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Sorry, we’re open.

The story hit all the major news outlets yesterday morning that Verizon was planning to charge their customers a two dollar fee for paying their bill directly to Verizon on their website.  They were going to bill us for billing us.

I’ve plied this theme in other writings, calling it the “Sorry, we’re open,” syndrome.  We all know the “Sorry, we’re open” businesses.  They punish you for bringing your business to them.  We do business with them on their terms, not ours.  With these companies, it isn’t, “the customer is always right.”  It’s, the customer is an imposition that we unfortunately have to put up with.

Well, the days of being able to get away with that may be running out.  By the end of the day yesterday, in response to a national outcry against the punitive customer fee, Verizon rescinded the policy before it took effect on January 15th.

Verizon hadn’t discovered that the policy actually was unfair, nor did it determine that it wasn’t in their economic interests–until–they saw the tidal wave.  It was nothing less than an internet uprising via social media that turned the tide against Verizon, the same social media that sparked the Arab Spring that has overthrown dictators in the Middle East this past year.

The social media is now changing the course of history every day.  In the past, public opinion could be put on hold until election days, slowed down by bureaucratic red tape, or muffled by the snail’s pace of communications.  No more.  A national referendum can happen overnight, forcing change when the weight of public opinion is able to turn on a dime.

Where will it focus next? Will it be on another so-called “fleecing of America” that takes place every day in our living rooms and in our bedrooms?  It is called, “Paid Programming,” and it has so far escaped the scrutiny of social media.

No one receives Dish, Dircect TV or cable television for free.  It’s a cost we’ve co-opted because we’ve elevated its importance to the level of household necessity.  The trouble is, in “off-peak” hours, the air time we’ve purchased has been sold again to advertisers who want to reach us where we live. The service provider has now sold its air time twice, once to its subscribers, and once to those who want advertising dibs on those subscribers.

It would be something like hearing from your car dealer after you bought your car, that they’ve also sold it to somebody else, but not to worry–they’ll only be using it overnight and early in the morning. This might be just the sort of thing that we decide, en masse, not to put up with any more.

Who could’ve seen this coming?  As a means of marshalling the strength of numbers to right essential wrongs, the social media has yet to realize its own strength.  When “Power to the People” was shouted by throngs of protesters in the 1960’s, no one thought it could happen this way.

Happy New Year everyone, and Power to the People!

 

 

 

Busted

The evidence was obvious and appalling–a gruesome crime aftermath.  Scraps of what had once been living flesh were strewn over the top of the Honda Accord, and just as many body parts were on the garage floor.  Bone–yes, even bone splinters were visible to anyone brave enough to walk through that spine-chilling, sobering scene the day after Christmas.

None of those first on the scene ever thought for a moment it was a job just one could have managed.  This was the grim handiwork of at least two.  A team.  A tandem orgy of ripping and tearing, each one perhaps trying to outdo the other.  It was the heat of that orgy and its sloppiness that led to the perpetrators.

DNA evidence abounded, but it was hardly needed for the bust.  Hair, saliva, teeth marks, even footprints covered the area as if the guilty had gone about their business with abandon.  Now, they stared back at their accusers as though weighing the excruciating joy of their foul deed against all the possible punishments.  Each agreed, without so much as a nod to the other, it was worth it.

Jake, the German Short-hair Pointer, and Kafka, the English Springer Spaniel had been let into the attached garage during the annual morning-after-Christmas breakfast of chipped beef over English muffins, scrapple (a bow to my wife, Shelley’s southern roots), homefries, ramblin’ scrambled eggs, and coffee cake.  The trouble was, sitting atop the one car in that garage was the turkey carcass from Christmas dinner, and the barely-dented spiral ham that would provide several more meals for the coming week.

Either hound could have easily mounted the low-profile Accord from the front and then made a go at the meat from the slick windshield.  It was the telltale pawprints that told the whole story for us:  The lead dog must have tried several times to get a purchase on the roast, each time sliding back down the windshield onto the hood. We all hoped it was difficult with at least a couple of serious setbacks.

Eventually, the meat made it to the floor, and then, the collective, canine unconcious reared the head of its wildness, baying “Yes!, Yes!” to this gift of ectsasy for as long as it lasted.

Both scored low marks for their high breeds that morning.  After being split up to do their time separately, each one lay bilously quiet for the balance of the day.  The sodium from a whole ham now coursed through their veins, raising their blood pressure and making them unquenchably thirsty.  Even through their clouded sensoriums following their gluttonous plunder, even though they were given wide births and were scowled at by their keepers, the two dull-eyed dogs remained clear-headed about one thing:  It was worth it.

Van Raymond Outfitters Book Signing

Van Raymond Outfitters has for many years been a fixture on the outdoor sporting scene in Maine.  It is an old world business rather than a big box environment.  Van Raymond is where you go for personal service and depth of product knowledge.  Much of my own gear in my professional guiding work is outfitted by Van Raymond.

I’ve had several book signings in the store, the most recent being a shared event with crime fiction novelist, Paul Doiron.  Why are his books of interest in a store like Van Raymond Outfitters?  It’s because the plots and themes of The Poacher’s Son, and his newest, TRESSPASSER, are Maine outdoors through and through.

It so happened that Jim, who runs things on the first  level of the store, and I were both big fans of William G. Tapply, another crime fiction writer whose books involved a Maine guide by the name of Stoney Calhoun. When Tapply passed away two years ago, it left a gap in that specific ilk of fast-paced, highly entertaining reading.

Paul Doiron has filled that gap.  Though he’s just two books into the saga of Mike Bowditch, Maine game warden, there are more on the way.  In fact, Paul told me during our visit together that the next one is due out in August. Stay tuned to Minotaur Press and Paul Doiron for updates on this very successful series.