Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I confess: I spy on people. Especially when they have books. I want to see what they’re reading.
The woman next to me in the coffee shop has the book, “Men Explaining Things to Me,” on her table. I want to ask her, “Do you want me to explain that book?” I thought it would be funny, right? She – and other women with this book – probably have never heard that joke before.
I decided not to say it to her, mostly because I like living. I think a joke like that one could be hazardous to my longevity.
Sara Fischer had a surprising article over on Axios.com:
“What?” I asked myself. People don’t like pop-up ads and pre-rolls? Bullshit. Dismissive of this headline, I read the article.
Sara Fischer claims that Morning Consult did research, and discovered that surveys show that seventy-two percent of U.S. adults don’t like pop-up ads.
It’s more fake news, I suspect.
I don’t know anyone who dislikes pop-up ads. I love them, myself. Pop-up ads are technology’s way of saying, “Hey, relax. Take a break.” They stop me from getting too involved in stories by preventing me from immediately reading the articles, clicking on links, and searching for more information to vet the story.
Pop-up ads are a blessing, and should be embraced as such. Just think of how much more shit you could be reading and doing on the web, were it not for pop-up ads saving you.
That charming little organization, BofA — which could almost be BFF, because they’re, like, best friends with their customers — is celebrating one hundred years of proudly serving America’s veterans.
That touched my cynicism rail. I bet, if one were to check, they would discover that BofA has been making money off America’s veterans for one hundred years. I’ll bet, if you check, they’ll have a number of happy stories about their efforts to hire and retain vets. I’ll be once a year, probably on Veteran’s Day, a senior exec sends out a thank you to all the vets who work for Bank of America. And then others in the company electronically chirp in, “Yes, thank you!”
I’ll bet all of this is just like the other corporations I worked for who so supported vets, like me. I wonder, though, if back in the meltdown, when BofA was evicting homeowners and taking possessions of people’s homes, how often the bank stopped and said, “Wait. This is a vet. We support America’s veterans. We can’t evict them.”
Yeah, I don’t think so. Not when there’s stories out there like this:
The Justice Department announced today that under its settlements with five of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers, 952 service members and their co-borrowers are eligible to receive over $123 million for non-judicial foreclosures that violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). The five mortgage servicers are JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A. (JP Morgan Chase); Wells Fargo Bank N.A. and Wells Fargo & Co. (Wells Fargo); Citi Residential Lending Inc., Citibank, NA and CitiMortgage Inc. (Citi); GMAC Mortgage, LLC, Ally Financial Inc. and Residential Capital LLC (GMAC Mortgage); and BAC Home Loans Servicing LP formerly known as Countrywide Home Loans Servicing LP (Bank of America).
| Amount of Money to be Distributed | Number of Service Members Eligible for Compensation | |
| Bank of America | $35,369,756 | 286 |
| Citi | $14,880,578 | 126 |
| GMAC Mortgage | $13,720,588 | 113 |
| JP Morgan Chase | $31,068,523 | 188 |
| Wells Fargo | $28,358,179 | 239 |
| TOTALS | $123,397,624 | 952 |
Maybe BofA should amend their ad to, “Proudly serving America’s veterans for one hundred years, except for those times we cheated and fucked them over to increase our profits.”
I imagine BofA made all kinds of nice noises and saccharin pubic apologies, while shrugging it off with the rationalization, “We’re a big business. Shit happens.”
I certainly don’t feel like there’s a choice. I feel, though, like I might be feeding a dragon, and it’s growing.
It was the final clean out; they would no longer live there.
They’d been three generations of readers. He, the grandfather, no longer there, had led them into that society. He was always buying, reading, borrowing, and lending books, but his apex moments came when he talked about them with others. By talking, he enjoyed a significant amount of listening, to hear what others thought about the books, to calibrate, validate, and counter his personal findings. These predilections for books led to a ginormous collection. Shelves of books filled several family room walls. More cases of books were in the hallways and living room. Other collections guarded the bedrooms. Stacks of books decorated tables. Other books had to sit on the floor.
With him gone, and the house being cleaned, they went through the books and kept a few they considered the crown jewels. The rest had, lamentably, to go. Friends were told, “Come and get books. Take whatever you want.” Her concern was not to get rid of the books, but to find others who loved them as much as he had.
I thought, “Tuesday,” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ballad, “Tuesday’s Gone,” streamed in from their first album, released in nineteen seventy-three.
It’s a relaxing, reflective song. I was in my last year of high school when I first heard it. It feels like a song that’s right for going into your final year. After a final year of anything, everything is changed, which is the sentiment I infer from “Tuesday’s Gone.”
Mascucat (catfinition) A feline who prefers the male human companions.
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Michael Seidel, writer 