Gosh it's easy to just be a good person and go about your day with a smile, huh? You don't have to be weary, or on-guard, 'cause between our government and our places of commerce, people sure seem to want to treat each other right. Except of course for that giant segment of our nation and the world that will never stop trying to scam you out of anything you own of value that you forget to clutch and hold close.

I guess you probably should be sorta careful. Maybe some folks aren't so good-hearted.

Like...Hey, how bout that happy letter from Nigeria. Most of us have received one; that e-mail or letter explaining how with a little bit of effort someone wants to mail us a hell of a lot of money. Is that....A SCAM??! Seems like they're almost always from Nigeria. Boy, do I have a good impression of Nigeria.

Certainly the most ubiquitous "soft" scam in the United States is FINE PRINT. When the hell in our legal history or legal system did fine print become superior and fully legitimized to supersede large print? This is ridiculous! If you receive a letter from a business saying in enormous print that for $10 they will give you a sandwich, and then in micro print buried on the back it says, "unless we decide not to", or "only between 2:30 a.m. and 2:31 a.m.", or "unless you have a name" -- somehow that seems to be considered functional! In any advertisement or contract this absolutely seems to be perceived as acceptable and routine. Well, it IS routine, but it's a crock! What if you're shopping and you buy a carton of what says in great big bold letters "MILK", and then getting it home you find on the back (in tiny vertical print) it says, "may actually be urine"??? Actually, in the food industry this is somewhat legitimate to sell intentionally mislabeled food. Think for example, "cheese food". In this case, apparently the word "food" is license for meaning "not what it says it is". That's a curious interpretation of the word "food".

I don't even have the courage to try and think of all the places fine print shows up to rob us and mislead us. And let's not kid ourselves, it's meant to mislead us. That's what it's for! Just think about any monetary contract, insurance agreement, etc. The critical fine print will inevitably be ESCAPE clauses to avoid providing you with what you're paying for. SCAM! At least the solution is not that complicated. New legal ruling: really big print takes precedence over really small print in all legal judgments! Because for some reason, it seems to be the other way around right now, and that's just, well...assbackward!!?!!!

Hey, so, what's this new thingy; "Identity theft"? ...WHEN IS THIS FINALLY GOING TO GET TREATED LIKE THE MONSTER IT IS?!! It's by far and away the most dangerous and likely-to-escalate scam of our day. What do we have to do? I would like to ask; if some hacker is going to do go online and steal social security numbers ANYWAY (for the ultimate purpose of identity theft), please at least target the members of our Senate and House of Representatives. I can't help but think, until these very individuals are themselves targeted en masse, that they just aren't going to take the kind of action which we need right away. We have very serious penalties against kidnapping, but what is identity theft except "virtual kidnapping"? A person could EASILY spend the best part of a year or more trying to climb out of the pit created when their identity is stolen and abused. You can't get on planes, you can't get credit, you can't correct your credit, you can't get the collection agencies to leave you alone; and that's just the beginning. Anyone who has suffered serious identity theft issues could surely tell us of MANY less conspicuous but exasperatingly painful results. I just can't figure out why I should have any patience for this kind of significant and brutal theft. As far as I'm concerned, if someone steals your identity, they should be targeted by a task force as serious as any other task force, and when the perpetrator is caught they should have to become your slave for a term determined by the courts - No less than a year! If that sounds like madness, how about we just re-embrace those public stockades in the town square. We can slap these criminals into the stocks for a month and throw tomatoes at them, fart in their face, whatever. Gosh, I guess I don't sound that tolerant. Wait till it happens to you, you'll agree.

Or - just thinking aloud here; How about when someone practices identity theft against you, you get the option of going on a MAD spending spree of your own and then PERMANENTLY DUMPING this identity they wanted so bad on them! No backing out of the arrangement for them! You get a brand new squeaky-clean identity, and they have to carry the baggage of anything you've ever done that was stupid or will be stupid up until that deadline hour. Might actually make it all fun...and profitable!

Luckily for me, I had a very healthy level of paranoia and cynicism before the Internet even became a part of my life. I have yet to fall prey to a significant online scam. But, I just can't imagine how the elderly and the web neophytes can survive in this parasite infested jungle. There are just so many people who couldn't care less how unfortunate the people are they're robbing, they will steal from ANY prey, if they can find a way. God help the elderly who go online!

Phone scams are at least familiar to most, and mostly these are just old-school versions of our online scams. The really mean ones have always been the scum who pose as charities and relief-aid for the sufferers of tragedy. By abusing people's compassion, these maggots make it very hard for legitimate relief to assemble. Some phone scams aren't very easy to spot or deal with; they're buried in the insanity of your billing! Raise your hand folks if you've seen large and mysterious collect calls appearing on your phone bill. Very hard to dispute. And from what I've seen, NEVER call a number with an 809 area code. If it's true what I've read about the cost of such a call, then it's a safe bet some other entities will inevitably initiate some other numbers for such lucrative theft. Be on guard.

The postal system likes to host some fun too; how many of those postcards, notifying you of the winning of an amazing sweepstakes prize, have YOU received? Why are they usually from Florida?!

Three pointers we all should know by now:

• If you're selling something of value, don't ever put up with someone (usually from overseas) who just LOVES the item and wants to send you a check for MORE than the value. Just cut the tie right there, don't bother trying to figure out what the deal is or if maybe it's legit - its not.
• If anyone ever says you've WON something - there should NEVER be any reason you need to send THEM money. OK? No "fees", "administrative costs", "tax costs". Get real, you haven't won anything but the chance to be more cynical (or perhaps forgiving).
• Just don't give out your banking, Social Security, Medicare or credit card information to ANYONE who APPROACHES YOU! (By phone, fax, or email). MAYBE someday there'll be some legitimate situation which you'll complicate your life by not responding. Fine, deal with that SUPER RARE situation then. It'd be worth it.

I'll add a few more scams I see around me. Please help the cause and let me know what I'm leaving out.

• Overly complicated auto insurance options, etc. Designed to try to get you to pay for aspects you simply don't need and will probably never need.
• Wildly contorted and confusing phone plans. Designed (as far as I'm concerned) to camouflage built-in features and optional services which you don't want and never intended to pay for (often added without your knowledge or consent).
• Credit card "extras". Showing up as monthly debits you might not notice, which are to pay for crap you never asked for nor authorized. (Like "credit card protection insurance" and other such useless nonsense which reap significant profits)
• Quack medicine. Preying on the desperate. What can you say? But it's hard; maybe some of it works for somebody. Good luck.
• Medicinal magnets, footpads which detoxify the entire body (how is that even supposed to SOUND legitimate). Hell, I know; some of you think it works for you. Whatever. Power to ya.
• Psychics, fortune tellers, Dionne Warwick and her psychic-hot-line friends. Include with that any 900 number for nonsense. It's pretty much all a collage of scams, if you didn't know it yet. (Again, if you are a BELIEVER, well power to ya; who am I to talk you out of it. - Oh, and I wanted to tell you, you've won a big prize!! Email me and I'll give you the arrangements!)
• Las Vegas. Sometimes called a city, but technically a scam. "Come play our games of chance. Play too well and we'll toss you and ban you. And TIP every living thing that comes within arm's length. That's our custom here. Let's see, the TAX on your hotel room is $35 a night..."
•  Resort Vacation Promotions - (Free or low cost exotic vacation packages) Pretty mixed bag here. Maybe you'll be alright. Have fun.
• Chicago parking restrictions (convoluted and undecipherable, they're revenue generators - pure and simple. Probably true of many/most other cities)

Lastly, I would like to point out something which you might not have perceived as a scam: Holidays. More accurately, holidays and shopping. Holidays are my favorite, and shopping in U.S. rocks! We enjoy good prices when one learns how to shop well, and we have such fantastic choice. But, we endlessly permit ourselves to be swept up in holiday shopping enthusiasm (which has been generated not by Santa clause and a consortium of kindly well-meaning holiday icons in the happy-holiday-Parliament, but by business associations who see big money in our vulnerable enthusiasm). I mean we have birthdays, Christmas, weddings, secretary's day, Valentine's Day... do you really have a choice about those crazy high-priced roses on Valentine's Day? Our credit card debt and shopping tendencies are always painted as some sort of selfish, out-of-control indulgence. But think about it; so much of the shopping we're doing year-round IS FOR SOMEONE ELSE! We're good-natured people; we're generous, we're thoughtful. Perhaps that's our "weakness". I think we need to cut back, to scale back the relationship we've ingrained between dollars spent and "love felt". Most importantly, I just think we need to remember how big a role Christmas and weddings and the like play in our use and abuse of credit cards. At least we deserve some compassion for the root of that debt.

So bust your butt to make an honest buck, save some of what the taxman and banks leave behind, and then sleep with one eye open the rest of your life... Because somebody out there can smell that money just sitting there...

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 Is there anyone who actually means it when they say they want equality? I'm not sure I believe it anymore. In an ironic twist, most people I know (having lived for quite awhile in Illinois) are exhaustingly bleeding heart, and use the term "equality" to invoke sympathetic endorsements (and "yes, yes" chants from the audience) regarding affirmative-action, entitlements and the like. For these contorted minds, equality means purging one's guilt by overcompensating in the surrendering of any and all advantage to "the other". I'm not sure it even matters who "the other" is. (It works best when the other means minority, though). 

Well, that's not equality.

In my experiences with most minorities (and I mean experiences, not speculations), the incantation of equality flies proudly, high in the sky on the flagpole of righteousness -- but inescapably, it seems it mostly means my turn, advantage-mine-time. OK. Fair enough to want, but it really isn't a true pursuit of equality.

Just what the hell is a level playing field anyway? Yes, it's a fairly rhetorical question... But is there even the possibility for such a thing? Extending the playing field analogy; it can be possible to create a field of competition where no one has to fight uphill. But somebody is still going to have the sun in their eyes! And is it fair at all that we can't control the wind; it can play a major part in advantage! And what about the cheering crowds, if they're not perfectly even in balance and numbers, doesn't this give a moral support advantage to one team? And what about the coin flip at the start of the game? Is there truly such a thing as a perfectly balanced coin? What measures are gone to to ensure the coin has absolutely no distortion in weight?

I'm sorry, but I hate the level playing field analogy. For one, it absolutely defines our lives as a competition against "the other". Sure, there is significant competition in life; but as a higher species, we deserve the chance to try and find time to escape it. Life itself should not be a competition. Myself, I believe life is more about a familiar Shakespeare quote than about competition; "To thine own self be true". I feel life is a balance of survival in a complex culture, and the mystical discovery of who we are and who we can be. The best things in my life have been related to searching for my best abilities. That's not competition. It's not me against any "other".

The other problem I have with the level playing field analogy is simply that nobody really wants sheer equality. EVER!  Extending this sports analogy again; every single team who will walk on the field will absolutely want the sun in their opponent’s eyes, the wind to their own back, the crowd on their side, and the coin toss in their favor. They want advantage! They will exhaustively recruit for the greatest talents available in order to gain genuine advantage! We all want advantage! In a kind world, we all deserve to have advantage in some area; and in America we all deserve to pursue advantage, at any time.

So if somebody, particularly a minority, seeks equal opportunity -- Amen! Let us as a nation do our best to make sure everyone last one of us gets an equal chance to enjoy opportunity. Let's vigorously pursue a nation where no one including minorities is significantly hindered in the pursuit of themselves or their desire for advantage.

But equality is a myth. And when someone says to me there should be equality, even while what they mean in their heart is that they want advantage (and would like me to consequently surrender any advantage I have attained), at this point they insult me. Asking for equality is gently delusional. Asking for it and not even meaning it, is insulting and devious.

If you ask for equality, at least mean it.