If You Can Find a Better Deal . . .

In the two-plus years I've been writing this blog I've never quoted or referred to Ann Coulter. Even though she's a political conservative, I've never been a huge fan of her style—just a "different strokes" kind of thing. But her response to liberals who had conniptions over a statement made by Brit Hume on Fox recently is well worth reading. In case you missed it, Hume had some advice for Tiger Woods: (paraphrasing) "Instead of Buddhism, Tiger should turn to Christianity to receive the forgiveness and redemption he needs." Horrors! Hume said that on a television political talk show?

I laughed out loud when I saw the video of Hume's statement a few days ago, knowing he was about to be pilloried. And he was.

That was all Ann Coulter needed. She took the liberals to task who argued for the "separation of church and television" and exhorted them (and us), "If you can find a better deal [than Christianity], take it." Preach it, girl.

Her article is on the front page of her web site now. It may be moved to the running archive list on the side of the home page by the time you get there. Look for it by the title, "If you can find a better deal, take it."

Worm in the Apple

It was brought to my attention by a credit/debit card monitoring company this morning that some unusual activity had appeared on my bank debit card in the last couple days. Indeed, eight charges at three different companies: Yahoo, HostGator.com, and Apple's MobileMe -- somebody registering a bunch of domain names and setting up web sites, etc. Between my bank and the three companies, three of the four provided excellent responses to the situation. In the spirit of noting great customer service, my public thanks go to:

Citizens South Bank—my small, community based bank in Stallings, NC (cited on NBC Nightly News a few months ago as one of the most financially sound banks in the country). They immediately cancelled my card and requested a new one along with guidance on "what to do next."

Yahoo—in a matter of minutes by phone they found the bogus charges, cancelled them, and promised immediate reimbursement to my debit card.

HostGator.com—a web hosting company in Houston. Likewise, they found the bogus charge and promised an immediate refund.

But there was a worm in the Apple. Granted, this is a gazillion-dollar company, but still. There was no indication of who to call for such help on their Contact Us page. A call to Customer Service directed me to a web page where I entered into a live chat with a MobileMe agent who concluded they couldn't do anything to help. "You need to file a charge dispute form through your bank", etc etc.

Since the Apple charge was only $1.13 I'll probably not invest the time pursuing it. (The charges at the other companies amounted to hundreds of dollars.)

Kudos to my bank, Yahoo, and HostGator.com for excellent customer service. Apple—you should treat your lifelong customers more intelligently.

(Oh—and for the guy with the different accent who called early this morning to tell me about the activity on my card, sorry for not taking the call. I thought it was a telemarketer—"Hello . . . followed by 10 seconds of silence" until he mispronounced my name -- typical telemarketer signals. But I heard enough to call my bank to verify the activity. So—sorry, guy! And thanks for calling. I'll listen longer next time.)

"The Year in Meat: 2009"

I haven't been a regular reader of Erik Marcus' Vegan.com blog, but I plan to start. He not only writes this blog but is the author of The Ultimate Vegan Guide and Meat Market: Animals, Ethics, and Money.

On his blog he has posted a 5,000 word piece titled "The Year in Meat: 2009" which is a summary of noteworthy events in publishing, industry, media, and other venues related to animal welfare, veganism, factory farming, etc. It's a quick and easy read and is filled with more than 175 links to relevant books, films, news items, web sites, and other resources that he mentions. A quick perusal revealed things I (not surprisingly) missed via the MSM—such as the attempt by some agribusiness leaders to prevent Washington State University from making Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma required reading for 4,000 entering freshmen. When word of the censorship attempt got around, a WSU alumnus paid for the books and ensured they were made available. Or the gifts of beef by Texas cattlemen to fire houses in Texas after Austin, TX, firefighter Rip Esselstyn's vegan diet book, The Engine 2 Diet, began making national headlines.

These and many other 2009 events are covered in Erik Marcus' year-end review.

New from Kathy Freston

Author, lecturer, vegan, and Huffington Post blogger Kathy Freston has two new blog posts, both worth reading.

1. "Top 10 (Recent) Developments on Factory Farming and Vegetarianism."

In this article she highlights 10 recent developments in the world of animal welfare, things like Al Gore finally acknowledging the role of meat consumption on climate change, Martha Stewart promoting a vegetarian Thanksgiving, and others. One she could have left off—or cited as a negative development—was Cargill's new offering of a non-dairy cheese. Just what we need in the grocery store aisles—another collection of processed chemicals and "stuff" resulting in a non-food food product. Cargill's own press release doesn't say what's in it, only that it was produced by their patented "Lygomme ACH Optimum functional system." Sounds delish! Sorry, Kathy -- can't agree with you on this one.

2. "Flue Season: Factory Farming Could Cause A Catastrophic Pandemic."

This article is the transcript of Freston's interview with Dr. Michael Greger about his book Bird Flu—A Virus of Our Own Hatching (available to be read in its entirety online here). I'm a big fan of Dr. Greger who is a committed vegan and Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at The Humane Society of the United States. He is a published author in many scientific journals and has lectured widely on health and animal agriculture. He was even called as an expert witness in Oprah Winfrey's defense when she was sued by the "meat industry" for remarks she made about eating meat on her show (a case she won). Every year Dr. Greger surveys thousands of journal articles looking for the best research related to diet and health and presents the results in an annual DVD (three so far). (He comes at the research from a scientists perspective, but the conclusions in the research literature are always the same: a balanced, whole food, plant-based diet is healthiest.) He has a terrific, dry sense of humor and makes these annual DVD's really fun to watch. (Dr. Greger's web site is here.) In this interview with Kathy Freston he talks about how factory farming is a pandemic waiting to happen because of the ideal virus incubation conditions provided by the close confinement of animals.

Small World

Received a nice note from a lady who found the post I wrote back in August about the sinking of the HMT Rohna, the British troopship sunk by the Germans in the Mediterranean Sea in World War II (Nov 26, 1943). My dad was on that ship and was one of the few Americans to survive. (Of the 1,138 men lost, 1,015 were Americans.) The sinking of the Rohna remains the single largest lost of American troops at sea in any war.

(I smile thinking that no hardheaded Dutchman like my dad was about to let a lousy Luftwaffe pilot consign him to the briny deep—and the fact that he was an excellent swimmer. Not to mention the fact that he still had conception work to do after the War—me!)

The lady who wrote me said that her father was a crew member on the USS Pioneer, an American minesweeper that was one of the first ships to come to the aid of the Rohna survivors and which rescued most of them. She wondered if our fathers might have met. However, Daddy was rescued by a British cargo ship, SS Clan Campbell, so it's not likely they met.

Thanks to the Internet for making these unlikely connections happen—another small stitch in the tapestry of life.

[When I get a minute I'll post the article daddy wrote and submitted to Reader's Digest magazine years ago (they declined to publish it) about the sinking of the Rohna and later working side-by-side at NASA with the German scientist who developed the airborne torpedo that sunk his ship.]

"Ten Technologies that Will Rock 2010"

Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch.com discusses 10 technologies -- all web and mobile related -- that should make a splash this year.