The class is for web scripting. We’re supposed to be learning JavaScript and AJAX and, supposedly, some PHP. I was looking forward to that. But the first couple of weeks we created two different websites without special scripting. We were just "learning" XHTML and CSS. We don’t have a text and our prof simply directs us to w3schools.org. That works to a point. And mostly only if you know what you’re doing. Thankfully I earned 100% on each of my first assignments.

We went straight from basic design language to JavaScript. Her instructions were simply to design and code an XHTML valid web page with 5 pages and linked to a valid CSS page. Fine. I just copied my previous CSS and changed some stuff. Then we were to write a currency converter which would convert currency from U.S. Dollars to one of 5 other currencies or from one of 5 other currencies to U.S. Dollars. I don’t know JavaScript very well and was having some difficulty. So, of course, I asked for help.

My first email was pretty detailed about what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. My problem was getting the code to work. I tried to figure out what all of the different websites I googled were telling me, but it was too much and I was just getting bogged down. She replies to me “Don’t use a checkbox. Use a radio button instead.” Didn’t address my problem, I thought, but maybe that’s all that was wrong. Nope. I was having a problem getting the value from an option menu and wanted to know how to go about that. So I wrote another email. 

A couple of days go by and I get another short reply “Don’t put a function on the radio button”. Still didn’t help. I tried for hours to get some help and I’m pretty sure no one knew what the hell I was trying to say. So I wrote another email, asked her if she could please explain to me how to go about doing what I needed to do and then asked if she could just recommend a book I can use for reference as the one I was using obviously was lacking in something. Four fucking days later she tells me she rewrote my code (without the explanation I was looking for!!!) and that I was graded a 75%.

Not even a little bit of explanation. Obviously I’m a code master and I’m highly skilled in JavaScript—because I’m awesome like that. I obviously didn’t need her help and was just doing my very best to bother the shit out of her. Obviously I was NOT fucking missing something that probably should have been staring me straight in the eye. But her job is to help me work through this shit and understand what it is I’m doing. 

Yes, I can copy someone else’s code. Yes, that would have been a way to do it and get it done and probably gotten a better grade. But I don’t pay to go to fucking school so I can use Google and steal someone else’s code! I want to understand the basics behind it. And, honestly, she should have at least been able to point me to a book which contains the information I need. I don’t expect her to hold my hand through the entire thing. But an explanation of what I needed to do would have shoved my ass in the right direction.

Considering the attitude of my VB professor last spring, I’m really rethinking my major because these ladies act as if I should already know what they know. But I don’t and this is why I’m a student and not a teacher. I’m a little slow intellectually these days (thank you, FMS!), but I’m not at a complete standstill. I am able to comprehend this shit. Otherwise I wouldn’t be on the Dean’s list and wouldn’t really enjoy the code behind the site. My professor from last spring finally got that wrapped around her head. And we ended up, not on perfect footing, but on better footing. And I understood what it was she was trying to teach me– eventually. This professor just doesn’t have the interest and/or time. And I’m frustrated.

Luckily, I only have a couple of more weeks in this semester and then I’ll be doing my final courses for the first half of my degree. If I finish the Bachelor’s of Science in Technology will be determined by the amount of classes I’ll have to take online from now on. I have no interest in continuing on in this university if my professors aren’t interested in teaching me what I need to know. Or maybe I’ll just change to a degree that isn’t so challenging to me. Maybe I’ll just be lazy and go the easy route.

On a lighter note, I am taking my final math course for my degree and am getting a pretty good grade in it (Trigonometry with an 87% at this point). That’s promising, yes?

No, everyone is not covered. And there are those dastardly mandates. And the insurance companies have been handed some 36 million new customers. That sucks, but how else were we to get anything through a Congress that is bought and paid for by lobbyists (which are at this point bought and paid for by insurance companies². This whole process has been a ridiculous circus. I’m not even sure if anyone who is "against" it is really against it and those that are for it are really for it. I just know that it will end rescissions, pre-existing conditions, caps on benefits and price gouging– among other things that I’m too lazy to list. As well as eventually provide health insurance to people who, right now, don’t have any.

This is a personal issue for me because I’m not exactly in the best of health and, quite frankly, we’re all kinds of screwed in my house if my strange health issues go south. What I was hoping for was the end to exclusions for pre-existing conditions and caps on benefits. Right now, the crappy insurance I have will only pay $50 a month for prescription, $15k a year for any kind of treatments and $100 for hospitalization. Shoot, if I step off the sidewalk and get hit by a car that’s it. I’ve exhausted my medical just by going in the ambulance (ok, I’m exaggerating, but really). So, my support for this issue is 100% personal. Also, I’m not an all or nothing kind of person. Without this bill, we’re stuck bitching and moaning about rate increases and treatment payments decreasing. We’re stuck with the same old shit. This is, at least, a step in the right direction.

Good lord, but I hate that phrase, but it’s true. For those that say “KILL THE BILL!” because it’s not single payer, or doesn’t contain a “robust”³ public option, I think, don’t see the bigger picture. Last year at this time there was nothing like this. There was no single payer bill or a public option bill or anything. So, no, it’s not liberal enough—I agree with that—but it’s better than what we had a year ago. It’s better than people getting kicked off their insurance for having acne when they were 17 or becoming “uninsurable” because they’ve got an autoimmune disease or people losing their jobs because their employer can’t afford the rising premiums—because the employee has something as mundane as diabetes. These kinds of things—and worse—have been happening for years! If we killed this initiative because it wasn’t perfectly progressive then, FUCK!, we’d be stuck in that same position with the goddamned insurance companies and their republican/blue dog lackeys living high off American lives.

So, yes, it’s better than what we had. And, yes, I’m praying that it passes the Senate and that Obama will sign it. Because once that becomes law we can fight to expand it and to strip it of it’s exclusions and work to end the stranglehold insurance companies have on this country. We need to get that one foot in the door so that we can properly break that motherfucker down and get what we really want.

You know, it wasn’t until 2009 that women were guaranteed, by law, equal pay for equal work in this country. That’s been one little step at a time too. That’s how we do shit in this country. That’s how we’ve always done it. All or nothing has never gotten us anywhere. So, I don’t exactly understand the sentiment. I understand the principle and wanting single payer or bust. I’m 100% in favor of nationalized health. Oh yes. But I’ve seen how far this has come. The ups and downs and ins and the pulling of the hair… oh wait.  No one likes anything new until they get a little taste of it. And this is our taste. Let the idiots have a little taste and they’ll love it and then we can move on to getting more.

Right now, I’m being completely selfish in my joy for this bill’s passing. I’m not ashamed to admit it. One of my favorite provisions is employer mandated coverage. I love that for purely personal reasons (which I won’t relate right now, but if I remember I’ll write a post on it). I’ve got no doubts that insurance companies will find a way through some loopholes, but I think they’ll end up pushing the naysayers over to our side with that kind of behavior.

You know, Lil’lady and TheMan are covered by socialist healthcare programs: Lil’lady by Healthy Start and TheMan by the VA. I don’t have to worry about either of them if they get seriously ill because they will receive the care they need. I want that for the rest of America. I really do. This is one step in that direction. I suppose if I qualified for medicaid or the VA benefits I might think differently about the parts of this bill that are so objectionable. But I don’t. I’m a little jealous of their insurance plans and pissed off that we even need insurance plans. And I’m irritated that my man, Dennis Kucinich, would rather throw everything down the drain because his amendment wasn’t added (for his “principals”) than cheer for this tiny, tiny victory. I’m sorry, Dennis, that single payer isn’t an option and won’t be for a long time. But can’t you be just a little bit happy that we’ve finally made some progress? I’m not behind him on this one.

And so, I’ve become a rambling, jumbled mess now. My bad. I’ve gone on too long and forgotten where I was going. Next time I’ll do an outline and work from that. Ha! So, yay for our side and a big ol’ SUCKIT to John Boner, er, Boehner. A-men and good night.

1. Medicaid is opt-out and not a single state has chosen to do so.
2. This will change to oil companies when it comes time to debate climate change legislation.
3. I wish someone would kill that word at this point.

Goldberg, in a genius observations, tells the world that what Polanski did wasn’t “rape-rape”.

Polanski was 44 years old when he took his victim to someone else’s house (Jack Nicholson’s) for a photo shoot. He proceeded to give her champagne and part of a Quaalude¹ and then take her to bed—where he proceeded to anally rape her because she couldn’t remember when her last period was. There are transcripts of her grand jury testimony available online—and Polanski admitted that he did commit these acts on this child.

But, because the child and her family didn’t want a drawn out trial, he was offered a deal in which he would only be sentenced to time served (42 or 44 days… whichever). The judge, who many are making out to be a publicity seeking monster, didn’t agree to it. He decided it wasn’t enough time. You know what? I agree with that assessment. And you know what else? Judge’s are allowed to deny the plea agreement. This one was crap. Polanski didn’t like that so he fled the country.

During his time in “exile” he had a relationship with 15 year-old Natassja Kinski, made numerous films, won awards, and lived like a free man. He was not suffering because he couldn’t come to the States to receive his Academy Award or because he had to accept another award on a boat in international waters—so he could avoid arrest for fleeing the country. He lived it up for all those years. Boo-fucking-hoo that his time ran out.

He raped a child and then proceeded to become a fugitive. Guess what? He committed more than one crime there. He should be prosecuted for both. Sorry, but just because he’s an old man and had a “hard life” doesn’t excuse either crime. If he was so worried about the sentencing, he probably would have gotten a sweet deal from the appeal.

But back to that bastion of intellectual superiority, Whoopi Goldberg. She completely ignores the evidence of what Polanski did (as do most of his supporters) and stands by him based on what he pled to. Sure, she said “no” and didn’t want him to stick his penis in her anus, but hey, things were different back then. Sure he took advantage of a drugged and crying child, but society was different back then. Sure he fled his punishment, but he was going to be punished and how unfair was that?

Yeah, things were different back then. Grown men could have sex with children and normally got away with the crime. This one didn’t. How fucking shameful! Fuck that noise.

How can anyone condone what this man admitted to doing? How can anyone read what he did to that little girl and say “well, you know, it wasn’t really rape and he did serve time and his wife was murdered and…”? No, his victim doesn’t want to continue with the trauma of what happened. She’s moved on. But never does she say that what he did to her—after she said “no”—wasn’t “rape-rape”. She called him gross and disgusting and pretty much says that if it weren’t for the media combing through her life, she’d like to see him go to prison. She advises that perhaps he should’ve stayed around and took his medicine then. Maybe he wouldn’t be going through this now (can you believe that shit?) and maybe she wouldn’t have to relive what he did to her. Well, no fucking shit. Her biggest issue is the fucking media.

And motherfucking idiots like Whoopi Goldberg and anyone else that gives a child rapist a free pass because he’s an “arteest” and because “well, he pled to a lesser charge” and because “he was in horrible exile in France for all those years” needs a slap upside the fucking head. Fuck him and fuck them. If he was just some schmuck off the streets, they’d be screaming for his dick on the end of a string. They wouldn’t be finding reasons why his crime should go unpunished. But he’s spayshul and so they do. Fuck those piece-of-shit rape apologists hard.

I hope this motherfucker goes to prison, gets anally raped and develops a case of burning fucking gonorrhea. And, no, I’m not worried about my karma for wishing bad things on this idiot—he deserves it.

1. Someone mentioned that it was "only champagne and a sliver of a lude so it wasn’t enough to make anyone loopy", except two depressant drugs mixed together inside a 13 year-old child would, I dunno, make her fucking loopy.

This could, of course, turn into a rant against child abuse. I could explain why I’m so thin-skinned and emotional when it comes to stories about child abuse. I don’t like to hear babies cry, I cry when children fall down, and all kinds of other stuff that generally doesn’t make sense. Instead I’m going to use this spot to give thanks to the social workers and other professionals who had to see Angelo and take care of him and help him. They signed up for their jobs and these people face these horrific situations all the time. I think that anyone who voluntarily signs up for that kind of job is a hero of sorts. They have the heart of angels for taking care of these poor children without running home and hiding from the horror.

Angelo needed someone to take care of him before his father destroyed his life, that’s true. But laws favor keeping the family together, blah blah blah and it didn’t happen. So, Angelo suffered and someone had to go in and pick up his pieces. Those folks volunteered for their jobs to take care of children (and adults) with whom they have no personal relationship, but who desperately need someone to care for them. Witnessing this kind of child abuse could send anyone over the edge and I know I couldn’t deal with it. I can’t deal with it right now as I’m just thinking of Angelo and what he endured at the hands of that monster. I can’t even imagine being the paramedic or cop first on the scene. I can’t imagine being the person to actually hear the little voice say his daddy at his eyes out. I can’t imagine being strong enough to hold myself together to be able to help that little guy. And these folks do it every day. Bravo to them.¹

One piece of this health care “debate”² is the opposition saying that there won’t be doctors to take care of folks, because doctors will somehow stop caring about people when the government pays their bills. The opposition says that doctors will retire and run for the hills. Or that’s it’s unfair to the doctor’s “liberty” to force him/her into working on people who use the public option (I’ve heard this argument when I say I believe health care is a human right). “It’s unfair to the doctors”, they say. “Who will do their job?” they ask. Each time I see this I think of:

• Fire fighters
• Police officers
• Health inspectors
• Social Workers
• Teachers
• Road crews³

There are more, I know, but that’s my list. All the professions on that list are occupied by people that have volunteered to do the jobs. Every one of them. The people that arrived after a 9-1-1 call, to take care of Angelo, were paid by the state to come. They were paid by the state to wrap him up and take him to the hospital and to make sure he found a good, decent home to be released to. The people that took care of Angelo after his father tortured him were working off the public dole. They work in socialist programs. And they should be applauded for volunteering to do those jobs. No one forced them to suffer the trauma they must have suffered when they took care of this little guy. No one forced them to take up these careers and yet they did. Why? Because they care about people.

Why do people expect that doctors will suddenly stop caring about people because those people aren’t paying $1000 a month for the premiums? Why do people think that the doctor’s will suddenly become enslaved, lose their liberty and run for some other profession? Maybe we’d lose the doctors that are only in it for the money and to them I say “Good riddance”. Those that are left will perhaps feel a little restricted by government oversight, but not any more than they are with the insurance companies. Imagine being forced to deny a girl a liver transplant because your hands are tied by the insurance company⁴. Imagine watching a cancer patient die because the insurance (and hospital) bureaucrats won’t allow treatments due to lack of insurance. These doctors—most of them—care about the people they treat and they want them to be well. Just like the teacher wants to teach and the police officer wants to protect. Sure, there are idiots in all of these professions, but the majority are good people trying to do good in their communities.

They volunteer for their jobs and so will doctors and nurses and all of their staff—even when the government cuts the pay checks. That’s the gist of my argument here, by the way. Giving us public health care won’t cause the doctors to run for the hills, just like having public schools didn’t cause teachers to go on permanent vacation. I actually can’t find any valid arguments against public health insurance, but these that cry that it’s unfair to doctors, especially, are asinine. I can’t imagine a world where I can’t get help via 9-1-1 and I’d like to feel the same way about being able to afford to go to the doctor.

Someone had this analogy recently:

If you get into an accident on the highway, the police will rope off the area to prevent further accidents—at no cost to you—and the fire department will use the jaws of life to remove you from your car—at no cost to you—but the minute you’re strapped to a gurney you’re charged $1,500. What’s wrong with that picture?

I’m grateful that tax-payer dollars were used to pay the people who helped Angelo and who work every day to help other people. And I thank all that’s good and holy that those people and the millions like them, step up and voluntarily work in those positions. Now I think it’s time for my tax-dollars to pay the people who voluntarily work in the medical field to take care of more than just a tiny portion of the population. Medicare for all and all that jazz.

1. Angelo will be fine, considering the circumstance and that’s wonderful
2. Or Shout Down, if you will.
3. Doesn’t fit with the helpful civil servant theme generally, but someone’s working on my street right now and it’s in my head.
4. She was later approved after a public uproar, but too late to save her. She died.

A couple of months ago, we borrowed $2,000 from a family member (to pay off some bills) and put the check in the bank. Now, we chose to put the money in my account because we knew that TheMan’s bank would hold the check as they’ve done so in the past when we deposited that kind of money. The thing about TheMan’s bank is that they will tell you that they’re holding the check so that you don’t charge any money against it thereby avoiding overdraft penalties. The teller at Chase didn’t tell us that the check would be held and, in fact, said it would be available at the normal time (usually within 2 days). So, we wrote a big check against it and a couple of days later started using the money.

The online form told me that I had this money available to me and that the charges were "pending" against the money. There is nothing odd about that. So I didn’t see any problems. And then it happened. The bank took away $1900 from our "available funds" and started charging us insufficient funds fees for everything that was "pending previously". I was livid. But I had to get money in the bank to cover that big check. It was important and I didn’t want it to be returned. So, we borrowed more money to take care of the fees and the check and ran to Chase to put the money in. Altogether we put in over $600. We were told that everything was fine and that they would take of everything and blah blah blah. She said that the money was held because there wasn’t a history of such transactions in my account and they wanted to make sure the funds were available. Ok, why weren’t we informed of this? It’s our responsibility to know, she said. Fuck off, I thought.

The next day I went online to look at my account as I was going to call to have those charges cancelled and returned. There was yet another insufficient funds fee and a returned check fee. The check had come in, but my deposits had been listed as "pending" and so didn’t cover the check. What the fuck? The money I’d put in there the day before was deposited before 2pm and so should have posted to my account immediately. Instead, they waited and the check was returned. I was beyond livid at this point and was ready to beat the fuck out of someone. I chose to call the bank instead.

The idiot I talked to told me that it was my fault that we incurred the fees because it says right on the deposit slip that the money wouldn’t be available. She said they don’t have to tell us because it’s on the slip. I told her that the fucking print on the deposit slip was microscopic and that it said "Funds may not be available for immediate withdrawal" not "You’ve got to wait 10 flippin’ days for your money". I said we made a good faith effort to get money in the bank before that check came in and that it shouldn’t have been returned, that our deposit was made before 2pm and should have been available immediately. I asked her what her excuse was for that. She said that the check had been "pending" prior to our deposits and since it was in first they charged my account before they put the money in. Motherfuckers.

She then told me, I kid you not, that I should be glad they covered our debit transactions and we were saved the embarrassment of returned check fees. That’s when I lost my temper. I should be glad that they conned me out of over $600? That they saved me the embarrassment of returned check fees? I said to her:

"Can you see my account right now? Are your glasses foggy? Because I’m looking at a returned check right now. How dare you tell me that I should be glad of anything right now when it is your institution that is causing me this grief. How dare you tell me that you’ve saved me anything. I deposited $2,000 in your bank and you failed to tell me it wouldn’t be available for 2 fucking weeks. The money was there and you caused me more money in overdraft fees. And you tell me I should be glad?"

She tells me that it’s my fault there were fees and that there was nothing more she could do. Great customer service, huh? So I tell her I want the dispute resolution number. She says "Ma’am, there is no such number." I say she better find it, because I know that there is such a number in a corporation like Chase. She says the only number she has is the customer service numer and starts rattling it off. I hang up on her. I go online and visit my friend Google. Sure enough, I find the corporate executive services number at The Consumerist and I call it.

I talk to some nice lady named Heather and explain to her what happened. She pulls up my account and agrees that I made a good-faith effort to make sure that check was covered. She also agrees that the teller should have informed us of Chase’s 11-day hold policy of higher-funds checks. Then I tell her about my conversation with Lisa. Now, I was calmer at this point, but still irate that that heiffer had the fucking audacity to tell me I should be glad about anything that was happening. Heather says to me" "She really said that? Oh my god, that’s terrible." Then next thing I know Heather is cheerfully reversing all of the overdraft fees and the return check fee. Unfortunately, she couldn’t return the fee we incurred from the bank that sent the check back, but that was only $20, so whatever. I was glad to be done with it.

But a couple of days later (it’s already been about 5-6 days since we deposited the money) we get a letter from Chase. It’s an automated form letter. It says that our check was held because of the amount it was written for and that it would be released in 11 days. It also said that if we were to incur any insuffiencent funds or returned check fees because the check was held then Chase would gladly reverse the charges. Well, wasn’t that nice to get after everything was settled.

What happened next? Well, I wasn’t letting Lisa off the hook that easily. I took that check straight to her branch and asked her to please return the $20 the other bank charged us (I knew she couldn’t, of course, as I’d already talked about that with Heather). I said it was indeed embarrassing to have that check return, even though she so valiantly tried to save us from that embarrassment, but we still incurred the charges. I handed her the letter and then she opened my account.

"All the charges have already been reversed," She said to me. I’m pretty sure she was losing it, because she sounded like she was speaking through a straw. Her face was white and her hands were shaking. I was smiling because, well, I was glad to see that reaction. I told that I knew that because after I’d gotten off the phone with her I’d immediately called executive customer services and they fixed that. Now I wanted that other fixed. She said she couldn’t do that. I said "Seems like you can’t do a lot of things, huh? But they get done anyway." I told her to have a great day, took my letter from her and left. Yes, I was glad I ruined her morning.¹

So that was my experience with overdraft fees that are making my bank rich. Thankfully I was able to get it taken care of, because I don’t have that kind of money shooting out of my asshole like some people. And I was terribly satisfied with rubbing it in Lisa’s face– and my husband’s because he thought I couldn’t get anything done. I do thank Heather, though, because she was pretty awesome and took quick care of my problem. And, no, I won’t be depositing anymore big money into their bank.

Here’s the clip from "The Daily Show":

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1. This all happened in June.