Sweet Georgia Brown! "The Senator" must be turning in his grave. If you haven't seen this morning's News yet, then the Post-Gazette reports:
The Daily News and the Latrobe Bulletin will merge Nov. 1 Daily News Publisher and Editor Patricia K. Mansfield announced yesterday during an editorial staff meeting that the publication had been sold.
Chris Miles, a former chief financial officer at The Daily News and current publisher of The Bulletin, will be involved in the daily operation of both newspapers.
Miles' partners in the acquisition of The Daily News are George Sample of Huntingdon and William Anderson of Ebensburg.
A six-day publication, The Daily News circulates around 19,000 copies a day. Mansfield told the staff that she and Controller Steve Poknis would not be a part of The Daily News operation after Oct. 30. She advised the staff that Miles does not plan to make any changes for at least two months.
They say you should never discuss religion or politics in polite company.
I've never been accused of being overly polite. Here comes one of my political rants; skip to the end if you don't want to read it.
On the front page of Wednesday's Daily News was this Associated Press story with a Washington, D.C., dateline:
A political guide is urging Catholics to vote against candidates who support abortion rights, stem-cell research and other "evil" issues --- an appeal that could undercut Democratic Sen. John Kerry's candidacy.
Catholic Answers, an independent group based in El Cajon, Calif., expects to distribute 3 million copies of its "Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics" nationally by the end of the month. The guide urges Catholic voters to disavow candidates who support euthanasia, human cloning and gay marriage. The guide also was published Tuesday in a full-page newspaper ad in USA Today. ...
Karl Keating, president of Catholic Answers, said his nonprofit group is not backing any particular candidate or political party. "Our purpose is to get the Catholic moral principles out, and we leave it up to the individual reader to apply them, we hope, at every level of government," Keating said. "But we're definitely not endorsing or disendorsing any candidate."
But the principles are aligned with Bush's political stands --- and against most of Kerry's. As a Catholic, Kerry opposes abortion but says he can't support denying a legal right to others. And while the Democrat opposes gay marriage, he has criticized Bush's effort to amend the Constitution to ban same-sex unions.
Catholic social teaching has long advocated a more integrated international system to serve the cause of human rights, to reduce war between and within states and to help transform political and economic interdependence into moral solidarity that reflects the common good. At this moment in history, we wish to affirm the positive duty of political leaders and citizens to support the development, reform and restructuring of regional and global political and legal institutions, especially the United Nations. The United Nations should be at the center of the new international order. ... Effective multilateral institutions can relieve the United States of the burden, or the temptation, of becoming by itself the world's police force.
We must continue to say No to the very idea of nuclear war. A minimal nuclear deterrent may be justified only to deter the use of nuclear weapons. The United States should commit itself never to use nuclear weapons first, should unequivocally reject proposals to use nuclear weapons to deter any nonnuclear threats, and should reinforce the fragile barrier against the use of these weapons. Indeed, we abhor any use of nuclear weapons.
My faith affects everything that I do, in truth. There's a great passage of the Bible that says, What does it mean, my brother, to say you have faith if there are no deeds? Faith without works is dead.
And I think that everything you do in public life has to be guided by your faith, affected by your faith, but without transferring it in any official way to other people.
That's why I fight against poverty. That's why I fight to clean up the environment and protect this earth.
That's why I fight for equality and justice. All of those things come out of that fundamental teaching and belief of faith.
Pardon me for not feeling creative, but I spent my normal essaying time balancing my checkbook and paying bills. And trying to pay my bills this month mustered all of the creativity I possess.
I did listen to the debate while I worked, and the combination of mathematics, low finance and bloviating gave me a pounding headache, to the point where I finally gave up and turned off the TV.
Interestingly enough, I started out listening to the debate on the radio, and frankly, I thought Dubya was cleaning Yawn Kerry's clock. The reception was lousy, though, I so I turned on the television. The visuals hurt President Smirky's performance, but I'd still have to give him a slight edge over JFK Lite. The Tube City Almanac National Affairs Desk will score the debates Kerry 2, Bush 1 ... and Voters 0.
Neither candidate said a damn thing of importance, of course. Kerry's responses could have been selected at random from any of his answers during the first two debates; Bush seemed intent on trying to work in as many references to Ted Kennedy as possible. And unfortunately, there was no moderator to call them to account.
Oh, I'm sorry, there was Bob Schieffer, whose questions ran the gamut from insipid to pandering. I wonder if those questions were forced on him by a committee, or if he was pulling punches for fear that the usual suspects would pounce on him for being a "liberal-biased" newsman from CBS. If so, his fears were justified when Shrub trotted out his oh-so-subtle "joke" about "not trusting the media." Ha. Ha. Ha. Get it? Nudge nudge, wink wink? See, CBS had these memos a while ago ...
Yeah, right.
By the way, "jokes" like that would be funnier if the Bush Administration hadn't been so nasty, partisan and controlling with reporters and news outlets for the past four years. Whereas most Presidents have viewed the media as at best a potential ally and at worst a necessary evil (I was going to say "nuisance," but that word seems to have gotten a bad reputation this week), Bush, like Richard Nixon, has treated them like a dangerous force that must be stopped. I don't find that attitude very healthy for democracy, and I don't find the President's japes about his hostile attitude toward the media --- and the public's right to know --- very humorous.
All in all, it was the weakest of the three debates. The pundits seemed to be calling this debate a draw; the instant polls gave an edge to Kerry; and I doubt anyone was swayed either way. I'd be interested to look at the overnight Nielsen ratings to see if most people stayed tuned through the entire thing, or tuned out after the first 15 or 30 minutes.
Personally? After I finished balancing the checkbook using principles set down by that great economist, Billy Preston (yep, nothing from nothing leaves nothing), I read a book.
Things I learned on the Internet while looking for other things:
--- McKeesport Candy Co. has a great Web site, and I can't believe I haven't looked at it sooner. With Halloween just two weeks away, it seems like an appropriate topic for discussion.
It turns out McKeesport Candy is now specializing in Internet sales of "retro candy" like Necco wafers, root beer barrels and licorice.
The company is now among the largest online candy retailers in the U.S.; and it's the subject of a profile this month in Fast Company. Last year, it was featured on NBC's "Today" show.
Of course, McKeesport Candy also supplies many convenience stores and supermarkets with brand-name and bulk candy. And if you see any bagged "loose" candy --- gumdrops, licorice laces, chocolate-covered peanuts, etc. --- with the label "Todd's Candies," that's coming from Our Fair City, too.
The company is family-owned and operated, and based right Downtown on Fifth Avenue near McKeesport Hospital since 1927.
I have no connection to McKeesport Candy, by the way, except as a consumer of their products. Including an entire bag of Todd's malted milk balls at the drug store on Saturday morning while waiting for a prescription. (I'm not a proud man.)
It's too bad no one in Our Fair City makes floss and toothpaste. What a one-two combination punch that would be!
--- Vance Holmes, a talented actor and writer from Our Fair City who now lives in Minneapolis, has set up a Web site seeking information that will bring the murderer or murderers of his brother, Tommy Holmes, to justice. Vance's father, the Rev. Sylvester Holmes, is the well-known pastor of Zion Baptist Church on Locust Street.
A 21-year-old city man, Joseph Rhone, is charged in Tommy Holmes' death; Vance Holmes contends that investigators are not telling everything they know about the shooting. Read his Web site and judge for yourself.
--- A Salon writer went telemarketing in Picksberg on behalf of Yawn Kerry, and wrote about his experiences (warning: partisan leftist ranting).
--- The Germans are coming! The Germans are coming! All of the Airborne Express trucks are now wearing garish yellow and red paint jobs as the company gets absorbed by DHL. It turns out that DHL is owned by the German post office (Deutsche Post AG) and it's making a major push to take market share away from UPS and FedEx.
But that's not all. You've seen those T-Mobile ads featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones? (The first few ads could have been selling clods of dirt for all I knew, because I never paid any attention to the phones, if you get my drift.) Well, T-Mobile is owned by the German national telephone company --- Deutsche Telekom AG --- which was also formerly controlled by the German post office.
Rip Rense regularly writes about his "Less Than Satisfying Encounters With Humanity," describing his tangles with nasty retail clerks. Subdivided Bob recently wrote about restaurants where the credo seemed to be: "Eat What's In Front of You and Shut Up."
I guess I lead a charmed life, because I have more good experiences than bad ones. On the other hand, when the bad experiences happen, they're doozies.
The other day a good friend called. I'll call him "Dan," because that, in fact, is his name. His car had broken down --- dead battery --- and he needed a ride to a certain department store to return it. I won't mention the name of the store, or their well-known, nationally-advertised car batteries, but suffice to say, when this battery died, it died hard.
Ahem.
Anyway, Dan got into my car, with his battery and a letter from the main office of the department store chain; for convenience, let's call it "Broils." "I hope there isn't a problem," he said. "It was recalled a while ago, but I never got around to taking it back."
I read the letter. It was pretty straightforward: "Because of an unusually high number of complaints about this battery, we have decided to recall all of them from use. At your earliest convenience, please return it to your nearest Broils location. We will exchange your battery for a Premium Gold battery and refund the difference in your purchase price."
The letter was undated. "When did you get this?" I asked.
"I don't know. It's been more than a year. But the battery came with an eight-year warranty." It was some sort of a fancy-pants battery with a built-in security alarm; they were being recalled, apparently, because the electronic controllers were going haywire.
Well, then. It seemed pretty cut and dried to me. Battery has an eight-year warranty that isn't even half-expired; store recalls it and offers an exchange and a refund. Should be a slam-dunk.
A-ha! But would I be tediously chronicling it on my Web page if it were?
Dan went into the automotive department at Broils; I followed, figuring I'd pay off my charge card while he was being waited on. There were other customers standing around, waiting for their cars to be repaired.
He approached the sales clerk, and put the battery on the counter, but before he opened his mouth, she accosted him.
"What's that? We don't sell those batteries any more."
"I know," he said. "I received this recall notice. I'd like to return it."
"Oh, no. That's an old battery. Don't go bringing in some old battery that we don't even sell any more and trying to return it."
"But I have this letter that says I'm to return it, and receive a new battery."
She snatched the letter from his hand and skimmed it before tossing onto the counter. "How do I know this letter is even real? It doesn't even have a date on it."
"Would you read the letter? It says right here ..."
"I can read," she snapped.
"OK, I'd like to see a manager then."
"I am the manager." (Obviously, she had been promoted based on her customer service skills.)
Dan paused a beat. "Then I'd like to see the store manager."
"The store manager is gone for the day. Come back tomorrow."
"No, I won't. I think you'd better get someone higher in authority than you down here."
She snorted. "Fine. You'll just have to wait until I wait on these customers who actually want to spend money."
Let me just pause here to say that the department store in question has been the subject of a number of lawsuits regarding its auto repair division. Customers and state attorneys general have alleged that it performs unnecessary repairs, charges for work that was never done, or bills for excessive amounts of labor. In my experience, the parts and supplies on sale are notoriously over-priced.
All this is my way of saying that the treatment we were receiving shouldn't have shocked me. Still, this kind of behavior --- in front of other customers, no less --- was astoundingly brazen. I could see some of the other people in the waiting room staring at us. At some point, another clerk came out to wait on them --- presumably to keep them from focusing their attention on the little drama that was being performed in front of their eyes, lest they question their own bills.
After making us wait 20 minutes or so, the sales clerk --- I will call her Miss Management, which seems nicely descriptive --- grabbed the recall letter again and said she was going to "call the main office." She picked up the phone, dialed a number, and asked some questions.
"I have a customer here who doesn't have a receipt, he has some letter he says he got in the mail about a recall on this car battery ... it's a model number ABC-123 ... right ... well, we don't sell them any more. OK. Fine. Thanks."
She hung up the phone, and with a self-satisfied smile, turned back to Dan. "They told me it's up to me, and I'm not taking this battery back. You waited too long. Plus, you don't have a receipt."
"Where does it say I waited too long? Show me in that letter where it says this recall expired. And you can look up my receipt."
She punched up his name on the computer; sure enough, the battery purchase was there. Next to the item number was a boldface warning: "RECALL. DO NOT SELL." Now we knew the recall was real.
The original list price was about $140, plus tax. The most expensive battery on sale --- the "Premium Gold" the store's letter promised --- was about $70. They'd be out $70 cash, plus the new battery, if they honored the letter --- which, of course, they were legally obligated to do.
"This is all about her commission," I whispered to Dan while Miss Management's back was turned. "If she gives you back the money, it comes out of her commission."
She turned back to Dan: "Well, you waited too long. That battery's almost four years old."
"No, it isn't. I bought it in 2001. Plus, it's warranteed for eight years. It's not even out of warranty yet."
Miss Management threw up her hands. "I don't need to deal with your mouth. You want to talk to the customer service manager? Fine." She stomped off into a back room. When she came back, two big mechanics wearing greasy overalls stood in the doorway behind her, arms crossed, staring at Dan and me.
The implication was clear: Talk back again, and these two goons were going to try and intimidate us. Amazing.
It's worth noting that Dan was handling things remarkably professionally --- in fact, his voice never rose above conversational tones. If it had been my battery, and my money, I would have been ranting and raving like Daffy Duck by now.
At this point, we had been waiting about 40 minutes. I walked off to make my credit payment. When I got back to the auto department, another woman was walking in, carrying a walkie-talkie and wearing a manager's badge.
Her nametag proclaimed that she was the manager of customer service. That was kind of funny, that Broils would have a manager of customer service, because it was clear to me that the store serviced its customers much the same way a bull does a cow.
"What seems to be the problem?" she asked Miss Management.
"This guy" --- Miss Management said, gesturing at Dan --- "brought in this battery, which we don't even sell any more, and some cockamamie letter, and he wants a new battery and a refund, and I called the main office, and they told me it was up to me, and I said no. Now he wants to see a manager, and I don't have time to deal with this. There are paying customers here."
Of course, Dan had been a paying customer when he bought the battery that turned out to be defective. The nerve he had, expecting the merchandise to work as advertised!
The customer service manager looked at the letter. "Let me make a few phone calls and find out what's going on," she said, and went back into the office. The goons continued to glare at us. I glared back.
I kept my mouth shut the whole time. Not an easy thing for me to do, as my friends will attest. The customer service manager came back to the desk. We had been in the store for more than a hour by now.
"I just talked to the home office," she said. "You didn't live up to some of the conditions in this recall. It says here that you're supposed to bring in the car that the battery was installed in. Is the car here?"
"No, it's at home," Dan said.
"Well, then see, you're not meeting the terms of the recall."
"You didn't install the battery in the car in the first place," he said. "I carried it out with me. It says so right on the invoice."
Indeed, it did: "CUSTOMER TOOK WITH."
"Well," the customer service manager said, "anyway, you don't meet the terms of the recall, because the car isn't here."
"Let me get this straight," Dan said. "You want me to take this dead battery home, install in back in the car, and have the car towed up here, and then you'll replace the battery?"
"Don't get smart with me," she said. "We're willing to give you another battery, but we're not giving you the refund. Also, your warranty will start from the day you bought the original battery, because you waited so long."
"Isn't the warranty on the battery, not on the sale?" Dan said. "The warranty on the new battery should start the day you give it to me, not in 2001. You're cheating me out of three years of warranty."
"Well, the fact is, you don't meet the conditions of the recall," she said. "You don't have the car ..."
Now I lost it, and interrupted. "Look, I'm the guy who drove him up here after his car broke down. If you aren't going to honor the terms of your own recall and warranty just because he didn't have the battery installed by your store, then you shouldn't have sold it to him in the first place."
"Besides," Dan said, chirpily, "I'm saving you money by not making you install it for me."
More customers were watching us now, including some that had been there since the beginning, 60-odd minutes earlier.
"This is ridiculous," I said. "I've been a customer here since I was 16 years old, and I've never seen any store treat any customer like this."
Then I turned to Dan, and said --- loud enough for both her and Miss Management to hear --- "You have an excellent complaint here for the attorney general's Office of Consumer Protection. I'll help you file it, if you want to."
They eyed me warily.
"I don't want trouble," he said. "I just want them to live up to the terms of the letter."
"Well," the customer service lady said, "this letter isn't dated. And it isn't signed. You expect us to honor the terms of a letter that isn't signed or dated?"
"It's sent on Broils' letterhead, in one of Broils' envelopes," I said, finally losing my patience and raising my voice. "If it was so important to Broils that the letter be signed and dated, then maybe Broils should have signed and dated it, huh?"
The customer service lady looked at me.
She looked at Dan.
She looked at the letter.
She looked at Miss Management. "Do everything it says in this letter. Give him the new battery. And the cash. And the new warranty."
Miss Management went --- to put it politely --- stark-raving bonkers.
"I'm not giving him almost $70 out of my commission for some old battery for some letter he brought in that for all I know he printed himself!" she yelled. I kicked Dan. "I told you," I hissed.
"Take it out of the (so-and-so) account," the customer service lady said, "and just label it a return." She turned to Dan. "But we're not going to do this ever again."
"Why would I want to?" he said. "I can only return the battery once. I just want you to honor the letter you sent."
"Fine," Miss Management snarled, "but you can just wait until everyone else is gone."
And she did, in fact, make us wait. The goons left. The customer service lady left. All of the customers but one --- a little old lady waiting for her car to be finished --- left. I took another walk through the store to work off some of my aggravation.
It was almost closing time before Miss Management got a replacement battery for Dan and rang up the return.
And then --- wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles --- her attitude became sweetness and light as she attempted to sell him an upgrade and an extended service plan.
Dan demurred. I can't imagine why.
"I'm sorry about all the problems," Miss Management said, smiling. "But you have to realize there are all sorts of scams out there."
Yes, I thought, and your store is committing them.
As we headed for the exit --- cash, new battery and warranty in hand --- the little old lady came over and stopped us. "Young man," she asked Dan, "are they going to honor the letter?"
"Yep."
"And did she give you your money?"
"Yep."
The lady winked. "Good for you. I'd have fought them, too."
And what was written above the exit, in gold leaf, no less? Why, the Broils motto, set down by Mr. Broil more than 100 years before: "Satisfaction Guaranteed or Your Money Back."
Ironic? Not really. Because in fairness, they only promise "your money back" --- they don't promise it will be easy.
I almost forgot. During one of my little strolls through the store's waiting room, I discovered a bulletin board displaying letters of praise from Broils auto department customers.
Next to it were framed copies of the store's sales tax license, its state inspection license, and its state emissions license. They listed the names of the auto department manager and the district manager of Broils.
Do you think those two people are getting a letter from me?
You bet your life.
The real question is: Will they display the letter in the waiting room with the others?
Happy European Oppressors of Native Peoples Day! I used to think this was just Columbus Day, when we celebrated the fact that if crazy ol' Cristoforo hadn't conned the king and queen of Spain out of some doubloons and leased three ships (the Nina, the Tito, and the Queen Mary) from Hertz Rent-a-Fleet, my sorry rear-end might be farming potatoes in eastern Europe. That was before my eyes were opened. Now, thanks to political correctness, I realize that the past 400 years of North American history have been a fraud!
OK, so, not quite. In sixth- or seventh-grade, two Italian-American teachers at our school jokingly proposed having a Columbus Day parade. Some how, the idea caught hold with the administration, and lunchtime on Oct. 12 found the younger kids marching around the playground, waving little American and Italian flags and singing:
In 14-hundred and 92,
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
He sailed three ships across the sea,
To find this land for you and me.
I don't know if that little celebration would pass muster today; some parent would complain, and then there would be a town meeting, where impassioned people with quavering voices would read heart-felt, angry speeches from torn-out pieces of notebook paper, and afterward some TV news crew would do a live shot for the 11 p.m. news about the big Columbus Day controversy. In the end, everyone would be frustrated and angry.
Whereas after our parade, we had pizza and chocolate milk and played dodgeball, and none of the children, so far as I know, decided on the basis of that parade they were in favor of conquering other countries and converting the natives to Christianity.
If there's one thing about American culture that sometimes aggravates me, it's the insistence on painting everything in simple primary colors: Good guys versus bad guys, heroes versus villains. The truth is rarely so clearly defined. That's not an endorsement of "situational ethics," or "ends justify the means" type arguments --- acting in bad faith in pursuit of a noble goal is still bad --- but we can't have useful discussions about history without being willing to see the nuances.
If we can have these discussions about controversial figures --- be they Christopher Columbus or President Bush --- without demonizing the other side and their arguments, more the better.
Personally, I like Stan Freberg's take on Columbus Day, as expressed on his 1961 album "Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America." Columbus, after telling the natives that he intends to open an Italian restaurant ("I want to introduce you to all of the finer things --- starches, carbohydrates, cholesterol"), asks the chief if he'll come back to Spain so that he can prove he discovered them.
"What do you mean, you discovered us?" the chief asks. "We discovered you. Standing on the beach. It's all in how you look at things."
Indeed.
Jimmy Johnson has a take on Columbus Day in his comic strip "Arlo and Janis" that's similar to Freberg's, while there's a real classic in "Classic Peanuts" today, as Sally Brown works on one of her immortal themes.
...
And unfortunately, now I'll be singing "It's a Round, Round World" all day:
COLUMBUS:
It's a round, round world,
It's a round, round world.
I believe it's round and it's gonna be found,
When all the results are in:
It's a round world now and it's always been!
KING FERDINAND:
It's a flat, flat world,
It's a flat, flat world.
I believe it's flat as a welcoming mat,
And he's sailing right off the end:
How about my crazy Italian friend?
...
I thought that Our Fair City had escaped last month's flooding relatively unscathed. Mayor Jim Brewster is reporting some $3 million in damage overall, according to Pat Cloonan in The Daily News. Forty-five basements had to be pumped by the fire department, 40 landslides had to be cleared, and a 30-by-20 foot hole opened in Walnut Street in the Third Ward. The city also handed out 80 "cleanup kits" and ran two tetanus clinics.
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