Calling all class action lawyers. Here’s a possible golden opportunity for a double-header.

Lemon

Recently, Mac computer users were pestered by Apple to upgrade their operating systems to something called “El Capitan.” I’m one of them.

I should have known better. Every time I upgrade at Apple’s behest, I get screwed. Last time, neither my old Microsoft Word program nor my old Quark graphics program would work with the new operating system. Apple failed to tell me this before I upgraded. 

Result: I had to buy a new Microsoft Word Program. I passed on Quark, since Quark now only rents access to its software. It’s so expensive that only a graphic designer with a steady cash flow from his operations could afford it. I’m not a graphic designer. It was just nice, sometimes, to lay out postcards with it. Goodbye Quark.

But neither of these is the big Class Action Opportunity I'm talking about. Here it is:

Now Apple has done it again. This time they pestered me, and kept pestering me via little interruptive onscreen message to “improve” my “experience” with them by upgrading to El Capitan. So I did.

And now my Magic Jack telephone, which runs through my computer, won’t work. 

So I contacted Magic Jack’s online customer service. I’m not sure whether whether I chatted with an automaton or an idiot, but Magic Jack had bad news for me.

The automaton told me that they haven’t yet figured out how to fix the problem. And that they have no idea when they’ll be able to fix the problem — at least no idea that they’ll admit to. And that although I’m renting the phone service and separately a "vanity" telephone number from Magic Jack, they won’t give me a credit for the unknown number of months I won’t be able to use it.

That’s right. They took my money for a service they can’t provide. And if I don’t like it, their solution is not to give me a credit but to make me  buy more Magic Jack services from them. (You can’t make this stuff up. Wait until you read down and see the transcript.)

What’s more, since I conduct a business using my Magic Jack phone, I’ll have to go reprint my business cards, and maybe pay somebody to fix my business website. Both list my Magic Jack phone number. Obviously I can’t advertise a business with a non-working number.

There must be thousands of people like me. So  first Apple has screwed us  again by not warning us that their “improved experience” would screw up our Magic Jack telephone experience. And then Magic Jack is screwing us by outrageously demanding that they have a right to take our money without giving us the service we paid for.

Class action lawyers, do your stuff!

Below, a transcript of my “chat” with something or somebody at Magic Jack customer service named “Sally.”

Chat

    rn:widget path="chat/ChatOffTheRecordButton"/   Disconnect

Status: Connected

  Sally (Listening)

  Sally: Hi, my name is Sally. How may I help you? 

  New York Crank: Hi Sally. Last night, I upgraded the Mac to which my Magic Jack is attached to their new El Capitan operating system. Since then, magic jack hasn't worked. Since last night I've been getting a screen that begins "magickJack was unable to contact our registration server. Please check your Internet connection. Obviously, my Internet connection is working fine. How can I fix this? 

  Sally: Okay, 

  Sally: Thank you for addressing your concern. Let me assist you on that. 

  Sally: Please wait while I check that for you 

  New York Crank: Happy to wait. 

  Sally: Please be informed that the magicJack software is not yet compatible with the newly released OS X El Capitan MAC Operating System, Crank 

  Sally: Our engineers are still currently working out on the fixes in order for the compatibility issue between the magiCJack and this new OS to be fixed as soon as possible. For the mean time, you can use the magicJack device on lower version of the OS X El Capitan. 

  New York Crank: I don't have a lower version. I'm out a telephone. 

  Sally: I see, 

  Sally: For the mean time, please use the magicJack device on a computer that is not running on a OS X EL Capitan Operating system Crank.. 

  Sally: Our engineers will fix this compatibility issue as soon as possible 

  New York Crank: This is highly impractical for me most of the time. I'd like a credit until such time as service is available. 

  Sally: Unfortunately we cannot do that, Crank 

  Sally: Please extend you patience regarding on this matter, this will be fixed as soon as possible as more customers are now using the new OS X El Capitan MAC Operating System. 

  New York Crank: Well, don't you think that's a kind of a ripoff? Magic Jack sells me a system that's supposed to be compatible with my computer. It doesn't keep up with the changes so my Magic Jack become unusable. But then Magic Jack tells me, tough luck, pal. We're charging you anyway,. 

  New York Crank: This is a consumer fraud issue. 

  Sally: I understand your frustration on this Crank, we will fix this compatibility issue as soon as possible. 

  Sally: The old magiCJack device was created long ago and it cannot keep up right away with the latest technology. 

  New York Crank: And how long is "As soon as possible" in estimated hours? Or is it days? Or is it months? 

  Sally: You can choose to buy our advanced magicjack devices which can be used without a computer Crank 

  New York Crank: I can choose to pay you more, in other words. When do you estimate the system will be fixed. 

  Sally: I cannot provide your with an exact time frame regarding on this matter since this is being worked out on a different department from us.. 

  Sally: All our valued customers will know it once the feature to use the magicjack device on the new OS X EL Capitan is already available. 

  New York Crank: Thank you for a completely unsatisfactory answer. I'll limp along as best I can, borrowing a laptop from a friend to check my messages now and then. If this goes on too long, I plan to cancel my service and let people know why. Essentially Magic Jack's answer is, "We can't keep up with technology and we want our customers to pay for our inability." 

  New York Crank: I have nothing more to say about this matter. Let me know when Magic Jack is restored — or I'll let you know, eventually, if I want my service cancelled. Goodbye. 

The Pope, the clerk, the neurosurgeon, and the Congressmen

I’m not Catholic and I usually feel uncomfortable commenting on the Vatican. It somehow feels like spying on next door neighbors and then gratuitously denouncing(or praising) their family behavior.

But underhanded events at the Vatican have spun so far into the realm of the Borgias  that it’s a wonder if there isn't somebody tasting the Pope’s food before each meal.

First there was the visit, evidently arranged by some malevolent Vatican politician, to embarrass the Pope by throwing him together with Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

Now it’s even more sinister than that. Somebody in the Vatican is putting out a rumor — already refuted but still persistent — that the Pope has a brain tumor.

The reports have all the earmarks of a bile-fueled fantasy of some conspirator or conspirators, people who have lots of time on their hands and not much of a life. The stories involve a mysterious yellow-bannered helicopter, a doctored photograph purporting to show a private handshake between the Pope and a Japanese neurosurgeon, and even a “description” of the fantasy tumor. All refuted.

What it boils down to is, the hardest of hard line conservatives don’t like change. The present Pope is spearheading change, however mild, of what kind of morality the church chooses to emphasize.

Like conservative everywhere, the Vatican conspirators seem more anxious to intrude into other peoples’ bedrooms than they are to alleviate human misery. The Pope chooses to overlook or downplay same sex marriages? Out come the stilettos. The Pope talks about the poor, the malnourished, the miserable? Who cares?

You’re not alone if you notice a parallel between the Vatican’s conservatives and the Congressional conservatives — say those who keep holding and re-holding the same Benghazi hearings to smear Hillary Clinton while governmental services go down the toilet.

I don’t know what else to say about it — except that perhaps the Conservative wing of Congress ought to start dressing in long robes and red hats.

Cross-Posted at No More Mister Nice Blog

Trump to CNBC: Negotiate THIS!

Was it the art of the deal? Or the artlessness of CNBC? I dunno, but it appears to me that the CNBC folks have all the spine of a gummy bear on their latest televised debate arrangements.

It started out with CNBC offering to host a 3-hour debate among the Republican candidates.

No dice, said Trump. That would be too long. He blamed CNBC’s offer on capitalism. They were just asking for a three-hour debate to bring in commercials and make money, claimed Trump. Not that a guy who claims he's so rich it would amaze you — how many billion dollars does he say he’s worth these days? — not that has a right to complain about somebody else making money.

Ben Carson joined in the fracas. He wasn’t participating in any debate longer than two hours, either.

What’s the real reason? The only one that occurs to me is that the longer the debate, the longer Carson and Trump have to get both feet wedged firmly into their mouths. 

Keep it short, with a softball question at the beginning and a canned answer at the end and commercials in-between, allowing the candidates to get off little more than a few sound bites, and little time for followup questions.

CNBC could have said, “Sorry but this isn't just the Donny and Ben Show. It’s our TV station and we’re holding a three hour debate. We can do it with you. Or we can do it without you. In fact, we’ll have chairs for you, but they’ll look mighty empty if you don’t show up. 

“Oh, and betcha your rivals make some comments about why your chairs are empty. You know. ‘Afraid of the truth.’ ‘Couldn’t stand the heat and so he didn’t come to the kitchen.’ ‘If Donald Trump can’t stand up for a three hour debate, how’s he gonna stand up to Putin?’ That kind of stuff.”

Instead, CNBC caved. Why? I suspect a bunch of sweaty-palmed suits calculated the audience draw of The Donald and were afraid that if their audience numbers were potentially lower, their ad sales would be, too.

I think that if they had calculated further, they would have concluded that The Donald abhors no audience more than nature abhors a vacuum. And he would have come. After which, Carson would have followed.

Instead, there was this, as reported in the trade paper Adweek. (Hey, New York Times, Washington Post, etcetera. Wake the hell up! Why are the trades like Hollywood Reporter and Adweek beating you to the punch?)

The two candidates signed a letter to CNBC Washington bureau chief Matthew Cuddy, agreeing only to participate in a debate that runs two hours and includes opening and closing statements from all candidates.
In a statement Thursday, CNBC said “Our goal is to host the most substantive debate possible. Our practice in the past has been to forego opening statements to allow more time to address the critical issues that matter most to the American people. We started a dialogue yesterday with all of the campaigns involved and we will certainly take the candidates’ views on the format into consideration as we finalize the debate structure.”

Oh well. I guess that they don’t make most network officials any smarter than they make most Republicans.

Cross-Posted at No More Mister Nice Blog

Who won the first Democratic debate?

An "oracle" who sliced this pigeon open and read

its entrails would be able to tell you who "won" the

first Democratic debate as accurately as most of

the talking heads.

Oi, the pundits are at it tooth and nail. 

On CNN the morning after the debate, they had a "body language expert" who was reading the  shrugs and facial expressions of the candidates. In ancient Greece, they used to have oracles who read pigeon entrails. Personally, I think both are equally valid. Or equally ridiculous.

I'll let the polls tell me what Democratic viewers and the American people as a whole thought of the candidates. Frankly my dears, I don't give a flying fetlock what the talking heads think.

For whatever it's worth, my own opinion is that the real winners were the American people. We saw a debate in which the leading contenders and the not-so-leading contenders kept to focus on facts and on the needs of the American people.

That was a pretty stark contrast to Republican bushwah, magical thinking about the economy, and displays of outrageous narcissism among the I-can't-count-how-many Republican clown candidates for Commander-In-Chief. 

As a Democrat, I'm proud of last night's debate, whomever the commentators decide was the "winner."

The American military must have its scapegoat. The search is on! Who’s gonna take a bullet for the generals?

"I say he did it.

So by now it’s old news that an American gunship bombed and strafed a hospital in Afghanistan.

The hospital was run by an organization called Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French name, Médcins Sans Frontiers (MSF). It’s a Nobel Prize-winning group of brave and public spirited medical professionals, whose “political” objective is to save lives in numerous locations around the world.

Good job, military! You killed 22 MSF staff members and patients, evidently all of them civilians. Three were children. I’m not sure how many others were wounded. One report had, just for openers, six intensive care patients burned alive in their beds. MSF has called it a war crime.

Number of Taliban shot up? Zero. Why? Simply because there wasn’t a Tabiban soldier or official there.

It gets worse. MSF is pulling it’s people out of Afghanistan. There’s nothing to take its place. The hearts and minds of the people, as well as the hearts and minds of an international organization devoted to saving lives are down the toilet so far as their view of the the United States is concerned.

So whodunnit? MSF sent its coordinates to the U.S. Military, warning them please not to strike there. During the bombardments, they got on the pipe and pleaded with the military to stop, because doctors and nurses and patients were getting killed. All to no avail.

Now General John F. Campbell is trying to explain what happened, but his story seems to change as often as a $20 hooker changes johns.

First it was “collateral damage.” As  in “Hey, you know, stuff happens.” You can’t blame anybody when stuff happens, can you? Oh, you can? And innocent people aren't mere "collateral?"

Well, then, it an, umm, error, which led to the statement that the hospital “was mistakenly struck.” By whom? How come? No coherent answer.

Then it was a mistake from those wonderful Afghan fighters who seem to have, umm, called in the wrong coordinates. But as of this writing that hasn’t held up very well either, and certainly doesn’t explain how pleas from the doctors to stop were completely ignored regardless of whether the Afghans called in the hospital's coordinates or a pizza order.

The object of most blame games is to pick on the lowest-level poor schnook who came anywhere near a disastrous event and put all the blame on him. And then punish him as severely as possibly. My guess is that if they can’t find an Afghan to blame, that's what they'll do. They'll find a junior officer who was flying an airplane. Or an NCO radio operator. Maybe even a hapless private.

It’s as old as the ancient custom of putting all of humanity’s sins on a goat, and pushing the poor critter off a cliff. Or as sophisticated as this banking scheme, which took all of the sleazy financial misadventures in the American acquisitions market committed by the President of Bank Lyonnais in France, and put it squarely in the lap of a low - level executive who had been told by his boss to sign off on the deal.

Guaranteed, General Campbell, who “took responsibility” for the bombardment, according to the New York Times, will shuck off that responsibility on some low level grunt. If it’s not an Afghan, the army will find some unfortunate American radio operator, or a junior officer, and send him to Leavenworth for life. The worst that'll happen to General Campbell is that he'll start taking his pension a bit early, and lose his shot at becoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Although don't count on it.

I think it was a WWI prime minister, Georges Clemenceu, who said war is too important to be left to the generals.

Case in point.

Chris Christie promises to kill your Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and disability benefits. And Trevor Noah lets him get away with it.

Kiss it goodbye: If Chris Christie (or

any Republican) becomes the next 

President, this is what you can do to

your Social Security and Medicare

Oh Jon Stewart, I miss you already. 

On Wednesday night of this week Christie, he of George Washington Bridge traffic jam fame, appeared on Trevor Noah’s version of the Daily Show for what turned out to be a softball interview. No, make that a powder puff interview.

It was the kind of interview that would have caused Stewart to wade into Christie’s traffic- jammed George Washington Bridge and jump off, had he turned in Noah's performance.

Early on, Noah applauded Christie on camera. Which may have been why Christie felt at home enough to declare….

“My plan is to increase the retirement age for a couple of years….and then also for people who make a lot of money in retiremet. People who make $2000,000 or more a year in retirement, they don’t need Social Security check. They’re fine.”

Except for one small thing that Trevor Noah failed to point out. Social Security isn’t a gift. It’s an insurance policy that every working American bought and paid for, whether they get zero dollars a week or a million dollars a week from other sources in retirement.

If you bought an insurance annuity from, say Met Life, and when you came to collect they said, “Nope, you’re fine, so we’re not paying what we owe you,” you’d have a right to be plenty irate. You’d have an equal right to rage if the company that insures your car refused to pay up after a crash because you can afford a new car on your own. You'd call the insurance company a bunch of crooks, for doing the same crooked think Chris Christie says he'll do.

And since Medicare and disability insurance were also on Christie’s list, it’s a pretty sure bet that if your surgery and hospital stay cost $250,000, Christie would tell you, “You’re fine. Just sell your house.” 

Americans would find themselves in the situation that happens now when elderly people need to go to nursing homes. They have to spend down the assets they and their spouses are living on first, and then go on Medicaid. That’s a process that sometimes leaves a surviving spouse penniless as well. 

Christie wants to “reform” Medicaid too, God help the poor.

Anticipating what might be the next question from an alert interviewer, Christie added, 

“The other alternative if course is to bring more money into the government. But here’s the thing. Why would we trust the government? They’ve already lied to us and stolen the trust fund for Social Security. That’s why we’ve got a problem….”

Noah finally seemed to regain partial consciousness. “Who is the government? Are you?” he asked.

“No no no,” Christie shot back. As if, as governor of New Jersey, he had nothing to do with government. And as if, as President of the United States, he’d also have nothing to do with government. (Speak of lying to us!)  He’d just, uh, cut taxes for the rich so they wouldn’t have to pay more into Social Security.

And who knows? Christie might “adjust” his numbers. Maybe, if you make only $25,000 in retirement, Christie might eventually decide you’re “fine,” especially if that would further help him cut taxes for the rich. Maybe if you have fifty grand in the bank Christie would tell you you’re fine, and come back when you’re broke and we’ll give you Social Security.

The whole disgusting performance — by both Christie and Noah — is viewable here. (Note: to make it even more disgusting, you’ll have to sit through a TV commercial first.)

As for me, it took only three of Trevor Noah’s appearances for me to decide I’m going back to the evening news during The Daily Show time slot. 

Mr. Noah, I watched Jon Stewart regularly. And you’re no Jon Stewart.

John Boehner, the Pope, and all that

Oh boo hoo!

Chalk up another win for the crazies. 

John Boehner announced his coming resignation this morning, both as Speaker of the House and from Congress. He couldn’t control his Party of Nuts, and in fact, often seemed to be pretty nutty himself, blaming President Obama whether it was for the intransigence of Congress or the California drought.

Meanwhile, he wept at the drop of a sentiment, for events ranging from a 60 Minutes interview, to an interview with the Golf Channel — the Golf Channel! — to listening to Pope Francis speak to Congress.

The Pope has had a lot of important things to say about the status of immigrants,  the poor, and the impact of pollution on the climate, but in a way I’m glad Boehner's broke the streak of Papal coverage. The Pontiff’s advocacy for humanity, common sense, and science was getting drowned out by fluff and trivia.  In typical network fashion, news broadcasting since yesterday has been All Pope All The Time, with the focus largely on anything but what the Pope is talking about.

In a desperate attempt to fill every last friggin’ millisecond with His Holiness, they’ve gone on and on with blitheringly unimportant detail about whom he kissed, and who thinks her life has changed because the Pope passed by in his bubble car, or that the Pope at one point sat in a golf cart. All that crap waters down the impact of the truly important things the Pope has to say about social justice and climate change. 

It got so bad that this morning that on CBS here in New York, the weather reporter began the day’s forecast by saying, “The Pope wakes up to a sunny day today….”

Meanwhile, neither the Pope nor Boehner’s resignation will thwart the Republican crazies in their effort to shut down the government and the economy, wreck the climate, block immigration, and do anything they can to undo what the Pope wants to achieve. It’s so bad that, at least so far, even far right candidate Paul Ryan is refusing to touch the speaker’s job with a ten foot pole.

Hey John Boehner — want something to weep for? 

Weep for The United States of America.

A brief meditation on Carly Fiorina's candidacy

Carly Fiorina was Group President for the global service provider business at Lucent Technologies.

The global provider business has ceased to exist.

In fact, Lucent Technologies has ceased to exist.

Carly Fiorina next became Chief Executive Officer of HP, where she bought the company that made Compaq computers.

Compaq computers have ceased to exist.

And now Carly Fiorina wants to be President of the United States?

Think about that for a minute.

Republican idiot economics and the so-called wisdom of markets. (Hah!)

This is a picture of the stock market scaring the crap out of itself

Above, a chart depicting  the Dow Jones Industrial Average from start to close on September 17th, 2015. The Dow opened more or less flat. Then, for a while, it jiggled up and down in tiny nervous increments. There was a reason for that.

Janet Yellen, Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, was about to make an announcement. The announcement would pertain to the Fed’s interest rates, which had been hovering only a gnat’s hair above zero, since the Feds took action to help stave off a market crash. The market crash was brought on by deregulation of banking, which gave bankers free rein to treat the U.S. economy like a casino in which they had been gambling with their depositors’ money.

A frisson of jangly nerves

Stock investors had a right, sort of, kind of, to be nervous. If interest rates rise, people tend to take at least some of their money out of stocks, which are risky, and put them into bonds which are safer, and into banks, which we all know are too big to fail.  That would drive stock prices down. (There's an exception for bank stocks, since banks would profit from higher interest rates.)

But to everybody’s surprise, Yellen instead announced that the Fed would not raise interest rates after all just now, not because of the U.S. economy, but because the global economy is messy. Interest rates will probably rise later this year, Yellen said, but not today.

So you’d think “the market," except for investors in banks, would breathe a sigh of relief. That seems to be what happened briefly just before 3 p.m. The Dow began to shoot higher. But then, “the market” spooked itself and plunged to 61 points below where it was at the opening, and well over 200 points below where it was at the day’s high.

In short, it acted overall like a pot-smoking drunk tooling down the highway while tapping the accelerator with one foot and the brake pedal with another in tune to a Rolling Stones performance of “I can’t get no satisfaction.”

Struggles, stopped clocks, and 

the synthetic wisdom of Reuters

Reuters, whose writers have to say something that sounds intelligent at least on the surface, reported that the market was leaving skid marks because, “investors struggled to interpret the Federal Reserve's decision to hold off on raising interest rates.”

Why the struggle? Or should I ask, What struggle? The news was perfectly straightforward. It meant what it said. The Fed’s gonna raise interest rates eventually. But not by much. And not now. And meanwhile, frozen near-zero interest rates continue to make things better than investors expected at the dawn of the day. Except for people who invest in banks. Period.

The market’s performance made no sense because markets themselves make no sense. Contrary to conservative belief, markets have no wisdom. Let me haul out a proverb that’s getting kind of weary and remind you that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Markets are a collection of people buying and selling stuff, sometimes out of greed, sometimes in panic, sometimes rationally, sometimes irrationally, and  at mutual cross purposes. So what? 

Bury my knee in

Ayn Rand's gizzard

What it all comes down to is that completely free markets are either disasters waiting to happen or disasters that are already happening. Oh, and while I’m sounding off on this, Ayn Rand was an economic idiot (as well as a second-rate writer).

Markets function best when there’s a cop around to keep the ripoff artists at bay. But scratch a Republican presidential candidate and he’ll bleed free market hosannas. Which is why you’re out of your mind to vote for any of ‘em.

A thought about Star Wars and the upcoming presidential election

If Donald Trump actually takes it for the Republicans, and Bernie Sanders for the Democrats, it will be Jabba The Hutt vs. Yoda. Cross-posted at No More Mr. Nice Blog

 

Is Sarah Palin living evidence that the University of Idaho should lose its accreditation?

If we had Sarah Palin During World War II, we wouldn't have

needed Navajo code talkers.

"Palin returned to the University of Idaho in January 1986, and received her bachelor's degree in communication with an emphasis in journalism in May, 1987."

—Source: Wikipedia

A tip of my hat to the Daily Kos, which printed the following transcript of Palin’s, umm, thoughtful political explication of the way things are, after it was broadcast by Rachel Maddow. 

"So up there in Alaska, across the way Russia," Sarah Palin said. "You know there is a name for this taking advantage of America. There is a Russian name for that. And it is called 'fortushka.' And that means Obama's window of opportunity. So as Obama leads from behind the skirt of his right-hand man, Valerie Jarrett, then it's up to Congress to close that window. He may propose. You dispose, Congress. You gotta be in it to win it because we want peace. With unapologetic mighty red, white, and blue, will have peace.”

And thanks also to Ms. Maddow, who understands that politics is a spectator sport. Grab yourself a handful of popcorn — that’s all the popcorn you’ll have time for — and go here to see one minute and seven seconds of Sarah Palin’s “communications.”

Palin isn’t even the Yogi Berra of politics. At least, in a syntactically twisted way, Berra made a kind of sense. That's beyond Palin's capabilities. “If you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him,” as Berra himself said.

As for the University of Idaho, I’d suggest that if they want to keep their accreditation, they ought to change the names of some of their courses. Instead of calling them “communications” or “journalism,” call them “free range Dadaism.” 

Otherwise, some of your graduates may eventually decide, as Berra put it, that they’ve made “too many wrong mistakes.”

Cross-posted at No More Mr. Nice Blog

United Airlines honchos bail out after corruption charges. What about charges of torturing passengers?

Will his golden parachute open? Stay tuned.

As I write this, the New York Times is reporting that United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek and two of his lieutenants are resigning because of a Federal corruption investigation.

All this evidently has to do with having “improperly sought to influence” officials of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. You know. The Port Authority. As in "Chris Christie" and the “George Washington Bridge Scandal.”

Just like Chris Christie, who has been known to bully the little people even if they have real grievances, I also believe in hitting a man when he’s down. At least I believe in hitting him if he's a bad man. But I’m not gonna bother with Chris’s corruption-connected political operation just now, because I’m more interested in United Airlines. Last time I flew them, out of Dayton, Ohio, in June 2014, it was a nightmare. I think about it often. And gnash my teeth.

Grounded below the "friendly" skies

Y’see, it rained that day.  Other airlines flying out of Dayton (none, alas, with available space to New York) seemed to have their acts together. Their planes were taking off. There were no lines at their ticket counters. 

But at United, and United alone, there was a line long enough to dance a conga from here to the moon. A single clerk was on duty to make new arrangements for all United’s passengers whose flights had been cancelled due to “weather.” The sun was shining brightly as we waited but hey, you know, weather. Somewhere.

What about calling in extra clerks to deal with the hapless passengers standing in line? The airline had a different idea. Go call 'em yourselves, you feckless passengers.

“You can do this on the phone by calling 1-800-UNITED-1” the clerk screamed at us. Fortunately, I stayed on line while I  tried to call.  I was put on hold, and forced to listen to repetitive blather, because my call was so very important to United. So important, in fact, that by the time I reached the clerk’s desk, perhaps an hour or more later, my ear was sore, my cell phone battery was dead, and a live person still hadn’t picked up the phone on the other end.

“I’d like you to change my ticket to the next available flight to New York,” I told the airport clerk. “My cancelled ticket is to LaGuardia but I’ll take any airport in the New York area. I’ll even go to Philadelphia.”

Flights for stranded passengers?
We don't got no stinking flights.

I can put you on a flight to New York at 5:10  p.m. tomorrow,” the clerk said, unsympathetically. “Everything’s booked until then.”

“That’s more than 24 hours from now!” I said.

“That’s what’s available,” said the clerk, in her best take-it-or-leave-it voice. 

“What am I supposed to do, sleep on the airport floor?” I asked her.

“You can go over to that desk,” (she pointed) “and find a local hotel.”

“Will United pay for it?” I asked.

“No.”

Screwing passengers is never
having to say you're sorry

So I spent the night at a nearby Clarion, paid for my bed, my meal, and my back-and-forth transportation between the airport and the hotel. The next day, when I got to the airport, nobody even said sorry. But they did charge me extra for my baggage.

I don’t have to tell you about in-flight sardine can conditions.

So when I hear that United’s top officers may be as corrupt as the rotting corpse of Boss Tweed, I am not moved to pity. Nor am I moved toward giving them the benefit of the doubt. 

You bastards are bailing out? My only hope is that your golden parachutes fail to open.

God, Kim Davis, defiance, law, martyrdom, and the mess in Rowan County, Kentucky

County Clerk Kim Davis. Her next job

may be clerking at Walmart.

I don’t know whether what follows is prompted by my own anti-authoritarian streak, or by the fact that I'm descended from a long line of people who were burned at the stake or otherwise tormented for their religion. Whatever it is, I have to confess to a grudging respect for Kim Davis.

Ms. Davis, in case you’ve somehow missed it, is the county clerk in rural Rowan County, Kentucky. She has defied the Supreme Court of the United States by refusing to grant marriage licenses to gay couples. She said she does so under the authority of God.

For those of us who believe in the rights of gays, or the rule of law, or both, that defiance ultimately can’t stand. But it also poses a dilemma.

America’s Davis dilemma

Arrest Ms. Davis for contempt of court and, guaranteed, she becomes a martyr. She’ll be portrayed by the religious right as a brave, lonely women, arrested by an anti-religious totalitarian gubmint, for practicing her religion and obeying what she believes is a message from God. Or, from their point of view, what is actually a message from God.

But let her get away with it, and not only does respect for the law get diminished, but her disrespect is almost guaranteed to become contagious. Before long, other county clerks who have personal negative feelings about gay marriage will rediscover their own messages from God and start heaving gay couples out of the courthouse.

Moreover, once it’s accepted that only your conscience and messages you say you hear from God need to be your guide, people will find reasons to conscientiously discriminate against others because of race, ethnic background or — ironically — religion. 

“God told me he needed killin' ”

While we’re at it, why not make religion a valid defense for murder? “God told me to shoot him. He needed killin’ because they was drinkin’ liquor on Sunday. That's my religious belief and I got Freedom of Religion.”

Right. And that's almost exactly the same excuse ISIS uses when they cut off peoples' heads.

So what to do? I suggest a completely peaceful solution.

Executive action to the rescue

Let the chief executive, either of Kentucky, or if he lacks the spine, then the chief executive of the United States take action. 

The chief executive should not attempt to remove or punish Kim Davis. That would be a disaster. Instead, he should, by executive authority, appoint a deputy to go to Rowan County charged with the power to grant marriage licenses by executive fiat. 

Ms. Rowan can continue, as county clerk, doing the other things county clerks do. She can record deeds. Or births. Or deaths. Or affix tax stamps. Or hide in her office and pick her nose. Whatever. But the governor’s or the president’s deputy will issue the marriage licenses, as a necessary service to the citizens of Rowan County who are not getting that service from their clerk.

Now this doesn’t come cheaply. The deputy will have to be stationed pretty much full time in Rowan County. Costs will include a salary. Plus benefits. Maybe a living allowance. The deputy will also probably need security guards for protection against the Bible Zealots. I’ll take a wild stab at a number. It’ll all cost, even in rural Kentucky, oh, $175,000 a year.

Well, hold on. Actually $175,000 may not do it. Some state or government body’s HR department is going to have to find, recruit and hire the Deputy Executive Marriage License Issuer. Somebody will have to do a background check on him or her. Somebody will have to put them on the government payroll. All this takes costly time and manpower. So add another $50,000 to the $175,000. That’s up to $225,000 total.

Who should pay the bill?

Simple. The taxpayers of Rowan County should pay. It’s their county clerk whose work needs supplementing. The taxpayers elected her. They haven’t removed her.  She's their liability. Send them the bill, the same way Donald Trump wants to send a bill to Mexico for the costs of a wall between the two nations. 

What if Rowan County refuses to pay? 

You know, maybe folks in Rowan County's government will hear God coming out of their IPod ear buds,  ordering them not to write any checks. There’s a simple solution to that, too.

There can’t be a county in this nation that isn’t receiving some kind of largesse from both their state and the federal government. Maybe it’s highway maintenance money. Maybe it’s the moolah to mend the roof on the local high school. Maybe it’s a grant to the local police force or to the sheriff’s office. Whatever it is, just flip the switch that turns off the money pump. Tell the county, “We’re deducting this pork from from the pork that you were expecting and using it to pay your unpaid bills for marriage license services."

Hellish roads, WalMart and Bible talk

Let me tell you what would happen. The taxpayers of Rowan County would discover that the road to hell is paved with potholes, and broken concrete, and falling-down schools, and law enforcement departments that don’t have the latest war toys.  Even the dog catcher might not get paid. Or all those costs would get paid, but the county would have to institute a tax increase to meet expenses. And then some rival politician will raise his head and blame the civic suffering and higher taxes on Kim Davis. 

And come the next election, betcha she’ll be clerking not over at the courthouse, but at WalMart.

Meanwhile, other county clerks, profiting by her example, will hear a different message from God. Y’see, the Bible that all the gay haters love to thump may say bad things about gays on some page or other, but the same Bible sure doesn't hate gubmint. Or taxes. You can find proof of that in several places in the New Testament, starting with Mark 12:17.

September 5th update:

I might have known. A Kentucky judge took the easy way out, and tossed Kim Davis' butt in the slammer. Now the martyrdom contingent is out, preparing her for fundamentalist sainthood. Had the judge been a reader of The New York Crank and seen this article, he might have taken a different course. He could have appointed the equivalent of a guardian to issue marriage licenses in the county clerk's office in the absence of the clerk's ability to do so, and, as I also suggested, sent a bill for all related costs to the county. Meanwhile, Kim could pose for the press, looking sullen.

A contempt prisoner can only be held until it becomes self evident — as perhaps it is already — that the contemptuous miscreant will not mend her ways no matter how long she sits there. At that point the judge has to set her free. And, once free, she can go right back to her office and continue refusing to issue marriage licenses. Somebody mail the judge a printout of this article, or at least e-mail him a link. I'd do it myself, but this whole affair has made me too cranky.