Cancel The Account....

Once Upon A Time in a business environment far, far away, customers were considered to be an essential, vital, necessary, mandatory components which could make or break a company’s reputation. Way back then, companies were actually concerned, as difficult as it to imagine, about Word-of-Mouth – what was said about them between neighbors talking over backyard fences or hedges, or positive and negative experiences shared by families or friends at social gatherings was considered to be extremely important. “The Customer Is Always Right” has devolved into “The Customer Is Always Wrong”.

When I was experiencing my nightmare with Sears and their Never-Intended-To-Give-Customers-Their-Rebate Non-Program, I wish I had had the creativity of Vinny Ferrarri who had his fill of AOL’s Customer Non-Service. Ferrarri recorded his conversation with AOL’s call center rep who, I have to say, does a tremendous job representing all there is to despise about today’s corporate America.

Dangerous Crocs

And no, I’m not referring to the sharp-toothed creature in the Order Crocodylia, but instead, to the soft-sided clog that has taken feet by storm. Everyone in my family owns a pair, with the exception of our youngest, 8, who has enough motor-skill issues without adding flopping shoes to the mix. After reading about severe injuries suffered by a 3-year-old Croc-wearing-girl, when her foot became entrapped by an escalator, I’m thinking all our Crocs are best worn only at home.

Was the awful incident, which I imagine terrified the poor little girl, a fluke? Not according to the U.S. Product Safety Commissioner’s May 13, 2008 report which claims,

Worldwide Hunger Speculation Driven

Multinationals make billions in profit out of growing global food crisis

Speculators blamed for driving up price of basic foods as 100 million face severe hunger

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Sunday, 4 May 2008

Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry.

The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world’s poor – who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food – into hunger and destitution.

The World Bank says that 100 million more people are facing severe hunger. Yet some of the world’s richest food companies are making record profits. Monsanto last month reported that its net income for the three months up to the end of February this year had more than doubled over the same period in 2007, from $543m (£275m) to $1.12bn. Its profits increased from $1.44bn to $2.22bn.

20,000 Leagues Beyond Public School

Yesterday morning, while I was making breakfast, Daniel asked, “Mama, may I read to you while you cook”. So formal and grown-up! I smiled, telling him I would be more than happy to have him read while I cooked. He pulled “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, out from behind his back announcing that I was “going to be for a real treat because this is my favorite!”

Not wanting to discourage him, I made sounds of approval, but my mind was busy planning coping strategies when he found the reading too advanced, causing him to become agitated, a not-uncommon response given his Asperger’s.

He opened it up to the first chapter, and I whisked my eggs.

“_The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and puzzling phen……phen……phen-o-men-on……”

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Magnicient. Superb. Brilliant. True to C.S. Lewis who I believe would have been very pleased. It left us all dreamy and me, teary-eyed, and my dear husband with a lump in his throat. All it took was for Aslan to finally appear (yes, even that is true to the book that it seemed to take him forever for the Lord to finally appear – and how much more “real life can THAT get??) and when he finally did, we were sniffling and holding hands., relieved to know the fragile humans had not been abandoned, even in their unbelief.

The only problem with the movie? It only lasted 2:24 and it could easily have gone another 2:30. My husband said he’s sad we’ve seen it – that leaving the theater was anticlimactic and that he could easily go back to see it again. He also said it is “the movie he has always wanted to see and has been waiting a lifetime to see….”. And I don’t think he meant JUST about Narnia, but any movie.

The Good Life

The following story is so delightful that I won’t waste much time jabbering about how much I’d love to relocate to the village in the article. An entire village, mind you, just shy of a few residents who don’t “get it”, combining their efforts in order to raise their own healthy food. Enough is enough, of plastic, genetically modified, chemical-laden industrialized food. Knowing the French and British have no love lost between them, I’m sure they’d let me move over there and join right in if I were to mutter, “Darn the French for having invented the industrialized canning process! Let’s show them what real food is about! Hand me a hoe!”

No Nanotechnology Silver Lining

Profitability seems to win out over safety. Even when preliminary research showed nanoparticles caused brain damage to fish, or had a potential to cause environmental damage, nanoparticles were integrated in a wide variety of products, outdistancing the governments ability to respond with EPA regulations or product labeling requirements.

Two years ago, silver nanoparticles were placed in and on a wide range of products, with many people have unknowingly used – lotions and sunscreens, for example. Two years ago, it was frustrating to watch what looked to be mad scientists repeating the insanity of Big Pharma and the food industry which has found it is better to forge ahead and be sued later.

Pyrex In Name Only

Life would be substantially more difficult without standards. -Rafael Aguayo

I have no clue who the fellow is, credited with the quote. I just know that right now, in light of what I just discovered about Pyrex, it’s a great quote.

I grew up with Pyrex. The same Pyrex measuring set that my mother used as a newlywed, several years before I was born, was the very same Pyrex that I used to make my first cake when I was 11 years old. Decades later, the very same measuring cups are still being used, as good as the day they were purchased other than a little wear and tear on the bottoms – typical for glassware.

I still have my original Pyrex 1-cup measuring glass, purchased when I got my first apartment. It has been used in the microwave, used to melt liquids by sitting on an open flame, has fallen in the sink, on the floor, off the counter and it doesn’t have a scratch.

Superbugs: Antibiotic Resistance

In the past 50 years, antibiotics have been critical in the fight against many diseases and infections. Their discovery was one of the leading causes for the dramatic rise of average life expectancy in the 20th century and their significance to public health would be impossible to overstate. Antibiotics are defined as any compound which either kills or severely impedes the growth of bacteria. Upon the introduction of penicillin into general clinical practice in 1944, formerly deadly illnesses such as Strep throat and tuberculosis became instantly curable. Today, our dependence on antibiotics is absolute. In 1998, in the United States, it was estimated that there were 80 million prescriptions of antibiotics for human use, the equivalent of about 12,500 tons in one year. When animal and agricultural uses of antibiotics are added to human use, it is estimated that in the past 50 years, more than 1 million tons have been produced and disseminated.

Iodine Should Replace Antibiotics

Eventually antibiotics are going to be seen as one of the worst things to ever come out of pharmaceutical science because in the end, they have made us only weaker in the face of ever increasingly strong super bugs that are resistant to all the antibiotics doctors have at their disposal.

When we look at how deep the rabbit hole goes with antibiotics, we will get sick in our souls. Antibiotics have fulfilled their anti–biotic anti-life role leaving a long trail of death and suffering in the wake of their use.

Diseases include measles, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, pneumonia, influenza, whooping cough, diphtheria and polio. All were in decline for several decades before the introduction of antibiotics or vaccines – Dr. Lawrence Wilson.