Corporate Ego Compels Verizon to Charge $18,000 for Data Download

This article was originally published by Technorati on 1 May 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Most of us have been there: shouting into the phone at some poor, underpaid "customer service representative" who was with us shortly. No doubt a great deal of acrimony has been exchanged in the case of Bob and Mary St. Germain over an $18,000 Verizon cell phone bill racked up by their son back in 2006. The account remains in dispute.

To be fair, the St. Germain's have a few good points. First, wireless contracts are indecipherable gibberish. Hard to argue with this one; their purpose is to confuse the customer.

Second, experts say unlimited data plans are marketed by other companies for $30 a month. Another good point. If that's the case, its hard to imagine how $18,000 could be fair a price.

Third, the St. Germains say they were unaware that they had just gone off a promotional plan under which data downloads were free. Verizon reps admit this contention, though Verizon claims the St. Germains were duly warned of the expiration of the promotion when the patriarch of the family renewed his wireless contract with the company a short time before the bill came--nothing like a reverse signing bonus, is there?

Word didn't make it to their son, however, who continued to download songs at a respectable clip.

The Three Flavors of Personal Finance Advice

This article was originally published by Technorati on 30 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

U.S. News offers some great money management advice in a recent article called 8 Questions for the Constantly Broke. Advice about money fits generally into three categories: practical, philosophical and spiritual. Most articles like this one focus on the practical without addressing the other two.

Practical Practical financial advice focuses on one question: how can I live within my means? Most, including the U.S. News article, recommend things like skipping daily latte's, buying used cars instead of new and reminding us that we're earning now not just for now but also for future rainy days and retirement. They preach that we should not be stupid with our money, in other words.

From Russia Without Love 2: A Textbook Example of Addictive Behavior

I was beginning to feel a bit like one of the Volga Boatmen running back and forth to the Russian Embassy in Rome. Another day there, a little more suffering. A little more suffering, a little more insight. I'm living a Dostoevsky novel, apparently--The Idiot, perhaps.

Check out this video to get the full flavor of my morning:

The Vice Consul was unaware when he sold me the 95-Euro visa that the new computer system at the consulate could not be coaxed into issuing a visa on a passport that had less than six months to live. It was an honest mistake. "So since it was your honest mistake," I asked politely, "hows about a refund?" The response was a resounding "Nyet."

On the brighter side, it looks like I will get most of my money back on my apartment reservation and air fare. The airfare requires some sort of documentation from the Russian Consulate for a full refund. Stay tuned for "From Russia Without Love 3."

Hot on the heels of yesterday's pain-body attack, I managed to remain conscious throughout all of this bad news, laughing off the visa's final death knell.

But on the way home, I'd had enough. I needed to take some personal time, do something just for me. That's where the addictive behavior came in.

From Russia Without Love: A Textbook Example of a Pain-body Attack

Ah, Mother Russia! Source of so much suffering! Add me to her long list of victims.

I've been planning a week-long trip to St. Petersburg, my final excursion before returning home to the U.S. I went last week to the Russian Embassy in Rome to apply for my visa. I was in line by 6:30 a.m., as my friend advised me to do. He said on the day he applied for his visa, he was second in line at 5:30 a.m. and the consular officer saw only two people that day.

"And if you think Neapolitans are bad at standing in line," he said. "Wait 'til you see the Russian ladies at the Embassy."

So I was prepared for any eventuality and I went into this adventure with low expectations. Especially so after recently returning through Rome from a trip to the UK. While waiting in line for an Italian Carabinieri to pretend to look at my passport, a large group of Russians flooded the lines from all angles, men, women and children, pretending not to notice anyone who had been waiting for a good long while in this lengthy queue.

Designer Jeans are Extensions of Ego

This article was originally published by Technorati on 27 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Is this a joke? $345 for a pair of jeans! Some of us are hopelessly out of touch.

In a recent Good Morning America segment, reporter Marysol Castro detailed an extensive scientific, double-blind, peer-reviewed (not) study pitting a $29 pair of jeans from Old Navy against a $200 pair from Sacks Fifth Avenue. We got a glimpse of one price tag that read $345.00.

One woman claimed to have 2000 pairs of jeans in her closet. And later, Elle Magazine's Fashion News Director, Anne Slowey, actually said, "Most people are charging around $200, so you definitely want to get as much value out of that investment as you can."

No, four shares of Wal-mart will run you about $200, that's an investment. Unless you're name is Levi Strauss, denim is not an investment. Does that woman with 2000 pairs of jeans in her closet realize that at a going rate of $200, she's pissed away several pairs of Sex-and-the-City level designer shoes and handbags? Probably not. ($400,000 for those of you keeping score at home.)

Bizarre Hamas Psychological Warfare Cartoon Spurs Discussion of Non-Violent Protest

This article was originally published by Technorati on 26 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

It seems odd (and cynical, it goes without saying), but Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization that controls the Gaza Strip, has seen fit to release this video aimed at persuading Israelis--one supposes--to put pressure on their government to release 1000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, in exchange for one Israeli soldier, Sgt. Gilad Schalit, captured by Hamas in June 2006.

I don't think it will work.

Lessons Learned from Franklin Graham and the Pentagon's National Day of Prayer

This article was originally published by Technorati on 23 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Well it looks like the Franklin Graham-Pentagon National Day of Prayer imbroglio is over. After complaints from Muslim participants and a formal objection by a religious rights group, the Pentagon Chaplain's Office disinvited Graham from the May 6th service.

Perhaps the National Day of Prayer Task Force, which organizes the yearly Pentagon event, acted unwisely in selecting as its Honorary Chairman Graham, who has called Islam an "evil and wicked religion"; has said Muslims are "enslaved by their religion"; and has confirmed his opinion yet again that he believe that Islam is "just horrid."

The decision was especially ill-taken, given that the National Day of Prayer is meant to be an ecumenical endeavor.

Is Eckhart Tolle a Seinfeld Fan?

If you read A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, the answer to this question seems clear. In a passage about how television induces a programmed unconsciousness, Eckhart hails the benefits of some offerings. Let's take a listen:

There are some programs that have been extremely helpful to many people; have changed their lives for the better, opened their heart, made them more conscious. Even some comedy shows, although they may be about nothing in particular, can be unintentionally spiritual by showing a caricature version of human folly and the ego. They teach us not to take anything too seriously, to approach life in a lighthearted way, and above all, they teach by making us laugh. Laughter is extraordinarily liberating as well as healing.

Seinfeld, the show famously about nothing? Eckhart says, "although they may be about nothing in particular"? Coincidence? "You better think again, Mojambo."

An Exercise for Experiencing the Joy of Being

You can sum up all the religious and spiritual teachings that have ever been by simply doing this. You can cut right to the heart of the matter.

Will you do it?

In A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, Eckhart Tolle recommends the following exercise:

Go to the hands directly. By this I mean become aware of the subtle feeling of aliveness inside them. It is there. You just have to go there with your attention to notice it. You may get a slight tingling sensation at first, then a feeling of energy or aliveness. If you hold your attention in your hands for a while, the sense of aliveness will intensify. . . . Then go to your feet, keep your attention there for a minute or so, and begin to feel your hands and feet at the same time. Then incorporate other parts of the body--legs, arms, abdomen, chest, and so on--into that feeling until you are aware of the inner body as a global sense of aliveness. (Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, pp. 52-53; to see the entire excerpt, click here)

THIS IS JOY EXPERIENCED IN YOUR PHYSICAL BODY! This IS the joy of being!

Excerpt on Inner Body Awareness from A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

If you are not familiar with "inner body" awareness, close your eyes for a moment and find out if there is life inside your hands. Don't ask your mind. It will say, "I can't feel anything." Probably it will also say, "Give me something more interesting to think about." So instead of asking your mind, go to the hands directly. By this I mean become aware of the subtle feeling of aliveness inside them. It is there. You just have to go there with your attention to notice it. You may get a slight tingling sensation at first, then a feeling of energy or aliveness. If you hold your attention in your hands for a while, the sense of aliveness will intensify. Some people won't even have to close their eyes. They will be able to feel their "inner hands" at the same time as they read this. Then go to your feet, keep your attention there for a minute or so, and begin to feel your hands and feet at the same time. Then incorporate other parts of the body--legs, arms, abdomen, chest, and so on--into that feeling until you are aware of the inner body as a global sense of aliveness.

Top Ten Signs You May Be Over-Identified With Your Team

The article that started it all . . .

This article was originally published by Technorati on 2 February 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

The AP has reported for years on a Minnesota farmer who has vowed he won't shave until the Vikings win the Super Bowl. 97-year-old Emmet Pearson's beard remains in place and 36-years long. He made the vow in 1974, the last time the Vikings made it to the big game.

While Mr. Pearson's stick-to-it-iveness is laudable--people these days don't keep vows like they used to--and funny, it points up the sort of identification with groups like sports teams that Eckhart Tolle in his seminal book on spirituality A New Earth says is one from the ego's playbook.

"One of the ways in which the ego attempts to escape the unsatisfactoriness of personal selfhood," Tolle writes, "is to enlarge and strengthen its sense of self by identifying with a group--a nation, political party, corporation, institution, sect, club, gang, football team."

Bingo! Isn't that Farmer Pearson in a nutshell? This list takes in a lot of us.

What sports teams accomplish or fail to accomplish really has nothing whatsoever to do with us. And yet we behave as if it does.

Here are ten signs you may be over-identifying with your team this Super Bowl:

Anna Paquin's Bisexuality Is Revealing

This article was originally published by Technorati on 2 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Anna Paquin, winner at age 11 of the Best Supporting Actress award at the 1994 Oscars, now 27 and staring in True Blood, revealed yesterday she's bisexual in a public service announcement for Cyndi Lauper's "Give a Damn" campaign against sexual-orientation discrimination.

Let's see, she's been in Hollywood since age 11? Perhaps more interesting news would have been that she's straight.

It defies credulity to suggest that such women are the object of discrimination. Based on an abundance of movies, sitcoms, men's magazines, women's magazines, teen magazine's, talk shows, websites, porn sites, and idle male conversation, civilizations from other galaxies have long since decided that such women rule our world.

Indeed, men on every planet from here to Andromeda are high-fiving Paquin's True Blood co-star and fiancee Stephen Moyer on what should shape up to be a very happy coupling.

Conscious Backgammon

Our good friend Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose,tells us:"A powerful spiritual practice is consciously to allow the diminishment of ego when it happens without attempting to restore it." (p.215)

This spiritual practice I force upon myself almost everyday (as if driving in Naples isn't enough to diminish my ego).

I start off every writing day playing backgammon against my computer. Computers are generally good at what they do and most games I take a drubbing, and that's painful to what's left of my ego.

Eckhart also tells us that enlightened doing is not attached to outcomes, and I would like to be in a position to tell you that I see each game through to the end, win or lose, and that I concede graciously when a point of inevitability is reached. But generally, the truth is, I shut down the game and start up a new one and keep doing this until I finally win. Hey, what can I tell you? That's my writing process.

But here's the thing, I'm pretty sure the computer cheats. Let's look at the facts.

Put Being Before Doing in Job Search

A version of this article was originally published by Technorati on 30 March 2010.

According to Yahoo! hotjobs, nine occupations are still hiring, even in this recessionary period: Truck Mechanic, Physical Therapist, Special Ed. Teachers, Environmental Engineers, Healthcare, Nursing, Finance and Banking, Veterinary Techs, and Wind Energy Techs.

Investipedia.com's Bobbi Dempsey, the article's author, took her data from a wide variety of sources--including a couple of job search engines (Monster.com and Simply Hired), a nursing college, and an interview with Jeff Cohen, author of The Complete Idiots Guide to Recession-Proof Careers--to give people valuable leads in the search for their next job.

Now, juxtapose this bright, helpful information with a recent very gloomy forecast (also posted on Yahoo!, by the way) from Lakshman Achuthan of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI). Of the current employment picture, Achuthan says, "Forty percent of the unemployed are long-term unemployed. They've been unemployed for six months or longer."

These jobs, Achuthan says, are either "associated with the bubble that burst" or are in manufacturing. "So, those people are displaced. The recovery is happening. It’s very real, but the economy doesn’t want their skills for one reason or another."

According to Achuthan, they are permanently unemployable. He predicts a resultant elevated rate of unemployment for the foreseeable future. "[Unemployment] was down around four or five percent," he says. "Forget that! Forget it!"

Let Your Better Self Shine

This article was originally published by Technorati on 12 February 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

I have a confession to make: I like Shine from Yahoo! I'm pretty sure it's for women, with fruity colors and Cosmo-esque content. But I like it.

I like it because from time to time they post articles like Brett Blumenthal's 6 Personality Traits to Admire and Acquire, articles that point us in the direction of our ideals.

The traits Blumenthal most admires (spoiler alert!) are Selflessness, Tolerance, Genuineness, Sensitivity, Integrity and Humility. She readily admits, however, that the list could be much longer.

This article's title invites the inevitable comparison to Dr. Stephen Covey's 1989 international bestseller The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. These are habits he recommends, not traits, but there is some overlap.