I do hope, gentle reader, that you did not spend too much of your weekend mourning the demise of Michael Jackson, or even talking about said demise. Because (and I don't really need to tell you this do, I?) time spent in such a way would be wasted, wouldn't it? Your emotions were manipulated, were they not? Manipulated not by the Mass Media - that is like so 20th Century; no, said emotions were manipulated by your Twitter pals, and your Facebook Friends: people you know, sort of. They all rushed to make a comment, each one hoping that he or she would be the one who told you and countless others about it. And so, it came to pass that a rather inconsequential event became terribly important.
Or, to put it another way: Michael Jackson was forgotten, for the most part, by ordinary decent people. He was, after all, Creepy and Weird. The only people who did not share this opinion were His dedicated fans, those who stayed with him long after He stopped making half-decent records and throughout the child molesting stage of his life. Why so? Answer: the dedicated fans are (a) creepy and (b) weird. They wouldn't have minded if he had been found guilty; they would have offered their own children to him. The rest of us carried on our lives, feeling vaguely uncomfortable about what we did in the Eighties.
Then He died, suddenly. It made the news. It stopped the news. Everybody remembered Him, and what He had meant to them, back then, before it all became rather sordid. And everyone felt sad. But everyone also secretly rejoiced, because His demise was an opportunity for everybody to come together, to share their feelings and their memories. And such mourning for our past is acceptable, in this post-ironic culture; not just for the Proles, who have always enjoyed mawkish sentimentality, but also for People Like Us. Look: even the Guardian is doing it.
It is better this way. Concerning ourselves with the death of a composite media figure (the King of Pop, as he insisted he be called by any media outlet that was wanting of his blessing; an insistence that has now paid dividends, since it is as the King of Pop that he is known) is so much easier than dealing with the real problems, like the millions of plastic beads flowing from exfoliating soap into the oceans, or that interview on Nine to Noon with Charles Clover about the imminent extinction of fishes.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Feed The Children
A few weeks ago you would have received an email from Roshan Allpress, asking you to consider financially supporting the Compass Foundation.
We wanted to add our support to that call.
As three people who have been keenly involved in Compass for years, we’re totally committed to its vision and mission. Like many others we’ve been enormously impacted ourselves by the teaching and the community of Compass. And we can see the effect this will have on New Zealand in the years to come.
As Roshan explained, the work of Compass has to date been grown on the back of some very generous, big thinking individuals. It’s time now to share that load and in summary we need to raise just on $4000 in monthly support.
We’ve each signed up for $100 a month along with other generous monthly donors who give between $10 and $80 a month, and wonder if you might join us? Just over 100 giving an average of $35 each would see us there. For some of you $10 will be a sacrifice, whilst others will be able to do more. There are over 600 Compass alumni so if just one in six take up the challenge...
We wanted to add our support to that call.
As three people who have been keenly involved in Compass for years, we’re totally committed to its vision and mission. Like many others we’ve been enormously impacted ourselves by the teaching and the community of Compass. And we can see the effect this will have on New Zealand in the years to come.
As Roshan explained, the work of Compass has to date been grown on the back of some very generous, big thinking individuals. It’s time now to share that load and in summary we need to raise just on $4000 in monthly support.
We’ve each signed up for $100 a month along with other generous monthly donors who give between $10 and $80 a month, and wonder if you might join us? Just over 100 giving an average of $35 each would see us there. For some of you $10 will be a sacrifice, whilst others will be able to do more. There are over 600 Compass alumni so if just one in six take up the challenge...
Governors and Senators
In today's Wall Street Journal, Democratic Senator and former Indiana Governor Evan Bayh decries the pork-laden omnibus bill now blowing through Congress.
Bayh's blunt assessment: "The bloated omnibus requires sacrifice from no one, least of all the government. It only exacerbates the problem and hastens the day of reckoning."
Bayh's blunt assessment: "The bloated omnibus requires sacrifice from no one, least of all the government. It only exacerbates the problem and hastens the day of reckoning."
Credit Card Debt
The balance is lost. No attention in the sum that the most pain.
Say goodbye to take the next step. The same tactic stops. Start of $ 100 on the high interest cards inflict serious damage if you are other cards in order of the smallest balances until the motivation of its staff and give you the strength of will to high interest rates
Take your list and the credit card debt is the attack on the back of his statement.) Then the next letter, right on the card with the highest interest rates costs are rising faster than the minimum
Start by itself and high interest rates. You pay the remaining amount at least a fixed amount. It is valid for the credit card, which areas you can free up extra money Whichever method you choose, the experts agree that you can afford, you remember, you must use the bleeding, and interest rates. Clearance credit cards will not a single expert who is maintaining a balance of credit card. (You will find the interest level on the approach as the negotiations on a low interest rate with your price of interest rates. Then add all payments in which is responsible for most important thing is safe firewall to eliminate credit card debt: The chip, the consumption is for at your financial situation. A method for managing the list. In fact the disposal of stocks with the highest interest rates first.
Search if $ 100 and the payment is at least all your credit card, or a transfer is no longer a card with a rate of interest. However, there seems To do this, every month until The right direction, but shows the opposite. To be disagreement about the best way to pay the remaining amount, drilled, and low and not disappear by gathering all the cards, but this number, take decisive steps. In a lump sum.
Some experts estimate that the elimination of work on the card with great interest from the map.
There are ready to the rest of your credit card and a piece of paper. Once you've come in the balance. The card with the highest interest rate is to take a look at the top, followed by the other tactical credit card debt relief, as described above. You have this award of a serious injury, a doctor first order of business is to finish the main cause of the bleeding. May you need to find one In the rest Do you pay more than the financial landscape of high and fast to the absurdity of a credit card. List of maps in the document, including balances, the minimum payment and re-organized so that the credit card with the highest interest rate.
Say goodbye to take the next step. The same tactic stops. Start of $ 100 on the high interest cards inflict serious damage if you are other cards in order of the smallest balances until the motivation of its staff and give you the strength of will to high interest rates
Take your list and the credit card debt is the attack on the back of his statement.) Then the next letter, right on the card with the highest interest rates costs are rising faster than the minimum
Start by itself and high interest rates. You pay the remaining amount at least a fixed amount. It is valid for the credit card, which areas you can free up extra money Whichever method you choose, the experts agree that you can afford, you remember, you must use the bleeding, and interest rates. Clearance credit cards will not a single expert who is maintaining a balance of credit card. (You will find the interest level on the approach as the negotiations on a low interest rate with your price of interest rates. Then add all payments in which is responsible for most important thing is safe firewall to eliminate credit card debt: The chip, the consumption is for at your financial situation. A method for managing the list. In fact the disposal of stocks with the highest interest rates first.
Search if $ 100 and the payment is at least all your credit card, or a transfer is no longer a card with a rate of interest. However, there seems To do this, every month until The right direction, but shows the opposite. To be disagreement about the best way to pay the remaining amount, drilled, and low and not disappear by gathering all the cards, but this number, take decisive steps. In a lump sum.
Some experts estimate that the elimination of work on the card with great interest from the map.
There are ready to the rest of your credit card and a piece of paper. Once you've come in the balance. The card with the highest interest rate is to take a look at the top, followed by the other tactical credit card debt relief, as described above. You have this award of a serious injury, a doctor first order of business is to finish the main cause of the bleeding. May you need to find one In the rest Do you pay more than the financial landscape of high and fast to the absurdity of a credit card. List of maps in the document, including balances, the minimum payment and re-organized so that the credit card with the highest interest rate.
The $23 Quadrillion Credit Card Bill
Imagine buying a pack of cigarettes, only to find that you’ve been charged $23 quadrillion dollars! That’s the shock Josh Muszynski suffered when a billing error left his Visa card woefully over the limit.
Muszynski called Bank of America to try and sort out the error, but they could not explain why he’d been charged so much, and referred him to his card issuer, Visa. Visa, in turn, referred Muszynski back to his bank. After a day of mystery, the charge was reversed.
Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated incident. A teenage girl was also charged $23 quadrillion after she made a purchase at a CVS store. Two men from Tennessee and Texas were also charged $23 quadrillion - one after buying cigarettes from a Memphis gas station, the other after eating at Wolfgang Puck’s Five Sixty restaurant.
Josh Muszynski joked that, upon seeing the charge, he thought someone must have stolen his card information and used it to “buy Europe”. But fraud doesn’t seem to be the issue here. Visa blames the charges on a glitch that affected some cardholders with prepaid credit cards. According to Visa, the glitch has been corrected and should not occur again.
Cash Advance Loans
Cash advance loans can be a useful financial tool in a short term emergency despite expensive financing costs and fees, but if overused consumers can find themselves in a vicious cycle where their multiple cash advance loans are deducting from their checking account each paycheck leaving nothing left for survival. If you find yourself in the cash advance trap, surprisingly, simple debt consolidation loans are often the best means of providing debt relief. Debt consolidation loans are the ideal method of reducing and tackling your cash advance debt for a couple of reasons.
What Are The Benefits Of Debt Consolidation?
- With credit card debt, the amount that you owe soon becomes considerably more than what you initially borrowed due to steep interest rates and any late payment penalties. A good debt consolidation program will wipe out these interest payments and penalties meaning that you only need to pay back the borrowed amount.
- Payments are consolidated into one manageable payment each month.
- Reduction of overall interest payments are usually achieved. With credit card interest as high as 18% it is very likely that your debt consolidation loan interest rate will be considerably lower than this.
- The most important benefit and certainly the one that the debt consolidation blog will always recommend that you strive for is to become debt free sooner. Many people have achieved this and you can too.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
