Category: Fourre-tout

A little bit of everything

The phone whisperer

A few days ago I experienced the heavenly pleasure of spending some time in the close vicinity of a phone whisperer.
Sitting barely three feet away, I could not even catch three words of his conversation, and not for lack of trying.

And yes, the whisperer was a man!
Not one of this macho dude who has to trumpet his accomplishments to the world… no, a delightfully quiet man with a low, bedroom voice.
If I had not sworn allegiance to the opposite sex a long time ago, I could have easily fallen in love with this gentleman.
And I don’t use the term “gentleman” lightly, because a man speaking so considerately has to be a gentleman… or a hit man.

Annoying woman in a cafe on her cell phoneNowadays, you cannot avoid coming in close contact with people seemingly talking to themselves. They walk and they talk. They sit and they talk. They sleep and they talk. They are so busy talking that they totally lost notion of space and time.
No need for truth serum anymore. Give an addict a cell phone and he’ll spill the beans instantly.

And don’t get me started with women… They can be as loud (if not more) than men.
And when given a phone, they instantly shatter the fairytale image that we men have of them. They are not the quiet demure little things that we thought they were; they are Cell Women, “give me no lip” Amazons.

I don’t mind people constantly pleasuring themselves with their toy, but they should have the decency to do it discreetly. If they had any breeding at all they would go the bathroom or the macadam to indulge themselves.

My mother in Paris waited a very long time to get a phone line.
When she finally got it, she became so excited that she could not help but shout whenever calling me in California.
She probably figured that she had to speak loudly to be heard from somebody residing six thousand miles away.

Fifty years later, some people still seem to think that they need to shout to be heard.
Or maybe it has to with some kind of exhibitionism… Look at me, I have a cell phone…

Ladies and gentlemen, I beg you, when in a public place refrain from using your goddamn contraption. If you absolutely must, step outside to avoid being a public nuisance and incur the well-deserved (and sometimes violent) wrath of everybody around you.

Dominus vobiscum!

Alain

La mauvaise réputation

 ♫ Au village, sans prétention,
J’ai mauvaise réputation… ♫

BrassensAh ce bon vieux Georges… quand il était jeune, il avait lui aussi une mauvaise réputation. Et c’est une des raisons pour laquelle il dut quitter Sète, sa ville natale.

La réputation… Qu’est-ce que c’est au fait ?
C’est l’opinion favorable ou défavorable que l’on se fait de quelqu’un ou de quelque chose. La réputation c’est le fait d’être connu pour quelque chose, de bon ou de mauvais.
Et cette réputation (a tort ou a raison) nous suit et nous précède où que nous allions.

Bohémiens, Roms, Gitans, Tsiganes, Sarrazins, Sintis, Manouches, ces gens-là ont mauvaise réputation.
On les dit voleurs et sans scrupules. Où qu’ils aillent, on les regarde avec suspicion, avec haine même.

Mais il y a aussi d’autres communautés qui ont mauvaise réputation et qui font souvent la une des journaux.
L’on se défie d’eux. On les évite. On n’en veut pas dans son voisinage.

Il y a des groupes qui ont une réputation d’inadaptés, de fanatiques, de terroristes…D’autres sont vus comme paresseux, voyous, distributeurs de drogue…
Et les statistiques démontrent que la majorité des délits sont commis par un pourcentage disproportionné de personnes issues de ces communautés.
Ces gens-là font peur…

On ne peut évidemment pas mettre tout le monde dans le même panier, mais quand des individus appartenant à une certaine ethnie commettent des crimes a répétition, cela contribue à renforcer leur mauvaise réputation.
Et cette mauvaise réputation s’étend alors à ceux de leurs congénères qui sont respectueux des lois.

Cela veut-il dire que si l’on est suspicieux d’une certaine ethnie on est raciste ?
Oui et non.
Nous éprouvons une certaine aversion pour quelqu’un non pas parce qu’il est noir ou vert, mais par ce qu’il représente. Par l’image, l’auréole maléfique qui l’enveloppe.

Tous les serpents ne sont pas venimeux, mais ne sachant pas qui est quoi, on les craint tous et on les évite.

Si l’on se détourne des communautés ayant mauvaise réputation, est-on pour cela xénophobe ou raciste?
Si oui, et bien je suis raciste.

Alain

Et les dernières nouvelles de Trappes, dans les Yvelines ne font rien pour améliorer la perception du grand public a cet égard.

 

Coat of mail

Mvc-009sIn the old days a gentleman would have been well advised not to venture anywhere without a coat of mail, for he never knew when somebody would sneak up on him and thrust a dagger in his back.

Nowadays it is a rather unlikely event, but you probably have more to fear than yesteryear, for today’s assassins are stealthier and deadlier. They strike under the cloak of darkness and their weapon of choice is the Internet.

Today many people do their banking electronically and that’s where danger lurks. When you opt (as encouraged by the banks) for automatic bill payments, you basically authorize the bank to help itself to your cash. You are implicitly saying: take as much as you want my friend… And financial institutions are not shy about helping themselves.

If you are not watchful, they (like mosquitoes) will bite you repeatedly, and stealthily suck your blood like the little nasties. And you will feel the pain and the annoyance way after the facts when it becomes almost futile to complain.

Case in point: a few months ago I parked $10,000 in a bank. They told me that I also needed to open a checking account (a mere formality) with a minimum deposit of $100.00. Fine I said, no problem.

Imagine my surprise when two months later I noticed that my friendly bank was charging me a maintenance fee of $8.00 per month.
I gave them $10,100 to use as they please (to lend to some other suckers and charge them a hefty interest) and they had the gall to charge me a fee for authorizing them to use my money.
When confronted, the bank meekly agreed to remove the charges, but if I had not caught their shenanigans, tough!

I don’t think that anybody has more gall than banks!
And maybe not…
Some outfits will raise their rates without any warning and if you give them a blank check, they will happily take advantage of your generosity.
If you are using automatic payments, you need to scrutinize each bill and loudly complain if something doesn’t look kosher.

If you fail to do so, you will be fleeced without seeing a thing, and that’s what banks are hoping for.
Trust us my friend, they keep saying, trust us…

Well, like Ronnie used to say, “Trust, but be damn sure to verify!”

Like yesteryear you still need to wear a dense coat of mail.

Alain