Raising money for a worthy charity is a good thing. Raising awareness about a (currently) incurable disease that afflicts 30,000 people in the U.S. and many more worldwide, is a good thing. Encouraging people to think about the needs of others is a good thing. Doing all this using social blackmail that is guaranteed to… Read More »
To: openinternet@fcc.gov Subject: Internet must remain open To the commissioners: Those who object to regulating internet service providers to ensure an open internet, as the FCC is currently proposing to do, adhere to the rigid political philosophy that regulation, by definition, stifles competition, innovation, growth, etc. However, this philosophy is only even theoretically true when… Read More »
Dear T-Mobile, In my life, I am blessed in many ways. I have a wonderful family; I am part of several great communities; I have a good job I love with people I respect and learn from every day; I have a roof over my head and enough food to eat. However, like many other… Read More »
On Wednesday night, April 16, 2014, after our minivan sat idle for two days while we celebrated the beginning of the holiday of Passover, I went out to run an errand and found a sodden, disintegrating advertisement from “Beantown AutoMobile [sic] Detailing” stuck between the driver’s side window and its lower rubber gasket. When I… Read More »
For many years, I’ve been working assiduously to rid my (postal) mailbox of junk mail. The ongoing damage to the environment caused by the many tons of junk mail sent every day to people who don’t even bother to look at it is offensive, and want nothing to do with it. I wrote back in… Read More »
Dear Avi, “You know what the great thing is about owning your own business? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” That’s what you told me this morning when your food truck arrived 10 minutes past its scheduled opening time and still hadn’t opened 10 minutes after that. That’s what you told… Read More »
What would you say if I told you that there’s a Boston business that adds more than 34 tons per week of trash to the City of Boston’s waste stream*, trash that the residents of Boston end up paying to dispose of to the tune of >$100,000 per year**? What would you say if I… Read More »
To: Boston Herald home delivery department Subject: Rude sales call from Boston Herald My wife and I (you can find us in your records under our home phone number [elided]) are no longer Boston Herald subscribers. We currently have no desire to resume our subscription. Since we canceled our subscription, your sales department has called… Read More »
Because I am a boring old fuddy-duddy, I was spending the minutes leading up to the New Year trying to reconcile my 2013 medical flexible spending account (FSA), i.e., to match up the FSA transactions listed on the Paychex web site with those listed in my financial management software and confirm that there were no… Read More »
A reader of my blog who wishes to remain anonymous has shared with me this update on the Macular Degeneration Association, about which I’ve written previously, and asked me to share it on his behalf. Below is what he sent me, in full and without modification.