Rugare? It turns out that as far as Italian surnames are concerned it must rank among the blandest. Rugare is the verb meaning to wrinkle. Not colorful, informative or picturesque. The closest it comes to generating any emotion is in an expression used when someone gives annoyance - “non rugare”. I guess that’s what was happening when someone would refer to me as Rugare.

Rugare was a concoction of Ellis Island - the original spelling of the family name was Rugari which it turns out was just as bland. Rugari is a medicinal plant , probably very effective in curing a pain in the ass which I know some of my relatives suffered from.

A Google search of rugare yields countless results having an African connection. Rugare is a suburb of Harare the capital of Zimbabwe and Rugari is a location in Rwanda. Now that raises some interesting questions.

If I were looking for something glamorous in my genealogy I would seize upon the surname Versace. (Gianni Versace was a fashion designer and occasional photographer from Calabria, in southern Italy. He is most well known for starting the famous Versace clothing line. He was born to a family who owned a tailoring store in Reggio, Calabria.)

Maria Sophia Versace was my grandmother. She immigrated from Sinopoli, Reggio Calabria. Sinopoli was a small peasant village - hardly the scene for a tailoring store. Did some of her family migrate to the more urban city of Reggio? More questions and no answers.

What’s in a name? In the end its what you make of your life and how people remember Rugare - hopefully not with annoyance.

Memorabilia, Junk And eBay

Over the course of years one is bound to accumulate a number of boxes which have been lovingly labeled memorabilia . If one lives long enough and does not succumb to dementia, he begins to question whether or not items are really memorabilia if they have been relegated to a box securely taped and stored in the garage. He may also shockingly conclude that his heirs will classify much of his memorabilia as junk. Ultimately greed steps in and he starts to wonder what his memorabilia or junk might be worth to someone else. The problem then becomes to distinguish between memorabilia, things that are remarkable and worthy of remembrance and junk, something worth little or nothing?

Fortunately these days we have something called eBay. eBay beckons all to search their attic, closets or garage and turn items gathering dust into cash. A survey of what was listed on eBay revealed that a number of articles similar to my “memorabilia” were up for auction. That solved the problem of how to label my stuff so carefully stored in my garage. My stuff was neither memorabilia nor junk, it was “saleable”!

In order to turn my saleable stuff into cash I had to become a member of eBay. This required setting up an ID. Establishing an unique ID is no easy task. I quickly found out that my choice of “mystuff” was not available. Wanting to keep things simple I quickly claimed “mystuff101”. A password was also required which gave me a secure feeling, no one could access my saleable stuff without my password. I chose …….. I then found that I would have to set up another account called PayPal so that I could facilitate the sale of my stuff and get the hundreds of dollars which I was sure were forthcoming deposited to my checking account. True to its name PayPal also facilitated the cost of doing business with eBay. All that was left was to list some of my stuff.

Surely my collection of vintage slide rules would be gobbled up. ( By the way I learned that attaching “vintage” to an article would enhance its chances of showing up in a search). How about that vintage Sony pocket transistor radio which I received as a gift from Sony in 1958 --- a sure seller. Of course my vintage Jim Beam Norman Rockwell bicentennial decanters would create heavy bidding. And that Emerson vintage bakelite table radio --- its not very often something like that comes on the market. Getting a good price for a vintage Sony Walkman would be a slam dunk. Everyone is anxious to get their hands on vintage action figures , so out of the storage box leaped Action Jackson and his friend. Quite a collection of saleable stuff to get started with.

My almost vintage digital camera ( by today’s standards) did its job photographing my stuff for the listing process and I came up with some descriptions which would command attention and wild bidding. My stuff was on eBay! All I had to do was watch the bidding over a period of seven days and then get my stuff ready to ship to the lucky high bidder.

Lo and behold Action Jackson and friend attracted bidders the first day and at the end of the auction he went for $22.50 plus shipping. I must confess I was sorry to see him go but I was satisfied that he was going to good home. Who knows, within two months he might even fetch $50 for his new owner. ( I will not be among the bidders.)

What of the other vintage articles which I was sure were worth more than Action Jackson. Nary a bid. Not even a question. No one was interested in my stuff. Something worth little or nothing is by definition junk. My stuff was not saleable , it was junk! Wait, eBay offers a second chance. For a minimal fee I re-listed some of the more saleable articles. Another seven days and embarrassingly not a single bid. What went wrong? A more thorough search on eBay for similar items revealed that yes they were listed, but the “listees” were not faring much better than I was. My stuff was truly junk. The real winner was eBay with their listing fee which PayPal expeditiously transferred to eBay from my bank account. I guess that is how PayPal got its name ----- pay pal!
I had other “maybe saleable stuff” I could list but the “maybe” part turned me off. Perhaps my best bet would be to go through my stuff and get rid of the junk after applying stringent rules concerning the definition of memorabilia - things that are remarkable and worthy of remembrance, with the emphasis on remembrance. My eBay experience worked like an enema! I got all the junk out of my system and am now left with one box of memorabilia. The latter will bear scrutiny from time to time - a mild laxative should get rid of any remaining questionable memorabilia. In the meantime I’ll confine my eBay activities to truly saleable items like this vintage computer or my made in the U.S.A vintage coat sweater - a real rarity. Oh no! Not again! Just close the account!

About Sofa Beds

What is the ugliest piece of furniture you can buy? A sofa bed! What is the most uncomfortable sofa? A sofa bed! What is the most uncomfortable bed? A sofa bed! What is the piece of furniture most hazardous to your health? A sofa bed! What is the most difficult piece of furniture to dispose of? A sofa bed! Given the foregoing why has our household been graced by three different sofa beds? Why did we have two sofa beds at the same time in an apartment? Why did I venture to single-handedly move a sofa bed from one floor to another and consequently adopt a chiropractor as a lifelong friend? To adequately answer these questions would require the services of Tony Soprano’s Dr. Melfi. On the other hand was it just to impress our young granddaughters so that during their visits we could announce that that they were going to sleep in a magic bed? "Abracadabra , Grandpa is going to turn this sofa into a bed"! I must admit they were impressed but our granddaughters are young ladies now and have relegated magic beds to childhood memories. Our sofa bed reigns in our living room and thwarts every attempt to come up with an attractive furniture arrangement. It hasn’t exposed its inner workings in years. So why do we still have a sofa bed? I guess I’m just too cheap to have it moved out and replaced with a real sofa! That’s what Dr. Melfi would say.

The Curse Of Chief Wahoo

Another baseball season is over, at least for the Cleveland Indians. How do you blow a 3-1 lead in the American League Championship Series? Poor pitching, poor hitting, stage fright, shaky coaching - all of the above. The real culprit however is Chief Wahoo! The Chief continues to curse the Indians. He wants out and the sooner the Indians management realizes this, the sooner meltdowns in championship play will be over. I for one have disposed of any paraphernalia I possessed with the racist Indian's logo. Long live the the script I.

Democrats See The Light

The Democrats will not push for a genocide resolution after all. This has to be an embarrassment for Pelosi. Hopefully it is a lesson learned for the Democrats and they will now stick to legislating. Shrewd leadership is needed by the Democratic Congressional majority now! We cannot wait until the 2008 elections.

Torre Should Tell Steinbrenner To Shove It!

Joe Torre is a very successful major league baseball manager and a classy individual to boot. There is no way he should be enduring the debasing speculation as to whether or not Steinbrenner will have him back. My advice to Torre?

Don't wait for Steinbrenner to decide whether or not you should continue to manage the Yankees. Joe you are 67 years old and I imagine well set financially so just tell Steinbrenner to shove it and move on. Don't give the Steinbrenner clan the option of deciding whether you should be back or not. Don't let your affection for the Yankees tempt you to to endure another year which is bound to be a repeat of this year. I'm sure you don't share my opinion about the Yankees but they are not the Yankees of Gehrig, Ruth, Berra and Rizzuto. The aura is not real, its all marketing.

New York Fans Are Cry Babies

Reading New York accounts of the New York Yankee's defeat at the hands of the Cleveland Indians one gets the impression that the Indians won by default and not by being the better team. Some writers imply that the gnats from Lake Erie won game two. Of course these gnats were released by Indian fans after being trained to annoy the Yankees not the Indians. The fact is that the Yankee pitcher Joba Chamberlain was a wimp! Of course the Indians were fortunate to win the other two games because the vaunted Yankee sluggers were slumbering. Ridiculous! The Indian pitchers made mince meat out of the Yankees. The Yankees were out managed and outplayed by a superior Cleveland team. Cleveland deserves to be playing for the pennant! As for the Yankee fans, they must finally realize that their raucousness can no longer intimidate visiting teams. The overrated lore of Yankee invincibility has been finally put to rest. Incidentally what happened to the other New York team?

GE's Hate /Love Affair With LEDs

The General Electric Lighting business shut down its Solid State Lamp ( their name for light emitting diodes) manufacturing plant in 1975 . The cash cow for the lighting business was then and probably even today the sale of incandescent bulbs. Now all has come full circle. Thirty -two years later GE has announced a global restructuring plan to reduce production of lower efficiency incandescent light bulbs. Why? A Slate article tells all:
Edison's Dimming Bulbs - How Wal-Mart and the government are killing the incandescent light bulb.
Guess what? GE now predicts that solid state light emitting diodes ( not Solid State Lamps) may become tomorrow's principal lighting source. When it came to solid state technology GE never got it right ( visit my Semiconductor Reminiscences web site). Once a leading producer of diodes , rectifiers, transistors and integrated circuits it bowed out of the semiconductor field when the going got too competitive.

So it was with light emitting diodes . Nick Holonyak invented the first visible spectrum light emitting diode in 1962 while at the former GE Electronics Laboratory in Syracuse, NY. A May 23, 2005 Business Week article reported that "Nick Holonyak's LEDs may soon make incandescent and flourescent bulbs obsolete".

GE piloted light emitting diodes at its Lamp Division in Cleveland, Ohio. They called them Solid State Lamps even though one of its researchers invented LEDs ( a marketing decision which reflected misplaced ego) and launched a manufacturing facility in 1972 in Chesterland , Ohio. The facility was shuttered in 1975 (Solid State Lamps were dragging down the bottom line of its parent Speciality Lamps Department). Solid state technology and incandescent lamp making technology just did not mix or better yet solid state technology was too foreign to the country's leading producer of incandescent lamps (GE is back in the LED business - not solid state lamps- through a subsidiary called GELcore). Now that GE has declared incandescent lamp making a 100 year old technology implying that it should be put out to pasture, perhaps it is finally ready to embrace a technology which is forty-five years old.