Retail store emails that refer to me as part of their "family"

For a lot of people during the holidays, entire turkey and ham dinners are really just side items to be served with the main course of family problems that never seem to end. People have also used the word "family " and "family friendly" to exclude people with gender problems or single people. The word "family" is a loaded word for a lot of people, with a lot of implications, which makes it even more embarrassing for there to be a new trend of organizations unrightfully referring to members or customers as "family."  Obama did it several times with America, referring to our country as one big family, and I have recently gotten multiple emails from random retail stores referring to their customers as family members.  The college I went to a long time ago in South Carolina also tried to call all the alumni family in a survey, and I have to say that even though I feel a lot of love for a lot of strangers and hope that everyone can be adopted as God's children, I find it insultingly presumptuous and inexcusable when anyone, but especially someone just trying to get my money, assumes that kind of role with me.  I actually find it abusive in more than just a philosophical way, and I know that many people have deep and very mainstream religious beliefs that require them not to ever refer to people that way so flippantly.  And this might sound stupid, but what about divorced people who shop at the same store.  Who does some jerk marketer think they are to remarry those people.  People think I am being a persnickety grammar snob or just a snob, but there are some really bad people doing really bad things in almost every part of society and this world, and they are not my family. Standing in the same line with someone at the grocery store does not mean I am so much as their second cousin fifty thousand times removed, and for both the commies and the capitalists to try to foist that on me for no other reason but to take everyone's inheritance, including the safety and security of the country, is reason for me to disown everyone.

Monopoly

No need to make too big a deal of it, but this week, the cable company charged me five dollars just to let me pay my own bill for internet service.  And I was also thinking about how I rent my modem from them and may be paying ten times what the modem is worth because of that, which is absurd, though if I were stronger I could have bought a different modem.  But I think that is the idea, and it is interesting to think about with apartment rent gouging, too.  If our system suddenly became a rent to own system where your past rent was credited to you as going toward the cost of a place to live, I think people would freak out and talk about communism.  And yet with the modem situation, the absurdity of people paying more than something is worth and still not owning it is easily apparent.

Taking down the statutes

 For today's mad blog post I would like to say that I think almost all statute of limitations laws that keep people from bringing abuse charges after a certain amount of time has passed are a terrible injustice and an embarrassment to our society and all of so called "civilization."  These kinds of laws do one thing, which is to help bad people get away with child abuse and other violations. The endorsement of this behavior through law actually to me should make people really wonder if there can be such thing as good people in power.  I have always believed that there can be and must be, but laws like this are suspicious.  What are people hiding and getting away with to maintain their control?  It must be something awful if there are laws saying that people's accusations don't count once they have found the strength to report what has really happened.

Noise Levels

Well everyone, today I called my favorite restaurant to ask them if they play their music from a playlist and the guy told me that people play music from their Ipods and they have a jukebox.  I told him the reason I was wondering was because last night when I was one of just a few customers there, the music started off great and then turned into the song "I wanna sex you up," and I suspected deliberate harassment.  The manager was not happy to hear a legal word like that but really I am doing him a favor because they could get sued for stuff like that even though people who do that stuff think that people don't realize that they are humiliating people on purpose.  But some of us do know because we get treated that way all the time.  I don't think that case is as clear as when I was in a junk and antique store in Brooklyn and I was the only customer and there was just one piece-of-garbage male employee who immediately put in a C.D. that started with the song "I just want to m. l. to you." Oh, it's a classic alright, and as mad as I was, I didn't realize until later that what it really is is classic sexual harassment.  Another store in my neighborhood cranked up some nasty music past 100 decibels one day when I walked in but I stayed and bought some shoes and the store people were just young teens or twenty-somethings who I suspected had experienced more racism even than the blatant racial and sexual harassment they were treating me with right then so I did not even call their corporate office to complain.  But it is interesting to me that all these people think their offense and the deliberate nature of it is undetectable, because really it is pretty obvious, even amid all the offensive canned playlists from corporate offices that are meant to speed up their store traffic or build a brand that is officially too cool for people with morals or decency.  In the end, people will say it is free speech, but I don't think that's what they would so quickly defend if they heard me say my free speech that I usually say in those situations, which is "Death and Shame to you In The Name of Jesus Christ." I am sad, because all I really wanted was peace of mind, or in some cases, to have nice background music, which is also what I would rather hear than the agonized shrieking and wailing that all of humanity will hear and rejoice over when all those people and other rapists like them are burning in hell some day in a future that actually isn't that far away.

The Worst Policies

   Sometimes I wonder what kind of jokes comedians are making and have been saying for the past twenty years because to me sometimes it seems like nothing is funny. It just seems like this whole country and world is a tragedy.

   I mean are they making jokes about how Subway's mayonnaise isn't really mayonnaise?  Because I looked it up online after tasting a horrible mysterious white plastic-like goop and sure enough, there are no eggs in the "recipe," or should I say "chemical formula." And at the store in my neighborhood, if you say you want Cheddar Cheese, they give you a shredded mix that has a few specks of cheddar and they don't even say anything like "We don't have Cheddar, we have this little mysterious mix that we know isn't what you want or what you asked for."  And hmm I mean I hope the turkey is turkey but we don't really know anymore, do we?

   And then okay, maybe it is just the fast food industry, except that iphones seem engineered to be a disposable product now because the charging ports wear out in a year ever since Apple started using the chargers that have that tiny little port instead of the wider port that was more dependable.  And when I try to access my library of music there is this other button that tries to get you to sign up for their apple music program.  And then it is hard to access my old library of music in the first place, so I think, hmm, do I have to rebuy music?  I know I am not the only one.  I've heard many rumors that Apple tries to make their products become obsolete fast on purpose, but is "obsolete" really the same as "defective?" I don' t think it is, honestly.

   That was funny when I just said the word "honestly," wasn't it?"

Trials and Errors

Well everyone, it is a Thursday morning in October and I am starting my day mad at Pope Francis. It is not really anything personal except he told everyone that the death penalty is wrong and contrary to  the gospel and Christianity. I think he is the one who is wrong this time, not the death penalty, and people who do what they are supposed to and are morally secure have no problem sending murderers, child abusers, and rapists onward to Judgement Day for God to decide what is next for them. And one of those reasons is that there might not be a bad enough punishment possible for them on earth. As much as people want to seem compassionate by saying it is no one's right to take another life, the fact is that the humane thing to do is to rid our streets of rapists and murderers and to trust that there can be more justice and mercy beyond this world. So really the thing that is not Christian is thinking that all we see is all there is and everything is up to us in such a way that we have to be too careful to do what is right and err on the side of letting traffickers and heroin dealers ruin everyone's lives. There are horrible things happening in our country, and I think the real question before us these days is not whether the death penalty is moral, but whether the murderers and rapists should still get a trial beforehand.

People at Half Mast

   I have taken a break from mad blog posts and it could be because I have recovered from people hurting me and my general anger has decreased.  I think my non-madblog posts are better, and I am tempted to just say nevermind about this blog. But it is a good place for opinions, and I think I will share a thought about the flag protests, which I do think are warranted.  Trump didn't just express his opinion that flag protestors should be fired, but in my opinion actually tried to influence NFL bosses to fire their players.  So yeah, people should protest.  And other people's knee-jerk objection to their very appropriate protest exposes another problem which is the intellectual laziness that has resulted in a lot of our political problems.  For years, people have just let themselves believe that the soldiers are the only true American heroes, and that people like workers or taxpayers or even children don't also contribute to our society in heroic ways, and that the flag doesn't and shouldn't also represent them.  So if someone suggests that there may be some problems represented by that flag, people automatically say that the wounded veterans are the ones being disrespected.  But really, the protestors are defending the true value that the flag should have represented, and in that way are supporting the veterans by trying to insure that their sacrifice is not in vain.
  A lot has already been said about all of this, but I did feel like sharing this opinion, because I have always been aware as a low paid retail worker that some people's contributions to our society are celebrated and some people don't even earn a living wage while their companies rake in millions of dollars of profit from their labor, which then goes to pay the salaries of people who are declared heroes as soon as they sign up for service.  But there are a lot of heroes, and sports stars who have overcome great odds do stand for something too and are right to protect everyone when some loser threatens to take away everything they have earned.

Daily Grime

   I remember as a kid having so many hilarious laughs with middle school and high school friends whenever we would say "What if someone did such and such," and it would be some inappropriate thing that we all knew was absurd.  And everyone had a basic understanding of societal norms, and how terrible it would be to see some kind of embarrassing commercial when you were with your grandmother, or how wrong it would be for a teacher to do something crazy like show pornography in class. I think that these standards in our minds became the foundation for some deep appreciation of hilarious jokes, some of which were homemade, and some of which were expertly presented in movies and on TV.
    But now, as if someone went and dumped all the spices ever made into everyone's food and drinks and even ice cream, we have nasty images and nasty jokes and nasty music in our faces and minds constantly everywhere we turn.  People can say that is not true but I do not believe them.  If you need to make some copies at an office store, you will get it done while listening to a top 40 song that is more explicit than a medical anatomy class and has people making actual sexual noises. Bus drivers who wanted decent, honest work, suddenly find themselves driving down the road with huge underwear ads featuring completely naked people on their bus for everyone to see.  I really can't think of anything more disrespectful to a community and especially to a worker doing their job. How disgusting. If you say anything about it, you are considered a prude, but I think that most people, and possibly everyone, knows in their hearts that our culture has a problem and it probably is contributing to high rates of abuse, and isn't that far from abuse itself. Some people get no break from it and do not even know what it is like to think about other things and play regular games and care about a normal movie storyline or hear a song that isn't some nasty metaphor, or even that is a metaphor instead of being a base and crude description of bodily functions.  There used to be such a thing as a dirty joke, because some jokes weren't dirty. Now the people behind and in front of the media are the dirty jokes who have ruined our society.  When I speak out about it or even frown, people literally turn up the music louder to humiliate me, but I will still make my case for a Muzak revolution, not because it is my job to clean all the rapists' minds, but because I know that things were funnier and life was zippier when dirt had its place, and that place wasn't everywhere.

the cutting of the cake makers

   Hi, would people like to hear my opinion about gay wedding cakes?  Some people think it is a no brainer like refusing to make a certain kind of cake for certain people is automatically discrimination, but I do not really think so.  I would kill myself if people forced me to create something that I did not want to create.  I think that the rule should be that anyone should be allowed to buy any cake that a cake maker makes, but that cake makers should only have to make original cakes according to designs they choose and believe in themselves.  So if they have wedding cakes and gay people want one for a wedding, they should have to sell it, but if some loser comes in their shop and demands that they design some nasty cake or some cake with icing saying something they don't believe in then they  have no moral obligation whatsoever to comply and should also not have any kind of legal obligation.  So to me it is about design. I know that some people think that their religious rights are violated if they have to sell a cake to someone that they don't want to, but to me, especially since gay marriage is legal, then it is reasonable to expect them to treat everyone the same.
   I think that part of this has to do with how personal a cake is or isn't.  You are not the officiating minister because you made someone a cake.  The cake doesn't have that kind of meaning, and if it did, then wouldn't your cake sale be the wedding? Everyone knows that it is not.
  So now people are like oh, funny you should mention ministers. They are next on our list of people we want to persecute.  Well hmm I guess that is part of gay marriage tradition now isn't it? People choose the flowers they want, and choose their wedding party, and then choose the religious people whose lives they want to ruin.

social justice was my religion in fourth grade

Hmmm, which is better... trickle down economics from the corporations or trickle down guilt manipulation from the social work schools. I just don't know... but people who call every single good thing in life "privilege" are no allies of mine.

My opinion about USA healthcare

The healthcare problems are about ten scams combined:

-Drug companies and medical services gouging everyone

-A layer of absurdly high insurance profit on a pooled-money cost-sharing system

-Insurance companies taking money and not providing coverage

-Discrimination against the sick and disabled through pre-existing conditions coverage denial and enslaving policies requiring continuation of coverage

-Employer based insurance instead of true free market individual insurance for anyone

-The illusion of a gambling system when it is voluntary socialized medicine that cuts costs by refusing to pay for some people

-the absurdity of expecting people to keep insurance from working when the insurance purpose is to pay for care for conditions that make is difficult or impossible to work

-the scam of underpaid working poor people not being able to afford healthcare or anything else because their companies do not pay fair wages much less share profit

-the scam of insurance being called a "benefit" when many employees pay for it themselves every month

-companies paying people in benefits instead of wages in the first place

-broken contract behavior from the government who promises health care and then takes it back

-senators making salaries for life instead of just when they are working and then making all their decisions to "save taxpayer money"

-abuse and exploitation from employers who know their workers are not free to leave jobs because of dependency on insurance

People have been patient with this outrageous scam that has cost our country freedom and lives for many years.  Obamacare was a good start to fix it.  Bad laws and bad people have exhausted my patience and strength as a libertarian worker and I think I will probably advocate for single payer Medicare for all.  People will call me a commie but I think it is a solution that could set people free to be prosperous and the whole deficit could disappear almost instantly when people use their gifts to be productive instead of panicking to keep insurance while companies squeeze the life out of everyone.

More of a free market option could be a competitive system where everyone has individual insurance and it is like car insurance.  This could also solve the pro-life pro-choice disagreements because people could choose companies that cover or dont cover certain costs. But really this option is probably what should have happened twenty years ago and people instead chose to let the insurance companies and employers take advantage of everyone.

Coining phrases

America is supposed to be a country of liberty and justice- not liberty versus justice.  I think that a fight between those two sides is a sign that freedom and fairness might not be what some people are truly trying for.

Solutions for a Change

I feel like doing a post with a couple of solutions to problems this time.  The two ideas are about problems we have needed to solve for twenty years.

The first problem is immigration, and I would like to share my idea which is that schools and hospitals should officially instead of unofficially become the new Ellis island, and there should be offices where people take snapshots of people, make an I.D. card, and pass out citizenship like candy to anyone who is willing to even pretend to be temporarily allegiant to the United States.  That is my opinion.  And people say "what about terrorism?", but it should be a very simple policy that terrorism and crime are against the law, which will apply to all citizens. Same with healthcare and welfare policies. 

The second idea I have is a component that I think would help the insurance problems.  People should see by now that at least some healthcare is going to be socialized no matter what.  And one of the main things that makes people fight against it is that millions of people don't want to and shouldn't have to be forced to pay for abortions.  Well my idea is for there to be a choice of tax pools for people to fund as part of their taxes, where people choose three out of five funds to designate their money to go to, and one of those is a fund for controversial medical procedures that pro choice people can support.  And people who don't want to pay for that stuff can support something else. People will argue that if it gets paid for at all then everyone paid for it but I do not think it has to be that way and there must be a solution for the gridlock that is more about abortion than many people either realize or are willing to admit.

"Sharing"

My other post reminded me to share about how bothered I am about the way facebook kind of forced me to sign up for "messenger" so now I get a text on my phone because of facebook messages, and I am asked to "share a day" with people.  I honestly think it is kind of sick, and to me it often seems like facebook's next goal is to have everyone watching each other go to the bathroom.  I don't usually say stuff like that, but I think facebook really does have some problems and that really is essentially their vision for the future society that they think they are in charge of.

Candid Camera

At Starbucks today, I noticed that there were four or five video cameras, mostly focused on their employees, and though I don't think it is an emergency that I need to write a dystopian novel about, it does remind me of something I am worried about which has to do with video cameras.  I think that in a lot of places, people are now trying to capture things on video and just punish people later instead of being vigilant and proactive to prevent bad things from happening.  I think this could be terrible, and I can even imagine our whole society being sent to jail retroactively for all our traffic and parking sins and later on for store transaction problems where the whole loss prevention policy is based on erroneously busting people retroactively after inventory mistakes show up on computers. And thinking of situations in schools where there are cameras instead of people monitoring and then the videos can get shared later is just tragic and upsetting to me.  It is an issue that should be monitored closely.

Insecurity Administrations

A lot of people aren't like me but I actually would rather die in a plane crash than get screened by the TSA.  And I feel like there are many threats of additional molestation "checkpoints," such as mandatory health screenings to keep insurance or jobs, physical screenings for military members after a draft that includes females, and of course, everyone's favorite, mandatory drug testing by corporate employers. I really believe that it is not only a sign of our sick society's building pressure of physical and mental violation that is encouraged by our disgusting media, but also a part of the moral communism in this country from the millions of people who are really pretty bad and want everyone to get a share of their punishment even before some of the crimes happen.

If the Protestants really want to get rid of Darwin

Okay everyone, I just mailed my taxes, and I am sad for everyone who has to do all that, and I don't understand how those kinds of life skills are required for mere citizenship.  Keeping medical insurance is ten times worse, and I think that we do have to wonder if there is some kind of survival of the fittest scam behind all of it.

Apartment Garbage

This isn't a pet peeve blog everyone but it does bother me that people are allowed to rummage through the trash at my apartment building and it bothers me when people try to sneak in the main door right behind me when I unlock it to go in.  And that I can't trust the water in my apartment after several incidents. But I do feel safe in my apartment and if I wasn't then I know my guinea pigs would attack.

Capturing on Video

Well some Hollywood people now care about trafficking which is really inspiring. I actually thought Hollywood was the trafficking industry, but maybe I just think that because of some movies I saw.

Some of these posts aren't that good are they.

Some of my blog posts aren't very good are they. I mean they just aren't. And maybe I should have stuck to making jokes instead of writing this mad blog because I just epublished all those books and it might not be smart to risk everything to say all this stuff when really I have only one opinion anyway which is that I think child abusers should all be burnt alive with no trial.

An experiment that probably involves burning sulfur

You know what gets me everyone is when people call our country "The American Experiment," like liberty and justice are two molecules in a petri dish or something and like people haven't just had their limbs blown off serving everyone. I think it's actually a form of psychological devaluation where after losers ruin everything people say "Well we weren't trying to be a country anyway. We were just trying out a recipe for sausage muffins."

More terms and conditions

This is a quick post to say I just saw something disturbing which is the use of the phrase "pre-existing  criminal convictions." To refer to crimes with similar terminology as the already violating terms used to describe people's health conditions is a little disturbing, and when you add in the way some people are now labeling mental disorders as "behavioral health," or when there are legal problems, "correctional health," it all just blurs into something that to me is very worrisome.  It is a criminalization tactic that I would not have expected. That is all I have to say about it right now and the term was from an article about other people's problems that so far I think are much worse.

What day is it anyway?

Well everyone, today is February 4th, and of course I am feeling a little bit of that let down feeling you get after celebrating Groundhog's Day. This year I got confused because on facebook that day it said "Happy Friends Day" and facebook had compiled a little video of my friends for me.  Well that is so thoughtful of them and I did not know they were in charge of the holidays and my friendships but I guess they are trying to grab just a little more power because making money from every single social interaction that happens just isn't enough. And I am now a little worried that on Sunday they will invite people to my apartment to a super bowl party without my permission. Should I make some chips and dips just in case? You know I really don't know what recipes to use because the facebook ads I remember are the ones where something inappropriate was on my news feed right next to the names of my friends who had said they liked something like animals or their hometown newspaper. But who knows what people really like when the "like" button is right next to the "hide post" button? You know I really don't know and maybe what I like and don't like isn't my decision anymore.

Minimum Wages

Some people are quick to defend people's rights to keep what they earn but not as much in favor of people getting paid what they deserve in the first place.  Supposedly it is all in the name of freedom but I hope the people who don't believe in a minimum wage, much less a fair or living wage, will be happy on Judgement Day when Ayn Rand tells them, "Well done," and they are shuffled off to a mostly comfortable though somewhat warm life without ever knowing if they went to heaven or hell.

Signs of the Times

Well, it seems that Trump has ordered some kind of ban on Muslims, except okay it actually is apparently based on geographical or national origin, and a judge tried to overturn it, and now we have to say okay what is the deal with these executive orders that aren't laws passed through Congress.  Some people cracked the code fast enough to get to the airports, and I really admire them.  But I am also seeing some hypocrisy and self righteousness from a lot of people, such as whoever is behind the Google definition of "fascism," which defined it as automatically being "right-wing." Honestly to me that is more like propaganda than a lot of the Christian mistakes, which actually are very plentiful and consistent.  And I do not know whether to be sad that people are successfully shaming and squelching the flawed Christianity in this country, or whether I should be happy that there are currently some good deed opportunities for everyone who is obviously motivated every day only by their hatred of Christians and other Conservatives. What was it about us?  Did we not drink enough?  Was it because we did too much volunteer work and showed up at our jobs on time?  Ok, it was because of the people who were single their whole lives because they did not believe in being gay.  Ok well I guess the only thing to do is constantly try to shame us with the media.  It looks like it is working everyone, and we are happy for you, because our mistakes will probably be your only reward.