The New Vetting

I never cared about the philosophical underpinnings of the leaderships at Microsoft, Apple, Starbucks, Airbnb, or any other of the big and powerful profit machines.    I was just your standard issue consumer – if I liked the service or products and thought the price was fair, I bought.   Forever gone are those carefree days. 

It all began with Target.   You know, I never entered that store without spending $100 more than I had intended to spend?    Loved their products.  Then they jumped into the transgender bathroom nonsense, when Barrack Obama was at the helm, wreaking havoc on traditional citizens with traditional values.   While I have nothing against transgender individuals (yes, I do know a few) when Target took such an aggressive stand on the issue, they had my full attention.  The transgender population represents a very, very small portion of society and Target thought that this small segment of the population needed to feel accepted.  Ok.   But, they never thought about or spoke to the much larger segment of the population who would feel unaccepted and marginalized by coed, co-use bathrooms.   The restroom policies at Target favor the comfort of so very few at the expense of so very many. 

I have not crossed the threshold of Target since their very odd and aggressive stance on bathroom policy.*  If they cared so little about my position on the matter, the only sensible thing left for me to do was to stop giving them my money.  So, I did.  They don’t care about me or my business, of course, and I do know this.  However, I instantly felt good about my decision and have never regretted it.   It made me feel less powerless in the face of great nonsense. I do wish they had stayed out of the transgender bathroom conflict and had simply stuck to selling me socks and sheets, but I estimate that my separation from Target has saved me at least $1500 ....so far.  That said, I do feel like I was vetted - profiled - and considered unimportant.  Not included.  So it goes.

(*I have read that Target has since backed off their regrettable stance on transgender bathroom policy and that it cost them over $20 million to do it.)   

Today, I find myself making similar decisions.  Many similar decisions. 

When Starbucks announced that it would hire immigrants while many Americans are jobless, hungry and eager to work, they got my full attention.   In no world does this makes sense, I thought.   Either Starbucks executives have a bone to pick with our current President or their marketing department saw an opportunity to get more brand loyalty from millennials, who part with great sums of money to be able to ‘hold the cup’ – that handy emblem of the accomplished! Regardless of the motivation behind their anti-American pronouncement, it struck me as vicious and perverse.   I am a coffee achiever as those who know me can attest.  I drink no fewer than six cups a day and I use to swing by my local Starbucks three to four times a week.  No more.   From the day that Starbucks played its sinister hand in politics and marketing, I stopped my Starbucks habit.  Again, I know that Starbucks does not care about me and my little itty bit of business.  That is not the point.   I use to enjoy my Starbucks coffee and might have gone on enjoying it, had the organization not done such a clumsy, transparent, manipulative, polemical thing.   Heavy sigh.   On the upside, I order my coffee in bulk now (not from Starbucks) and I keep a coffee machine in the trunk of my minivan.  Yes, I brew my own pot of Joe when I’m on the road and it is simply divine.  I have saved $20/week since I separated from Starbucks, but more importantly, I feel very good about the decision.  On the other hand, I feel bad about being vetted by Starbucks’ politics and I wish they had simply stuck to selling me coffee. Starbucks now makes me feel unwelcome, not included.  So it goes.

Now, I travel a good bit with my teenagers.  Some years ago they told me all about Airbnb and I’ve been an enthusiastic customer for a few years now.  I got a very odd email from them a couple of weeks back – something about “weaccept”.  When I clicked through the link in the email I found myself having to accept what amounted to a catechism!  If you know anything about serious faith-based organizations, then you know that many ask you to sign a statement of faith saying that you agree with their ideas on higher powers and the order of the universe, etc.   Well, that’s what this was, except that the orthodoxy was political.  This outrageous communication from Airbnb gave me two choices – accept or decline.  Here is what the decline button got me: “Declining this commitment means that your Airbnb account will be canceled, and your future reservations will be canceled.”

I did not accept.   It was as offensive as it was stupid.   I could be a lying, thieving, pervert hoping to rip off some good soul – but as long as I click on “I accept” somehow I’d be part of some Airbnb-good-guys-club?  Again, either the owners of Airbnb have a bone to pick with our current President or they are hoping to get deeper into the pockets of millennials, their main source of business.  Either way, it is at best disingenuous and at worst contemptible.  I closed my Airbnb account.   Once again, I was vetted. Profiled and found to be unimportant.  Not included….by this organization that preaches inclusion.    Hmmm.   So it goes.

I am a sociable person and I have been using Meetup for joining various outdoor clubs.  Today, I received another odd email – this one from Meetup.   They want me to know that they created 1000 meetups for anti-Trump individuals.   I cannot begin to express how many ways this offends, unless Messrs. Heiferman and Meeker have also created 1000 meetups for those who support the general direction in which our country is headed under the new leadership in DC.    I am waiting for that email.  It seems to me that Meetup can accomplish its mission by allowing its users to figure things out all by themselves.  There is no need to create meetups which may or may not be used, unless of course, their intent is to tell people what it is they should think.  I have unsubscribed, of course, as there are other ways for me to get information on the local outdoor activities. Maybe Meetup owners are just keeping their investors happy.  I don't have time to follow the money, but I am sure someone will.    It is so strange to watch an organization created on the idea of inclusion turn its back on cultural diversity - rebuff its pluralistic membership.  I guess Meetup is not that keen on inclusion, after all.  Again, I was vetted and made unwelcome - not included.   So it goes.

My life as a consumer has been utterly transformed by those who do not like the changes that our new president is making.  There is a dirty, corporate inquisition afoot.  It seeks to corner people, demand to know their political identity and then exclude them because of it.   This is being done in the spirit of acceptance?  

On the other hand, I have not been made to feel unwelcomed by any businesses or organizations which support the President.   I know of several large enterprises which are run by conservatives who probably support Trump, but I have not received any emails from them seeking to vet or extort my politics or which require my compliance or subordination for continued inclusion. 

The stunning results of the election in November and the fact that most news sources and pollsters had wildly incorrect predictions proved that there is a big conversation going on, but that it is very one-sided.   The big companies discussed in this essay – companies seeking to vet their customer base - are also in one big conversation.  With each other.   This is the opposite of progress.   Many of the corporate, anti-American thinkers who are disguised as “accepters” and “nice guys who want the whole world to move to America”, simply talk to each other.  They do not want to be in a conversation with that other part of America.  Because that would be hard.  It would be deeply challenging.  They’d rather preach the virtues of flying to an audience of birds.  

Meanwhile, along with many others who support our current administration, I am forced to make my consumer decisions based on my politics.  What?   I am being vetted and profiled by those who are shrieking against the idea of vetting and profiling.  Hmmm.  So it goes.

Not My March .....but still

I don’t live under a rock, I truly don’t.  Yet somehow I was not aware that there was this big march in Philadelphia today.  Ok, so it is “Not My March”.  True.   Maybe I was subconsciously editing out the news of this event.  My bad.  I knew of the DC Women’s March but I guess Philadelphia news did not snag my attention.  Consequently, when I dropped off my 14 year old for his volunteer work at the Academy of Natural Sciences on the Parkway this morning, I was confronted by closed streets, waves of women wearing oddly shaped pink hats, and homemade anti-Trump signs which were, mercifully, mostly unreadable. 

This is not the point, I know, but I have to get it off my chest first.  The event was frightfully inconvenient.   I had to cancel a date with my college student daughter as the streets were largely unnavigable - tremendously disappointing.  I had to figure out a way to still visit my Alzheimer-plagued mother who lives in northwest Philadelphia – an unwelcomed burden.  And, I was slowly realizing that I would have no way to pick-up my 14 year old once I dropped him off, as the streets were beginning to overflow with marchers and the police were widening the shut-down area. In short, it was a nightmare and I was trapped in it.  The fact that I was not simpatico with the crowd - yet could not escape it - surely added to my discontent.

I pulled over (in a no parking zone, of course,  until chased by police 10 minutes later) and tried to relax.   My young teen jumped out of the car, a cell phone and hand-drawn map balled up in his pocket, to make his way to his job.  I stayed put, waiting for his “all good” text.  I looked at all the people who were walking around holding signs, objecting to one thing or another about Trump.   I did not hear hate and I did not see hate.  I just saw friendly folks in a friendly atmosphere coming together to be with each other – to commiserate with like-minded folks – and to reinforce their objections to our new president.   Nothing wrong with this, I thought.   I rather like that we have the freedom to do this.  I might not agree with their purpose but I am glad that these folks have the liberty and privilege to speak their minds.  It is a good thing, not a bad thing.  This made me feel better.

Then I began to wonder how the women who were marching felt about Bill Clinton when he sullied the office of the President of the US with his outrageous behavior (and then lied about it under oath).   Were there any women’s marches then?  I could not recall, but I doubted it.  I also thought back on some of the awful behavior of Jack Kennedy, a presidency which was pre-internet of course, so his philandering was not given much air-time.  Like many of our presidents, he was a prodigious womanizer and chauvinist, yet I do not think his shenanigans resulted in so much fuss.  For someone who is forever looking for patterns to help makes sense of the world, I was at a loss here.   Oh, well.  I guess living in the information age and the misinformation age has its drawbacks.   Today, no one in the limelight gets to escape bad behavior, true or imagined.  Sometimes there will be protests, other times there will not.  That was the best I could do with this set of facts.

I then took a minute to google the pink hat thing.  I learned that it was somehow symbolic of that female body part which women strenuously object to being defined by.  So why were they sporting hats evocative of this?  I was marveling over this strange contradiction when I was asked firmly but politely by an officer to move my car.  My son had texted that he found his way through the blocks of pink hats to make it to his volunteer job and I had fortified myself with more black coffee from the thermos I’d packed, so I headed  into the fray of vehicles being diverted through multiple detours.

It was more harrowing when I returned to pick up the young teen later in the day, probably due to the empty thermos and the fact that I had to park on South Street and walk 12 blocks to retrieve him.  Even on a good day, the metered spots on the streets of Philadelphia conspire against visitors, block by block.  Some only take quarters.  Some only take PPA cards.  Some only take credit cards at a kiosk but will fail to connect so you must give up that perfect spot or get a ticket.  Some streets are not metered at all but the signs threaten towing while making vague reference to mysterious permits. The only break I got today was no parking ticket!  Despite being 15 minutes late returning to my expired meter, no ticket.  I skedaddled back to New Jersey, and never thought I’d say this, but I was glad to be doing it. 

Frankly, I am pleased that the protestors had a venue to voice their concerns.  I am also glad that (unlike DC’s)  it was peaceful.  Although I felt like a stranger in a strange land, at least I did not have to pay the Philadelphia Parking Authority for my front row seat at this event.

If ever I am moved to be a card-carrying protestor of one type or another, it is good to know that there are so many agencies willing to facilitate that possibility.  Despite my scheduling disappointments today, despite my confusion and my inconvenience, at the end of it all, I am glad for those who had the freedom to come together to object.  I don’t have to be on that team or understand it to be happy for it.

Full Page Ad in Wired Magazine - Rather Unsuitably Timed

The Electronic Frontier Foundation placed this full ad in Wired Magazine's January 2017 issue.

Since Barack Obama officially transferred control of ICANN to an "international governing body" effective October 1, 2016, isn't this doomsday-panic-time ad in the January 2017 magazine a bit late? Haven't the giveaways that grew out of Obama's fetish with globalization made the claim that our "threat model has changed" a bit disingenuous?

Control of the internet addressing system had been in the hands of the US Department of Commerce since 1998.    Then, the US government gave ICANN, a non-profit in Los Angeles,  the authority to run things.  ICANN oversaw domain names for websites and individual IP addresses for internet users until its contract with the US Dept of Commerce ran out on Sept 30 2016.  It still does the same thing but now has an international overseer.

The questions that EFF should be asking, now, in this winter of our discontent, is what community or governance poses a greater threat to the common man and his use of the internet?  An international one made up of many governments and many corporations?  Or the US government?  Before you answer, better look at the list of overseers in this link, which details the members of the Governmental Advisory Committee to ICANN.  Its membership most definitely does not make me feel better.   https://gacweb.icann.org/display/gacweb/GAC+Representatives

I love the idea of a surveillance-free web but I'm not fool enough to believe that we actually have one.  Of course, the encrypt/delete/reveal advice that EFF offers in this ad is excellent and everyone should be doing these things to protect themselves, but these actions should have been taken post-Snowden, not post-Trump.

Anyway, ICANN does not control content.   Main stream media and Facebook do this for us.  I'd like to see a big ad in Wired Magazine on how we can remedy that sad fact.