Hello world!!!
Hello world!!!
Category Archives: Uncategorized
It is almost impossible to cancel a subscription if you used Paypal
Don’t get me wrong. I love Paypal and use it all the time. But I’m starting to rethink my logic of using it, and to be honest, it drives me nuts when I think about it. And part of the problem is the business model that a number of companies use, and part of the problem is the easiness of using Paypal to pay for things. Sure, the money comes out of my bank account immediately, so the logic of using Paypal is lost on me. Yet, I still do it.
Recently, (meaning today) I was charged by a company called Wix (you can design web sites through it). I tried using Wix three years ago, signed up for a membership costing a little over $200. But to be honest again, I gave up trying to create a site through them. It was easier getting a desgree in physics and a Ph.d in political science. But for the last three years, they have charged me that $200 plus every year, and I caannot figure out how to cancel this damn thing short of canceling my Paypal account.
This is the problem with this whole subscription model of stuff. When you have a monthly account, there’s little problem. You’re reminded of it every month. But when they charge once a year, it sneaks up on you, and as I keep discovering, it’s easier to cancel a regular transaction than it is a yearly one. And that’s the trap they try to sneak you into.
I had the same problem with a gym membership that I bought for my friend not too long ago. When I paid that, I was promised that it was a one time charge, and I wouldn’t be charged again. Of course that asshole lied to me; I was charged again the next month. I had to issue a charge back from my bank, which was quite a bit of drama, but at least my bank honored it. When I tried a charge back through Paypal, they immediately denied it, and I was still charged for the transaction. When I went onto Wix’s site, it indicated that because I issued a charge back, they were immediately canceling my account (which is good). But part of me is convinced they’ll somehow screw up my credit, and I expect that next year they’re going to end up charging me for the subscription again.
So, I really don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m the old man yelling at clouds these days, and my ability to fight back is limited and impossible as well.
Anyway, just a Monday gripe (although it’s on a Tuesday). Sue me.
Politics
As a professional political scientist (what exactly does that mean, anyway?), I am often asked my thoughts on current events to which I immediately respond that being a political scientist doesn’t mean that I actually have an opinion on specific current events. The fact of the matter is that I studied political science for the “science” inherent in political science. I don’t care about specific political events; I care about the nature of political science itself. While some people care about the horse racing aspects of politics, I care about why and how people think about the way political events take place. I like looking at 1855 and trying to see how things have changed so that if the same events happen tomorrow, how would people think and act on those events today.
But yes, I do care about specific events that are happening today. I have an opinion on whether or not we should be sending non-citizens back to native countries from where they came. Or should we be deporting people to countries they’ve never visited ever in their past. How can you not have opinions about such things?
Part of me is bothered by the lack of concern that most people have about political issues. Or about the lack of knowledge young people have about practically any political issue. Do you know that most people in the United States can’t figure out how to find Canada on a map? Even worse, I suspect the majority of Americans can’t find the United States on a map either. We like to think that’s not possible, but make the challenge (and take away their smart phones) and they will generally fail in large numbers.
Americans these days are pretty stupid when it comes to geography, history and political science. Yet, they’ll stare you down and say that they know far more than they really do. The problem is they carry around an encyclopedia of knowledge in their hands but take away their wifi, and they know very little. They’ve become a civilization of young people who rely on immediate access to fill in their true lack of knowledge.
I remember teaching a class a year or so ago where I mentioned the Great Emu War (one of my favorite topics) and told a whole story about it in class. The students were laughing and then one student spoke up: “He’s not lying. This is true.” He had just looked up the content of my lecture on the Internet, veryifying that I wasn’t making this up. That sort of summed up my whole thought on the problem we have with youth knowledge today. They know nothing. they look up everything.
This bothers me greatly because the idea of knowledge is that it increases from one generation to the next. As we pass off the baton to the next generation of learners, we should be experiencing new knowledge and new ideas from a younger population. But we don’t seem to be doing that any more. I’m afraid the next generation is learning nothing. And I blame my generation.
You see, it was my generation that created the computer. I was there on the precipice. I coded software in the beginning of the computer generation, and I could see how this information we created was going to lead us into new possibilities. I remember creating web sites for people for their new and old businesses. I remember a client who asked me if I could design a shopping cart for her, and I said I would for the cheap price of her buying me two books that I would use to learn how to make one. The books were on PHP, and I have to say that it was a great language to learn as I used it quite a few times.
Anyway, I started this post a few weeks ago on this blog and kind of forgot where I was going with it (a hint: Never start a post a week ago and forget to finish it up that same day), so let’s just say (after a quick look at the title I made for this post) that politics are weird. Really weird cause maybe one day that might lead to building a shopping cart for a book company. And no one wants to do that.
Me, the Internet & I
Once upon a time, in an alleyway far, far away, there was a little boy named Duane who desired to have a web page of his own. Web pages were rare back then, kind of like squirrels, and birds, which aren’t real, so when little Duane decided to make this web page, he enchanted it with a special power, one that both told the truth and spelled words corectly. This was a great achievement, kind of like when Bob dated the head cheerleader during the senior prom game. We all remember what we were during on that night…crying and complaining that we weren’t Bob. Now, while Bob went on to such greatness as 5 to 20 in the county prison, and managed to get all 20 years of that sentence, including two extra years because the Warden just felt it was needed, most of the rest of us never achieved such greatness of Bob; most of us becoming doctors, lawyers, plastic surgeons and other made-up occupations we tell to girls when we meet them at bars and disreputable locations.
But little Duane wanted a web page of his own. He knew he couldn’t afford one, because to buy one took hundreds, and possibly thousands of dollars. So, little Duane bought a book instead. Actually, he bought four books: The Wolloping Wollaper, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Little Boy Who Bought Candy For His Neighbors (specifically as it was big enough to hide the first two books), and How to Make Your Own Web Page. When little Duane got home, he tossed all the other books and began reading How to Make Your Own Web Page almost every day he was awake. Not so much on the days he wasn’t home. He read it from page one to the very end. And then he read from the very end to the front and realized it didn’t make as much sense in that direction. But he read it that way because he suspected there were going to be secrets, and there were, but it was mostly secrets like .tnetnoc dooG .ti no tnetnoc tup dna egap bew a teG
Years later, little Duane created his renowned web page, the one read by famous people and criminals of all walks of life, revealing that there was a species of life walks that actually read. But that’s for another article.
Anyhoo, so I’m kind of getting off track here. What I really wanted to talk about was stuffed animals. (looks around) No one into that? Okay, I’ll try to continue with what I was talking about: Web pages.
My web page was online for close to twenty years now, almost as soon as the Internet was invented by Al Gore and Elon Musk in their laboratory next to their garage. It would have been by Steve Jobs but that loser was working in his garage trying to invent computers. Man, such losers.
But little Duane invented his web site and everyone around the world was simply amazed. I emphasize: Simply. So, if I did have something to tell you, it’s that two years ago, after 14 years and 599 posts, everything disappeared. I’d like to say the whole world disappeared because that would make one hell of an awesome novel. Come on, Stephen King, we need you now more than ever. But yeah, I went onto my web site one everning, and everything was gone. My web page, my Internet’s access, and I was staring at zero content. Nothing saved. Nothing to recall back on.
I was pissed, but I called my Internet company and told them the problem. The guy working customer service from India had both no idea how it happened and no idea what I was saying. I know that mostly the customer service at least speak English but after about ten minutes I started to suspect that this guy couldn’t even speak his native language. Cause I speak quite a few languages and I suspect that his was one of those. He couldn’t understand me, and I couldn’t understand him.
Finally, I got someone who did speak a language I understood (hint: it wasn’t English). I explained the whole dilemma to him that when I went to my web page (http://www.duanegundrum.com), there was nothing there.
So, I gave up. I would never have a web page again. I loved this web page, but it just wasn’t worth it. So I cancelled the auto renew feature and three months later, they charged me any way. How, I don’t know. And then they fought me through the payor service. I just couldn’t win.
A year later, for the fun of it (as I was still paid up for this web page, I contacted their customer service and got someone who actually spoke English, was really kind and friendly, and helped me fight crime wearing his own personal Batman costume. Okay, one of those three wasn’t real; man, he was mean and unfriendly.
He managed to get my web site running again. I think it sunk to a strange level of one of the nine hells. Possibly an unknown tenth levell that even Thor didn’t want to visit. But this guy did. Not only could he fight as Batman, but he found my web site.
So, what all of this is meant to say is that my web site is up and running again, and hopefully, none of Thor’s enemies are intending to knock it off line again.
I mean, why would they try. I got Batman on my side. You don’t f’ with Batman, even if you think you’re the Joker.
Lost a lot of posts
Test Post
The Problems We Solve Are the Problems We Don’t Have to Face
There was an article today in the New York Times titled, “For Ex-Prisoners, ‘Second-Chance’ Jobs Can Be Hard to Come By”, and I think it’s something important enough for us to discuss now, so instead of focusing on billionaires in sinking submarines near the Titanic or on international affairs/wars like in Syria or Ukraine, let’s focus on something a little closer to home, and something that may affect each and everyone of us.
Now, the chances of any of you reading this ending up in jail is pretty slim. Actually, I’m being kind of nice. Statistics from the Brennan Center for Justice indicate that one out of every three adults in America has a prison record. Yeah, I double checked that on another site, and it was correct. Doing some math myself, about a quarter of those arrests were for felonies, which means we have a lot of ex-cons in this country, and if you read this particular article, that’s a real problem.
One of the problems in America is that we’re not a very forgiving country. Oh, we say we are, but we’re not. You spend time in jail, and America kind of turns its back on you, kind of like the Klingons did to Worf when he was banished from Klingon space. Yes, that moment hit me hard, almost as hard as when I realized going for humor in a very serious piece is definitely reading the room wrong. If I was a Klingon, you’d be turning your backs on me and waiting until I left the room. Please don’t do that.
Getting back to seriousness, mainly because this issue is quite serious, I would like to ask the generalized question of “what should we do about this?”
One thing I’ve noticed from a lot of the pieces written and distributed on this site is that people have a tendency to complain about something that’s wrong and then advocate for nothing. Or worse, they advocate for something that’s ludicrous, as in something that’s never going to get done. I read an article the other day that argued that men tend to treat women horribly in relationships; then the writer advocated for all men to be nicer. Really? That was the solution?d I’m sure all those bad boys out there doing bad boy stuff are thinking about cleaning up their acts now.
One of my favorite moments in the Marvel movie Ant Man was when he got out of prison and took a job at Baskin Robbins, serving ice cream. And then he was fired once they discovered his prison record. His friends kept saying “Baskin Robbins always finds out.” And we in the audience all laughed.
I wonder if any ex-cons were in the audience and laughed as well. Well, they probably did because it was absurdly funny, but after some time I started thinking that perhaps there’s something wrong with the way we do things in our society.
The idea of prison is that it is punishment for transgressions. When your sentence is up, you are released and your crime is considered paid for. Sure, there might be probation and all that, but if they let you out of prison, it’s supposed to mean your debt to society has been paid.
But it doesn’t work out that way. Whenever you apply for a job, there’s almost always that section you start to fill out that starts to ask you if you’ve ever been arrested for a misdemeanor or a felony. And if you’ve been lucky enough to not have ever been arrested, I’ve even seen applications that ask if you’ve ever been accused of a felony or a misdemeanor.
I’m waiting for the application that asks me if I’ve ever imagined doing something that might land me a felony or a misdemeanor.
The point is: If you’ve paid your penalty, the punishment should be over. There are very productive citizens who had been locked up for years who are released and find themselves in situations that are impossible to improve. Not everyone comes across a reclusive millionaire who gives him an antman costume to fight crime. No, most ex-cons end up in situations where they can’t even find a job, so the most obvious next step for them is to do exactly what they did that got them the felony in the first place.
So, they end up back in jail.
What deranged mind thought through a system like this that makes it inevitable that someone who commits a crime is always going to end up in a vicious cycle that keeps that person in prison for life? There are some ex-cons who immediately commit another crime that is easy to solve, just so they can get back into prison, a place they at least know how to maneuver with some modicum of success.
And what this problem has led to is an overpopulation of prisoners across the country. And that has led to something extremely unique to the American prison system: For-profit prisons. Realizing that we have so many prisoners, independent contractors made their own prisons and farm their space out to cities, counties and states. Not only that, but they use the prisoners to conduct for-profit labor (the profit going to the guys that own these prisons). Had these prisoners been released into society upon the conclusion of their first incarceration, and been able to find productive jobs, they might never have seen the inside of a prison again, and they might be productive members of society again.
But America isn’t about forgiveness. Just watch an election debate, and you will see both sides of the political spectrum arguing to convince the voters how rough they will make life on prisoners and anyone who transgresses upon anyone. If one candidate talks about reforming the prison system, it’s instant political suicide, and you will never see that candidate again.
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase: “Doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same bad result.” Usually, they add that this is the definition of insanity. They’ll also say it’s a quote from Albert Einstein. Well, he never actually said that, but if people keep repeating the same lie over and over again, people start to believe it, which is kind of similar to the quotation in the first place.
The problem isn’t that we do the same thing over and over again, get the same result, and then repeat the sequence. The problem is that we do the same thing over and over again and then never check on the progress, cause if we did, we would realize that our prison system doesn’t work and needs reform.
So who can we turn to if our politicians can’t fix it without being run out of office? For that, I suspect the answer is awareness that there’s a problem because I don’t think people are even cognizant that there’s a problem in the first place.
But there is a problem. So what do we do?
Tom
I first met Tom in college. But I’ll get back to that in a second.
It was the first day of when I was to attend San Francisco State University. My previous foray into education was a decade prior, and now I was about to do it all over again. Only, this time I decided I was going to do the whole college experience, including living in the dorms, something you didn’t really get when your first run through college was at one of the military service academies.
Anyway, this time they were going to set me up with a roommate, and as it goes, the roommate was going to come as a complete surprise. And boy, did it ever. My roommate showed up and that’s immediately when sparks started to fly. Well, let me explain.
The roommate who showed up was someone with green hair. That should have been my first warning. The second warning was that she was a she. And boy, did that make her angry.
Even though the roommate “choice” was a crapshoot, and none of the roommates actually chose each other, she lit off like a firecracker. Well, more like a firecracker that explodes over and over again.
She immediately blamed me and started yelling at me nonstop, like I had secretly arranged this with my patriarchal cousins who were obviously snickering nextdoor, just out of earshot of her.
This went on for about half an hour before I left the room to retrieve the dorm manager downstairs, and as the two of us came back to the room, she was still yelling. At whom until he returned, neither of us knew, but she continued to be red mad.
So, the dorm manager took her out of the room, at which she started screaming that the guy (me) should have to leave, not her, even though all of my stuff was unpacked and her stuff was still in suitcases ready to be moved to wherever they needed to go.
So, for the first night, I had no roommate. The second night, my new roommate arrived, and that’s when I met Tom.
For my second roommate, they decided to link him with me because the two of us were veterans. He was a former Marine and I was former Army. There was an age difference; he had fought in Vietnam, and my time was Grenada, Panama and the first Gulf War.
Because the timeframe of our first nights on campus coincided with huge bouts of noise on campus, on one evening after lights out the campus band and glee team was practicing at what had to be after midnight in some impromptu blast of music. I just assumed this was a normal thing and struggled to get back to sleep, but then like a bolt of lightning, Tom came rushing out of his room and straight out the door of our dorm. The next thing I heard, he was yelling at the leader of the band, and someone yelled back at him from out there, and then there was dead silence.
Then Tom came back to the room and said, “They’ll shut up now.” And then he went to bed. I never heard another sound from the band again. As no police units showed up knocking on our door, I assumed he settled that problem without any violence.
Over the years, Tom and I bonded as most roommates do when they get along and have a common frame of reference. A few years into our friendship journey, one of my debate partners and I decided we were interested in starting a radio program with the school Broadcasting Department, even though we weren’t part of the Broadcasting Department.
But we couldn’t even get the Broadcast Department to give us an opportunity to try out. But when Tom overheard us talking about the failure of our plan, he said that he knows the director of the Broadcasting Department, and he’d talk to him. We kind of took it half-heartedly but then a few days later, he handed me a piece of paper with the director’s name, a date and a time, saying that he would see us then.
So, my friend and I put together or best elevator pitch and presented it. Next thing we knew, we were told we had some studio time to create our vision and then we could present that as proof that we could do the job.
When we got to the studio, we encountered the first bit of politics in the Broadcasting Department. Everyone in that department was competing for airtime, and as outsiders, we were infringing on their territory. But the director had told them to give us access and one of them took that obligation to actually show us the ropes. So, we finished the demo tape and then had to present our elevator pitch to the students who ran the radio station. They heard us out and then said no.
We were devestated, and Tom listened to our entire group commiserate over how we gave it our best shot, and unknown to us, Tom took the demo tape to the director so he could hear what we had done. The next day, we were given air time and the students running the station hated us forever after that day.
But we had our air time.
Years later, Tom and I remained good friends, and after I published one of my novels, Thompson’s Bounty, about a Coast Guard crew that gets pulled through time to the age of pirates, Tom called me and said that he loved that book and felt it needed to be a movie.
You see, after Tom graduated, he got into the movie industry and was a huge advocate of science fiction. He wasn’t high up in the industry, nor was he ever working to get up high into it. He took those types of jobs that are necessary, but most people don’t generally acknowledge. In other words, if there’s a guy who drives around on movie sets and takes the director around, or picks up the luggage for a cast member, he was that guy.
But being in that position, he was always talking with people who made movies, and he hyped my novel to some of the biggest names, itching for me to send him a screenplay, so he could pass it onto someone who had asked for it.
To put it simply, Tom was my biggest fan, and when you’re a writer, that is such a great thing to have. Every couple of months, he would call me, or send me a message, and he would love to talk about something I had written, depending on what kind of movie he was working on at the time.
I just received a Facebook message that his funeral has been announced and will occur in a few days. I didn’t even know he was sick. Only that I hadn’t talked to him for awhile. And I’m really sad about that. If there was any consistency in the universe, it was that Tom could brighten your day in a few seconds of a conversation. I don’t really mean to make it about me, but I really needed those moments. And now they’re gone.
Well, at least the San Francisco State University drill team can practice at midnight without the fear of some guy from the dorms scaring them half to death.
A Small Sliver of the Health Care System in America
Okay, Story time with the Legospaceman: (either you’ll find it interesting, or at least it will let me blow off some steam)
The doctor who put a graft into my arm (who can’t seem to remember if it was a fistula or a graft) was told months ago that I had lost all feeling to the index finger of that arm. He indicated that was normal and that the no feeling and numbness would go away. A month after that my finger started to feel pain.. He looked at the finger and said “It’s healing”. The next few months were series of the nurses at the dialysis center constantly indicating that they didn’t think it was getting better. Calls to the doctor were impossible to make because no one answered. Finally, I walked into the clinic and said I needed to see the doctor (of which I had been informed that this breached some kind of unwritten protocol). Saw the doctor. He looked at the finger and said “I really think it’s healing.” Fast forward another month and the head nurses decided they were going to contact the nephrologist and inform him that in their opinion something needs to be done. Get an appointment and he arranges a new surgery to repath the graft (or fistula). A few weeks after, he sees me again and says “it’s definitely getting better.”
Anyway, about seven months of this have taken place, and I’ve been in pain the whole time. Advance a few more months into this timeline and I see him once more because “no, it’s not getting better.” He sends me to a plastic surgeon with the idea of cleaning out the debris that has accumulated as this finger was “getting better”. The plastic surgeon says he doesn’t want to clean it out until we’ve had an xray to make sure it’s not infected (which means he’ll have to amputate part of the finger). I go and get an xray and it turns out that the finger is NOT infected. I go back to the plastic surgeon and he says the only option is to amputate.
This is kind of where I am now. My nephrologist has honored my request of getting a second opinion, so now we’re in a holding pattern waiting for some mysterious doctor to entertain me with a second opinion. Meanwhile, my finger has made it so I haven’t had more than two hours of sleep most nights during this period.
Sometimes Life Gives You Bitter Lemons
A month or so ago, I fell on bad health times. My kidneys collapsed, and I ended up in the hospital. And then I had to start dialysis. To sum it up, it really sucked. And still does.
Now, I have to go through dialysis every other day, and let’s just say that those sessions of three or four hours a day are pretty awful. I wouldn’t wish this on people I don’t like (even if there were people I didn’t like).
But slowly, I feel a bit better, although I suspect that I’m never going to be 100 percent back up to speed. Some days, I’m just completely exhausted and there’s really no way around it.
I’m lucky that I’m able to continue working, although it is a bit difficult some days. But I try not to let others know how much pain I’m in whenever I am in pain, and that keeps people from inquiring too much.
Anyway, I know it’s been a while since I shared any information, so I thought I would do so, although I don’t usually share bad information. I thought this one time I’d do so because it’s so hard to bounce back to normal under the circumstances.