opinion: rants & raves

such a slanted slippery path.

where are the fucking watch dogs? where is the ACLU in this?

how can corporations get away with prohibiting people from engaging in a lawful activity when they're not at work????? you cant smoke...it might cost us money...how can that possibly be lawful????

what's next? if you dont exercise 30 minutes a day and eat five servings of fruits and veggies, we'll have you terminate you. if you exceed 4% bodyfat based on daily testing, we'll have to let you go. if youre losing your hair, that will conflict with our public image of youth and vitality and, obviously, we'll have to part ways. how how how how how ? ? ? ? ?

this corporate america nazism is coming on way too fast.

I would guess these guys are hip deep in shit, but mainstream media has no heart to shovel it into our living rooms. even with bush's numbers going down and constant controversy in iraq as eye witnesses continually give their reality tv tales of various bushian fuck ups.

no doubt there'll be plenty o reports after these guys have cleaned out their desks and shred whatever papers that, if sought and found, could have been used against them...emerging stories will be told matter of factly by those who saw it all happen and looked away at best...nightly reports accepted as mere fables of the corruption of power...all accepted as "who knew?" by the general population...all accepted as the greed and short-sightedness of a few individuals, not the profound lack of integrity and absolute negligence of public service we know these monsters to be from bottom to top, all the way up to the puppet masters at G.E., Exxon, I.B.M., Disney, Chase, the mighty right who's might makes right without regard for anyone or anything below their bottom line.

without question, their golf clubs are more important than their customers. not the pie charts and projections and surveys of the tastes and trends of their customers' money...not the money that buys the new set of clubs twice a year, but the people themselves, the replaceable customers from one generation to the next. people are grain to be ground in the mill of america, nothing but the chaff left in the wake of stripped funding, the true product of the mill.

not the product or productivity...just the money...the profit margin...the real american dream, already known to at least 49% of us as the great american nightmare.

if you ever run into a financial on-line banking group called "MoneyHQ", dont ask questions, just turn and run...


From:
Date: Fri Mar 18, 2005 6:01:56 AM US/Central
To: moneyHQSupport@OnlineBank.com
Subject: final email regarding 1900499

HQ folks...

Okay...I've had enough. the emails below are the tip of an iceberg of correspondence and phone calls to your customer care dept. I've never had to complain about such services before but, this time, I'm very inspired.

for the last week and change I've been trying to send rent money to my landlord in knoxville. this was my first time to use moneyHQ and I was looking forward to the convenience. however, after twice failing to notify him of the money waiting, I finally cancelled the transaction last night. both our last individual attempts to contact you via email came back undeliverable.

though your telephone staff is friendly, the system has totally failed and I finally gave up and mailed him an overnight check after the cancellation.

>>> my final request is to rush the return of funds back to my account so I can be done with this. I want my money back in there by the end of the day (today, friday 3/18)...not 2 business days. please let me know when this has been done.

I will not be using your individual transfer service again and will certainly let customer support at the texas credit union know how I just wasted an entire week on what should have been a routine transaction. not to mention everyone I run into till I get tired of telling the story. this has been an needlessly exhausting experience...including waiting for three hours this morning for someone to call me back after promising to resolve the situation. she did Not call me back and, when I tried again to get satisfaction over the phone, I was told I'd have to wait till noon tomorrow just to continue to be frustrated by a continuation of the beating. I dont think so.

please put my money back in my account now. you took it out in a few hours...I'm sure it's possible to put it back as quickly.


thank you.


music faculty
southern methodist university


Begin forwarded message:

From:
Date: Thu Mar 17, 2005 8:03:07 AM US/Central
To:
Subject: Re: Warning: could not send message for past 4 hours

Hi Kim, There's nothing in the UT network that will cause this as far as we can tell. IT reports that if they bounce something they send a notification to the sender (not that I completely trust that IT always knows what's happen in this vast system). - Les

On Thursday, March 17, 2005, at 03:17 AM, kim corbet wrote:

BTW, did you ever try to talk to your IT dept about this...?

HQ has always gotten my messages and responded in a few hours.

this whole thing is too weird.

latre


On Wednesday, March 16, 2005, at 08:01 PM, Leslie xxx wrote:

Kim, I tried to send an email to these folks and now I'm getting this. Please get the rent money returned and send it via overnight mail. I've had enough of this! - Les

Begin forwarded message:

From: Mail Delivery Subsystem
Date: Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:19:34 PM US/Eastern
To:
Subject: Warning: could not send message for past 4 hours

**********************************************
** THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY **
** YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE **
**********************************************

The original message was received at Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:41:22 -0500
from orpheus.nomad.utk.edu [160.36.248.196]

----- Transcript of session follows -----
... Deferred: Connection refused by onlinebanking.com.
Warning: message still undelivered after 4 hours
Will keep trying until message is 5 days old
Reporting-MTA: dns; jaguar.mail.utk.edu
Arrival-Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:41:22 -0500

Final-Recipient: RFC822; moneyhqsupport@onlinebanking.com
Action: delayed
Status: 4.4.1
Remote-MTA: DNS; onlinebanking.com
Last-Attempt-Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:19:34 -0500
Will-Retry-Until: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 12:41:22 -0500

From:
Date: Wed Mar 16, 2005 12:41:16 PM US/Eastern
To: moneyhqsupport@onlinebanking.com
Cc:
Subject: Re: No Response From xxx Item #: 1190245


When can I expect to see this resent email; I haven't seen it yet? Best, Leslie Gay

On Wednesday, March 16, 2005, at 11:32 AM, moneyhqsupport wrote:

This email has been resent to you

MoneyHQ support Team

-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 6:53 AM
To: MoneyHQSupport@OnlineBank.com
Cc:
Subject: Fwd: No Response From lesgay@utk.edu Item #: 1190245


Dear MHQS support, I have NEVER received e-mail from you concerning
this payment, so I can not respond? Can you please make sure you
sending this too a valid e-mail address.

Begin forwarded message:

From:
Date: Wed Mar 16, 2005 6:48:50 AM US/Eastern
To:
Subject: Fwd: No Response From lesgay@utk.edu

I just received this...now I'm off to bed. hope you got their mail
and all is right with the world. feel free to write them yourself
if you didnt...they've been very quick in responding to my e's.


Begin forwarded message:

From: MoneyHQSupport@OnlineBank.com
Date: Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:38:01 AM US/Central
To:
Subject: No Response From



This is regarding your payment request referenced below:

*********************************************
Item #: 1190245
Date Created: 03/09/2005
Amount: $475.00
From: Credit Union of Texas, Checking #########
To:
*********************************************

It has been 5 days since an email notification was sent to .
At this time, there has been no response to the >> email.

This is to let you know that the payee has received another reminder
today. Please ensure that the payee possesses the Shared Secret Code
to collect the payment.

If you have any questions, please send us an email at
MoneyHQSupport@OnlineBank.com.

Sincerely,

Customer Service
*********************************************************************
This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient .

If you are not the intended recipient please contact the sender by
sending an e-mail to MoneyHQSupport@OnlineBank.com and delete all copies
of the original email from your system.



xxx, PhD
- School of Music, The University of Tennessee
- Music Bldg., Knoxville TN 37996-2600
- USA

# posted by artie @ 10:13 PM 5 comments

it's rather nice to see condi hmmming and uhing her way through speeches in front of euro statesmen. she sounds scared and unprepared. one of the bushie's yes pussies becomes secretary of state, our most powerful interface with the world. and she cant even talk in front of her peers. yet another american embarassment.

thanks again, mr. bush. why do sooo Many believe in you when you are sooo incredibly inept and transparent in your single cause of making your rich buddies richer while the rest of us can go to hell?????

who was that general who said it was a "hoot" to kill the afghans?

it's fun to kill people? wow. I just saw the marine commercial where the pitch is "the passage is intense, but, if you survive it, you'll take you're place among the world's greatest warriors."

is that a legitimate career track: warrior? so, what? high schooler, grunt, soldier, warrior, mercenary, hit man? not necessarily in that order...I be guessin.

so it goes.

w definitely lucked out last sunday. still,
for some reason, I woke up in the middle
night thinking how current nationalistic
zeal (support the troups, bush support,
america's the greatest, et.al.) is all based
on fear. pride is fear. it's a false sense
of strength based on hormones, not a true
feeling of contentment and self-esteem.

people cling to bush cause he's the daddy.

it wouldnt matter who he was, in a society
full of fear of terrorists, crime, debt,
whatever the fear du jour, daddy's there
for us. only one problem...our daddy is
a bad bad daddy who says one thing and
does the opposite. why the daddy clingers
dont sense their own delusion, maybe
cause it glares like the sun. theyre
blinded by the obvious. theyre blinded
by their fear.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to see through
the bush social security scam. why isnt the
media at least mentioning that, perhaps, the
reason bush wants to privatize retirement
accounts is because that means the entire
population will be investing their money in
the market (i.e. corporations) instead of
keeping it in the social security trust fund?

of Course big biz wants that money.

obviously, they dont have enough yet.

sure, that's what we need. put our retirement
money into a volatile unregulated market where
companies come and go like roaches on the
baffroom floh. so, what happens when youre
reaching retirement age and a couple of the
companies in your portfolio suddenly go
belly up and the next sound you here is
your bubbling bucks going down the drain?

and why dont we hear our congressmen talk
about this little flaw in the ointment?

Having stoked their confidence with several yards of cheer and oft told tales of love and scorn, the trio boards the weathered stage like a gang of pirates lusting after a listing prize, its crew resigned to a familar fate in these bloody waters of rhythm and spew.

The Master Timber limbers up his battery, skin and brass, while his ragtop mate tweaks an amphibious amp, stomping his pedal board to life with a shoeless toe on the swabless deck. The Captain tumbles onto his keyboard throne and broadsides his prey with grin and glare in hopes that St. Christopher soon will be there.

For a journey this will be, a swashbuckling adventure of three for one on a ship at sea, a spiritual sea of pitch and roll and rock and swing, hippity hopping through spray and gale on an etherial ship of plank and nail.

The Timber, without so much as a whisper, brings his drums to bear and makes such a chatter, his harpoon tailored timing betrays an earlier era as sealer and whaler.

Ragtop responds with prickly wires poking through the texture, syncopated punctuations of heavily modulated fluxuations, at once clear and distorted, echoed in his gestures and facial contortions.

After this rollicking opening gambit, the Captain pauses a moment before seizing the torment and fires a volley of synthesized chaos into the onlooker’s ranks, cannister shots of furious folly sheering off ears, outrageously frank.

And so it proceeds, sound upon sound, sometimes soft more often loud. A 3-headed weaver looming large in a place made for madness and conjuring charms.

They build their concoction to a fast boiling stew of raw chunky bits and low rambling brew, rumbling through intestines, assaulting the heart, pistols flashing, steel balls crashing into boards, stirring stumbling feet, thrashing to the beat, throwing themselves into the breech and back.

If you listen closely, though few rarely try, you hear the collision of a hundred decisions, synaptic relays of a thousand incisions in the fabric of time. A split-second array of seamlessly frayed sensual treats intreating and retreating, revealing all the possibilities of this impossible music.

One brilliant spark appears in the midst of their slashing and grows amidst their trashing and smashing into a shining globe of such profound proportions, even the rantanctuous bartender stops her rhetorical banter and looks toward the stage with total absorption.

A pirate's fray is pirate play and on this deck the spray was never sweeter for sweeter notes were never shed in the service of the orb spinning overhead. A triple helix on a grand master scale creating a cascading parade of rampaging hues, chasing away all feelings weak and frail, stomping away a poor man's blues.

For one brief moment, the entire universe is suspended in amber as Kings and Pirates are shaped with one hammer from one metal poured from one giant forge. Twould make a Keller stare and a Webster stammer.

Yet it seemed to most, as soon as it started, it had taken its course and now was departed. No one talked of the vision, the crew or its mission, they turned to each other and compared their conditions...their jobs and their bosses, their gains and hair losses...what the pirates imparted in waters uncharted was miraculous, true, though nobody knew what to make of the sound, what to make of the sea, what to make of the orb since there was no melody.

Not one they could recognize or categorize or find in their files, this was a music of uncomfortable style. It had the smell of powder, the stink of blood, the fear of dragons in Lands Unknown. Invention is intention but what is it worth? Sail too far and you fall off the Earth.

Lucky are those who live well beyond well traveled shores, where pirates feed their treasure stores with fire and precision. Where energy flows through shoeless toes and miracles glow whether most folks know what it is or what it isnt.