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Our refrigerator, after 23 years of faithful service, died the other day.

Needing a replacement, Bob immediately found a new one. It’s a complicated and boring story but the crux of the matter is we can’t install the new one until we can detach our old one from the water system. A plumber has to do this and he needs a part. The installer said he can return when we know a date when this is completed. Bob has confirmed a date for the plumber.

All we need now is for the delivery people to come hook up the water for the new refrigerator and take the old one. The delivery man gave us a phone number and email address where we could contact them. Bob tried via email. No response. Bob then tried to call customer service. The recorded message informed him that he would wait an hour a customer service agent would answer. Thinking it had something to do with customer service being short staffed due to the 4th of July Holiday, he decided to wait until after the holiday. He called today very early in the day, and, received the same hour wait for an agent message. Customer Service doesn’t have enough agents when you start the day an hour behind. Given that we have heard nothing via email, I am willing to bet that no one is responding to emails and that our best bet is to wait an hour to speak with someone.

I recently had a similar experience while renting a car. We had to wait an hour and half in a line of more than 30 people to see a rental agent. There were two at the desk. Once we got our contract we went into another line to get our car. This desk had one person. We waited for 30 minutes in that line. At first, I thought a bunch of planes must have landed thus causing the long lines, but the line never got smaller, it had, in fact, got larger.

Of course, it isn’t the company’s fault. There aren’t enough good employees to do the job. They claim to be trying, but really are they? Management is always blaming labor for the lack of good employees. I invite you to look at this in a different way. Companies’ can’t find workers who are will do the job at the wage you are offering. They might have better luck if they paid more money.

Indeed, this is the way the market is supposed to operate. If something becomes more expansive to deliver, say oil for the sake of argument, then the market price goes up. So, when there is war in the Middle East or hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico preventing the refining of oil, everyone accepts that prices of oil will go up. This is what we are told anyway.

Then doesn’t the same theory applies to wages. If it is difficult to find employees at a certain wage, then you need to raise the wage until you can acquire the number and quality of employees where you can deliver the product or service you are selling. American business is, for some reason, resistant to learning this simple straightforward lesson of Capitalism. If forced to choose between higher wages or delivering bad service, they will choose bad service every time in hopes that if they hold out long enough, the labor market will change in their favor.

In the mind of Business Managers, Labor is the whipping boy for all the failures of American Capitalism. If there are problems, it was bad employees. If budget cuts are necessary, where do you think they cut first. Cut the number of staff while trying to maintain the same workload. Cut benefits, raise deductibles on health insurance, do away with sick days. They brag about profits, they brag about price shares but rarely, if ever, do you hear them brag about paying the best wages in the industry. Which is odd because a customer might infer that by paying the best wages, your company also has the best people.

I can’t tell you how many Rah Rah end of the year speeches I’ve listened to where the corporate heads are blathering on about all the successes the company experienced — profits are up, share prices are up, efficiency is up, automation is up. They claim how they are the best in the industry for this and that. Then some brave employee broaches the subject of wages. The talking head has a ready answer. The company pays wages that are in line with the labor market. This sounds like collaboration to me. If they all know the standard wage, they can gauge their salaries appropriately. I thought this was illegal but never mind. For some reason this stops all conversation about wages.

Employees buy it. Until recently, I always did. I thought well what can I say to that — the company pays what is in line with every other company in the industry. But, wait, doesn’t the company want to be best at everything? Why wouldn’t the company want to have the best wages as well? In almost 40 years of working, I have never heard a company head brag that they offer the best wages in their industry. They may say a lot of wonderful things about their employees, they may even believe what they say but they rarely brag about the wages. they are paying. Curious that, don’t you think?

Which brings me back to the extra refrigerator clogging up our kitchen. This effects customer service. Because lower paid employees are the most likely staff to work with actual customers, this lack of good employees has a detrimental effect on a customer’s experience. If you can’t afford to pay good employees you are also ensuring that, at least some of your customers, will have a bad experience. Companies are hoping that most of this will be handled through better automation, the problem is that if any hiccups occur and a human needs to get involved, the company almost guaranteeing a bad experience. Let me tell you if I have to wait an hour when I call a customer service department, I have already had a bad experience. I have had to wait an unreasonable amount of time. By the time the poor customer service agent answers, I am fuming and ready to quarrel. So, the underpaid sap might begin to think — I don’t get paid enough to this crap.

And around and around she goes.

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Billionaire Elon Musk wants to limit the vote to people with children because children give parents a special interest in the future, so hence are better voters. He provides absolutely no proof that this is true other than parents have children and, because they do, they care more about the future than single people.

I am confused. When has voting ever been about the future? It is almost always about the now. Like how are we going to spend tax revenues now, how are we going to protect people from crime now, how are we going to educate people now, do we want to send troops to Afghanistan now — I could go on but you get my point. Politics is about how we live now and, though the future looms big in the background, what people in the present are actually worried about is what is going on now. Telling people that yes things are miserable now but it will payoff in thirty years for your children isn’t exactly a rousing campaign slogan for parents either.

The good news here is Musk ‘s proposal is dead upon arrival. Voting rights for women and minorities are enshrined in the U.S Constitution so that involves a constitutional amendment to change. I suppose he could introduce a Constitutional Amendment taking away the vote from single people but we all know it is a long an arduous process through 50 state legislature. Furthermore single people still can vote and, presumably would vote against the idea along with their friends that maybe parents.

Musk isn’t being serious. He is stirring the pot and it is interesting which pot he has chosen to put his spoon. Conservatives and Libertarians are going after limiting the vote. It’s not just making it difficult anymore, it is making it impossible to get your hands on a ballot in the first place. The implications are shocking, at least, shocking to me. He is saying that there are people who are more worthy of full citizenship than others and, if you want to know who he is thinking might be cut from the voting rolls, Musk has thrown is some ideas for your consideration.

But it aligns with Republican notions that if only the right people voted, that Republicans would win. And what do you know, married couples tend to vote Republican. Single men also vote Republican but less so than married people. Single women are the trouble for the Republicans and they vote overwhelming Democratic, so much so that it erases any advantage the Republicans get from the other three groups. Instead of working on changing the minds of single women, the Republicans have opted to change who can vote.

These ideas about limiting the vote are not isolated ideas either. It’s a topic that I keep seeing – particularly in Libertarian and Far Right circles. Columnist Michael Walsh proposed limiting the vote to men. He artfully never says women are incapable of rational thought but he quotes others to defend this notion. He describes how the ancient Romans felt that “women were never considered worthy of the vote. They were too emotional, too devious in their machinations, and certainly too weak to fight.” Really. Of course it is the Romans saying it, not Walsh. Really. Is it that surprising the Ancient Romans felt this way about women. Ancient Rome, you know, about two thousand years ago. Romans were also partial to slavery and viewed women as nothing more than vessels for the production of children. How much Roman wisdom does Walsh want us to incorporate into the modern American system? These attacks on the vote are also coming from all directions. The other day Seaford, Delaware tried to give the vote to non-resident business owners. This almost made it through the Delaware legislature.

This constant attack on the present franchise is worrisome. Take away the vote from women. Take away the vote from single people. Keep taking away voting rights until you get the electorate willing to vote your way. But it won’t be a functioning democracy. And what arrogance. The underlying assumption of these men is that they are more worthy than you and know what is best for you. That is if you’re single or a woman or both. Get it. I am waving my middle finger.

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The investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide is complete. Bad employees made bad decisions. The cameras were down, Epstein didn’t have a cell mate, Epstein collected extra sheets and his watchers decided not to watch him that night. All these errors culminated in the death of Epstein. But, despite this odd convergence of completely unrelated events, there is nothing suspicious about his death.

Let me think about this for a moment. No, sorry. I am just not buying it. Epstein, a man who could provide evidence implicating Presidents, Cabinet members, and members of Congress and who had been on suicide watch before, despite all the knowledge of his importance and his suicidal tendencies, still he manages to commit suicide on the very day that the numerous failsafe procedures designed to prevent such an action fail. It was almost like he knew this would happen. How convenient.

Two low level employees have taken the fall and that will be that. This is both unsurprising and shocking. I don’t know about you but if I was the warden tasked with keeping such an important person alive, I would pay attention to how my staff was handling the person. It would be my number one priority. I would visit Epstein’s cell every day to make sure everything was in order. I would call his watchers late at night and make them go to his cell and come back and tell me his alive. I would be consumed with worry that something terrible was going to happen to Epstein. It doesn’t appear that the warden was worried much about the performance of his lower level employees.

To pawn this off as a series of misdeeds by low level employees fucking up on their daily tasks is unbelievable. I know this to be true because I used to be a lower level employee with bosses and important projects. Concerned bosses check up on important projects. Concerned bosses put their best people on important projects. They keep tabs on what is going right and what is going wrong because they know if something goes disastrously wrong, they, and not the low level employees, will be called to account for what happened. And that manager better be able to provide an explanation.

Also, speaking as an ex-lower level employee, if my boss told me that the my most important task was ensuring that my charge is alive in the morning, I would make pretty damn sure that person was alive. I wouldn’t want to explain why Epstein had extra sheets, or no room mate, or that the camera wasn’t working.

So, if the report is true, there was a stunning lack of supervision of lower level employees. For a prison. You know one of those places that house really dangerous people and that the public needs to be protected from. That is kind of why they are there. So if low level employees can fuck up so much that the most important prisoner in the building turns up dead, I might be concerned with a little more than those low level employees. That this isn’t happening speaks volumes of what is really going on here. It is a bit sad that the best case scenario is gross incompetence up and down the food chain. The worse scenarios involve corrupt prison officials and phantom assassins are even more troubling.

Artfully hidden in these reports, at least I have not read anything about it and I would think given the media’s desire for juicy tales would be at least mentioned, is the possibility that Epstein was helped in his act – either by prison employees or by invited assassins. This would seem to be an important point to address because there was a lot of speculation about this after Epstein’s death. Not a word. He committed suicide and that is that.

That nobody believes this story goes without saying. It is an insult to the public’s intelligence. The inability for investigators to provide even a plausible answer to what happened that night reveals a shocking arrogance. They clearly don’t give a rat’s ass if we believe this report. They had to provide a report, they did it, now shut up. There also is, at least so far as I’ve read, a surprising lack of outrage from the press and elected officials which moves us into even more troubling territory. Are they complicit? Are they scared?

The whole mess is disappointing. It reeks of conspiracy and cover up something I try to avoid because it makes you sound crazy but then this report does nothing to make me feel differently.

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I know that a lot of people will disagree with me about this but I think the best way forward is to leave Donald Trump alone. If nobody pays attention to him, he might (notice I said might) just disappear. Now, personally, I admit it would be great fun to see the man in an orange jumpsuit. He certainly deserves it. On the other hand, the effort to get him in the orange jumpsuit might be more trouble than it is worth. All of Trump’s legal trouble keeps him in the public eye which gives him the attention he craves. The problem is people think of Trump as a normal person who might be embarrassed by all of this negative publicity. I know I would be mortified but Trump is not a normal person. He loves attention and because of that there is no such thing as bad publicity. He will take what he can get.

Then there is the media who, despite their seeming outrage over Trump’s behavior, in reality, love the man. And I mean love that has no bounds. Trump actually is aware of it and plays them. He didn’t become a reality television superstar for nothing. The media, however, isn’t so savvy or they just don’t care. Neither of which is particularly comforting. Trump, on the other hand, knows how to generate headlines. The media has to pay attention to headlines. Headlines drive the media.They can’t very well ignore them, can they? They need an audience for their news and Trump supplies it in spades. It is a very sick relationship.

But how can the country let such a prominent law breaker like Trump get away with his criminal behavior? It is pretty clear that he has engaged in illegal activities. The man needs to be punished or, at the least, reigned in. I would argue in this special case we would be better off not pursuing it. Half of the country thinks he is a martyr, finding a jury where at least one Trump supporter doesn’t slip through the jury selection is going to be difficult if not impossible. Then, even if the impossible does happen, and he is convicted, he is wily man with access to wily lawyers. Being an overweight 77 year old man, I am pretty sure that he can drag this out long enough that he will die in his own bed. There is a very small chance that he will get convicted and go to prison. In the meantime we are giving Trump endless access to the spotlight he craves. He is a careless man who doesn’t care a whit about anybody but himself. He will burn the country to the ground if he has too. Is it worth it just to see him behind bars?

If by pursuing legal action, we hope to shake loose his supporters and get them to see reason, then give up. It isn’t happening. His crimes seem to have little effect on his followers who, instead of seeing the man for what he is, are opting to take Trump’s complaints against the justice system and the media at face value. It has strengthened their commitment to him which, I am afraid, means that they will follow him with matches if he decides it is a good idea to burn down the country. Given Trump’s insatiable narcissism, I don’t like the odds that Trump can be persuaded to do the right thing.

The continued pursuit of legal action against Trump gives him a platform to talk about the really important issue of how horribly people treat Donald Trump. Again and again, day after day, waah, waah, waah. With his chorus in the media breathlessly asking the important questions. Did you hear what Trump said today? Is he admitting to a crime? How can prosecutors use this information in the coming trials? Will this finally force Republicans to abandon him? All great media fodder but increasingly meaningless sideshows to what really ails the country.

Every minute spent discussing Trump is one less minute Americans are talking about real problems like homelessness, crime, the Ukrainian War, inflation, educational reform and onward and so forth. He won’t stop talking as long as we continue to listen and the bright minds in the media can’t stop themselves from talking about Donald Trump. It would be better for everyone to ignore him and that means biting the bullet and leaving him alone. Let him rot away in the Florida sun.

Some Democrats think that all this attention will force the Republicans to nominate Trump again for president because they believe that Trump will be easier to beat. Maybe. But if all the Democrats have is a weak Republican candidate then the Democrats deserve to loose. The election should be about better ideas and good candidates. Talking about what a stupid asshole the Republicans have nominated is hardly a winning strategy and it is embarrassingly weak too. It is dependent upon the Republicans doing what the Democrats want and is pretty nakedly apparent that’s what the Democrats want. The Republicans might surprise us and change their minds about committing political suicide. Then where would the Democrats be.

It would be better for the country to start with a fresh face. Ron DeSantis maybe an asshole but he is a different asshole with different ideas and different ways of doing things. It is a risk. Yes. But I would much rather face someone like Ron DeSantis or anyone other than Trump. Because if someone other than Trump is the Republican nominee there is a remote possibility that Americans might talk about something other than Donald Trump. If Trump is the nominee, the media spotlight remains focused on Donald Trump. And all that means is waah, waah, waah people are so mean to Donald Trump. The media will give him 24/7 coverage and nothing will change. It is, however, great television. There is that.

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My mouth dropped open when I read this Salon article where a town in Delaware is trying to give business owners who have business in town but the business owner lives elsewhere the right to vote. Proponents of the law admit that they are trying to give businesses more power in the decision making process of the town which sent my already slack jaw all the way to the floor.

What? I mean what? Really, what? I can’t even wrap my head around this pile of bull shit. Businesses should have more power than regular people. Why?

It is a shameless power grab, and nakedly transparent at that. Business owners could vote in their own home town and, if they own a business in the town of Seaford, there as well. People are actually saying this shit like this is a reasonable argument. Why would non-resident business owners need more power? More importantly, why do they deserve more power than every other citizen? And why is nobody making a bigger deal about this? For years, Conservatives have been trying to restrict the vote, now perhaps they have found a backdoor way around it — give the rich more votes and you would have the same effect.

I suggest that if the business owners can’t win the votes of individuals without ginning up their own numbers then perhaps there is something wrong with their position. Giving business owners an additional vote so they can win elections is just a smoke and mirrors trick to give the illusion of democratic decision making. It is, to say the least, the opposite of democratic and an incredibly dangerous idea to even consider if democratic institutions are to survive.

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One of the things that bothers me about American Christianity is the delight they take in punishing people on earth when they have already decided these sinners are doomed to an eternity in Hell. This vail of tears is relatively short time and, and lets be honest here, there is only a good 20 to 30 years of really good sinning in an average person’s life, giving most people plenty of time for last minute repenting. leaving Christians plenty of opportunity to salvage some of these hell bound souls.

So why can’t they just give us these earthly delights knowing full well that, good Christians that they are, they will have an eternity in Heaven while everyone else is going to Hell. But no, Christians can’t be happy with an eternity in Hell, they want to make us miserable even before we descend into the fiery pit which is downright petty of them. My theory on this is that they are afraid sinning will look like too much fun and they won’t be able to compete with us sinners. Understandable but isn’t it really relevant to God’s decision making process. I mean God knows what is in a person’s heart. So, if in your heart you are a man who wants to dress up in women’s clothing, God knows this and even if you never put on a wig, go go boots and a leather mini skirt, God will punish the you accordingly. Which, on careful consideration, is also a good reason to go ahead and go for the full Drag Queen experience. I mean if you are going to Hell whether you do it or not, you might as well do it.

Here is the thing. God will take care of the sinners. All you need to do is make sure your are right with God and I think God commanded Christians to Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. If you heart has harden to such a point that you delight in seeing sinners go to Hell, you might have some explaining to do when you meet your maker. I would love to hear the explanation but I think I might be suffering from heat exhaustion.

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So, apparently there are billionaires who will pay $250,000 to see the wreckage of the Titanic. I suppose if you have an extra $250,000 to burn through gawking at a sunken luxury liner might be a way to do it.

I don’t wish anyone ill. It is sad that people died in this tragedy nonetheless I find the whole past week more than a little irritating. First, how much government time and money was used to find these billionaires. I agree you have to look for them. It is the humane thing to do when people are trouble. Let me rephrase that when rich people are in trouble. When poor people are in trouble due to their bad decisions, the answer is to leave them on the streets because they will never learn their lesson from their mistakes unless they suffer. But OK, I understand the need to search for missing rich people despite the less than gracious response to other people in trouble.

I feel the same way about rescuing untrained people from Mount Everest. People want to climb Mount fucking Everest because they have the $65,000. They are untrained mountain climbers and they are, just for the thrill of saying they climbed Mount Everest, endangering the lives of the sherpas and the other trained mountaineers on the climb. Climbing Mount Everest should be something you work your way up. It certainly isn’t a starter mountain. Of course, the wealthy person’s story is all that is really important. The poor people that have to rescue the stupid mother fuckers are just a footnote.

And what a story it is. Billionaires in a missing submersible. The press went crazy over this one. There were countdown clocks of when exactly the oxygen would run out for the people trapped. Stories from previous submersible passengers dredging up their horror stories and how they knew some disaster like this was imminent. There were engineers discussing the poor quality of the materials used in the building of the submersible. 24/7 reporting on the fates of these 5 people while, at the same time, the Greek Navy was trying to save hundreds of desperate refugees floundering in the Mediterranean. You will be excused if you didn’t know about this particular disaster as the coverage wasn’t quite the same for the poor immigrants. Funny how the drowning billionaires trump the drowning immigrants but not particularly surprising.

Then there is the money. $250,000 to see the wreck of a ship on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. $65,000 to climb Everest. That’s a lot of money and these people can afford it. Which is incredibly disappointing if not anticipated behavior. I thought one of the benefits of low taxation for the wealthy is that they would use their excess cash to invest in their businesses thus helping everyone. That they are spending their money on these expensive thrills is unsurprising evidence that they are not good stewards of their own money.

And this is not an isolated incident. They spend billions on space travel and losing law suits, on giving money to other wealthy people, on hush money to cover up their crimes and on buying fake vintage wine. Just like the poor, they waste their money on crime, sex, thrills and drinking. The price tag they are paying is just a bit more. This is the problem. To be told that we can’t afford to help the poor is a lie, the world is afloat with extra money. It is, however, being used at the whim of people who have too much money and not enough sense. The outrageous sums these people have paid for their fun would be better spent on giving every poor person in America some housing which included a life time supply of cigarettes and alcohol.

In any case, spare me the lecture on the rich being good stewards of money. I don’t believe it.

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A BBC talk show guest recently corrected his host on the proper phrase for seaweed which is apparently marine algae. This is news to me as well. But Ok, yes, maybe seaweed is confusing and isn’t exactly the best way of saying it. On the other hand, people have been saying seaweed for thousands of years. These changes take time and most people don’t take kindly to lectures that make them appear stupid. Since the seaweed/marine algae isn’t a particularly urgent matter, it would be wise to put a lid on it.

It also give the Conservative Press a chance to point out the hectoring ways of some language policing Liberals. Since there are so many more important battles to fight, it would seem prudent to pick the right battles to exert our time and energy. Sometimes you have to fight losing battles but this isn’t one of them.

There is a better way to finesse this. You just start using the correct phrase when speaking with the interviewer. Then, the interviewer can respond to your phrasing and maybe even inquire more about why you prefer marine algae. But to do it in the corrective manner reported is ridiculous. All it does is make me want to say seaweed in the most annoying tone possible: seaweed, seaweed, seaweed. So there.

More importantly, you don’t change people’s minds by making them feel stupid. Once you’ve made someone feel stupid, they aren’t going to listen to a word you say. So, good you are are correct but you aren’t a very effective agent of change. People have to see why they need to change and then they do. Remember Ms? Or should I say, remember Mrs and Miss? Nobody uses Mrs and Miss any more. Ms is just easier. The moment people realized that they could just use Ms instead of inquiring about the woman’s preferred title, the battle was over. I might add that people changed to using Ms in a very short time.

This is also why I think the various personal pronoun options are doomed. It’s too complicated, you have to ask everyone you meet their preferred pronouns whereas, in the past, a quick visual assessment of a person’s gender did the trick and 99% of the time this works. Yes, you might, on a rare occasion, make a mistake but, by and large, you will get it right. I am certainly not going to ask a person for their preferred pronouns and risk getting my head bit off by someone who thinks preferred pronouns are a crap idea which, by the way, is most of middle America. If you want me to use something different, you are going to have to tell me. I will be happy to oblige.

In the meantime, I am telling you now I am not going down fighting to ensure people use the term marine algae for seaweed. Because my reply will be: Seaweed. Seaweed. Seaweed.

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Given the hullabaloo over gender affirming care, I am wondering why circumcision is still legal. Parents, without consulting the child, can permenantly disfigure a boy’s penis. It is a part of Jewish and Muslim custom yes, but this assumes that the boy will continue in the parent’s religion. Shouldn’t they have to wait until the child is 18 and can make the decision for himself? Some non-religious parents have the procedure done for aesthetic reasons. Again, shouldn’t the parents wait until the child is able to make this decision for himself? There some potentially minor medical benefits to circumcision but are they sufficient to allow circumcision? It seems to me that there is no legitimate reason for allowing this procedure on an infant, so why is it still legal?