2,000 who did NOT die in vain

The following op-ed appeared in--of all places--my former home paper, the Boston Globe.

WE ARE OFTEN preoccupied with milestones and numbers, and the death of the 2,000th American soldier in the war in Iraq has been an occasion for much reflection. This particular milestone comes at a time when President Bush is already reeling from a number of political blows. At present, fewer than 40 percent of Americans approve of Bush's handling of the war -- and 55 percent think we should not have gone to war against Saddam Hussein in the first place. The gloom is not surprising, considering that the main rationale originally given for the war -- Iraq's weapons of mass destruction -- has turned out to be a fiasco.

But what if the pessimists turn out to be wrong in the long run?
Amid the bad news, a piece of good news has been eclipsed. On Oct. 25, the results of the Iraqi constitutional referendum were announced. The provisional constitution was approved by a 78 to 21 percent margin, though three provinces dominated by Sunni Arabs voted against it. (In one, the ''no" votes did not reach the two-thirds majority required to defeat the constitution.) United Nations observers confirmed that the outcome was untainted by fraud.

For the first time ever, an Arab country has adopted a democratic constitution by referendum. Despite the threat of terrorism, Iraqi men and women went to the polls in massive numbers: Turnout was about 63 percent. In December, parliamentary elections are to be held. This may not be democracy as we know it: The draft Iraqi constitution enshrines Islam as the state religion (though it also prohibits discrimination based on gender and religion), and the people tend to vote as the clerics tell them. But surely, it is a positive step in a country long tyrannized by a bloody dictatorship.

Of course all is not rosy in Iraq, as Ms. Young goes on to point out, but there are Floridians still struggling without power or clean water in the wake of Hurricane Wilma, and I'd be willing to bet if you gave them the choice of their current predicament stretched out over a year or the threat that some goon would come to their door tonight, or tomorrow night, or ever, and take their daughters, wives, sons, brothers, mothers or fathers into the gloom never to be seen or heard from again and without recourse, they'd take what they've got and be thrilled with it.

Not that they'd opt to have roadside bombs going off left and right, but who knows? Perhaps the hope of being able to avoid or prevent such attacks is still better than the helpless hopeless feeling one must have living under a Saddam-type dictator. I don't know for sure, I can only guess, and what I find so ironic is that the very same people in this country who would accuse George Bush of being a dictator, and who would have us all believe that life during his "reign of terror" is the worst thing imaginable STILL would prefer that we had left the Iraqis so suffer under a man even they admit was "a bad guy" or in brief moments of sanity "an evil dictator."

Not that I'm carrying water for the Bushies right now--I'm not. I'd like a REAL Republican in office, but hey, I'll take him over John "the poor Sunnis aren't getting enough representation" Kerry any day of the week and twice on Sundays. The key point here is that while we are busy mourning the 2,000 soldiers who died in Iraq, we should take a moment to recognize what they helped accomplish. Unlike their brothers-in-arms in Somalia, Kosovo and yes, even Vietnam, their deaths have NOT been in vain.

A different take on poverty

OK, so I've been here a little over a week, and I feel like I've landed on MARS for how different just about everything is (in a GOOD way, trust me).

One of the most salient examples I can think of presented itself to me today as I was having a bagel and coffee at my local Brueggers with my daughter. There was a copy of a local paper on the table and when I turned to the "Letters to the Editor" section, I read the following:

"Forty years ago we had "poverty" in this country and President Johnson. $8 Trillion dollars later and we still have "poverty" in this country. Just think how many tanks and bombers that could have bought?"

I think I laughed so hard decaf came out my nose.

Let's just say it would be a cold day in hell before any editor would print that in a Boston area local paper! Then again, maybe not even then. It gets awfully cold in "Beantown" and I still don't think it would happen.

Bye bye Boston, see ya (hope not) later!

It's official. I'm outta here on Saturday for good, with luck, rarely to return.

I will be a North Carolinian after that I guess, a "tar-heel" minus the accent. I can hardly wait.

My husband has been there for a week, and so far:

He's been called "sir" by the cashier at the McDonald's drive-through

He's been called "sir" by some workmen in the elevator at his building

He had to get his car serviced by the dealer, and not only was he NOT ripped off, they drove him to work, picked him up in front of his office when the work was done, called him to confirm what needed to be done and emphasized that he "only needed the rear brake pads replaced" when let's face it, they could have done them all--he'd never have known the difference. They also took ALL the Boston dings out of his doors for only $180 while the Boston dealer told him it would be at least $600, that's why he never bothered to do it. Oh, and before he left, they gave him a rose to give to me and told him to say he picked it up on the way home (they didn't know I wasn't there), just because I'd made the appointment for him!

He had to buy some stuff at Babies R Us and the two women who waited on him CARRIED IT OUT TO HIS CAR for him without him even asking for help!

Several people--from our realtor to a few of his co-workers--have offered to find us babysitters or just "stop by and help out" when the baby comes in December. They only JUST MET HIM!

He's enjoyed nice balmy 75 degree days while I've been sitting in cold, rainy windy cloudy Boston

I think I'm gonna like my new home, and I don't even have my gun yet! (Kidding) What an irony it will be to be living in a place where you CAN get a gun, but every other person doesn't inspire you to want to use it on them! (Kidding again, sort of)

In other news...

• Our house goes under contract tomorrow--for less than we wanted, but the opportunity cost of being done with this place before we're actually gone counts too. I couldn't handle the stress anymore. So essentially the new people bought a kitchen and got a house to go with it. Lucky bastids!


• We're under agreement to buy a new house in Charlotte. It's a new build, but close to the city. No land per se, but I'm pretty sick of yard work actually. In that heat, I'd rather live inside anyway, in my nice THREE ZONE A/C'd house!


• I'll be in my new home BEFORE Christmas and BEFORE (God willing) Lily makes her appearance. Just think, she'll be BORN a tar-heel, how weird.

And the icing on the cake? THE RED SOX LOST!

Pardon my glee, I always was a Yankee fan. You can take the Yankee out of NYC, but you can't take the NYC out of the Yankee!

Let's just hope you can take the yakee out of the northeast and leave it there. I'm no carpetbagger, that's for sure!

Wish us luck!

As of next week, this will be a CHARLOTTE BLOG!!!

VONAGE SUCKS!!!! DO NOT USE THEM!

If you value your sanity, do NOT go with Vonage. Stupid me, I fell for their ads ("People do stupid things...like pay too much for phone service") and yes, I spent less, but here's what I got for my "savings:"

• Intermittent unexplained outages that lasted as long as a couple of hours at times (even when Internet was working just fine)
• Numerous cut-offs in the middle of calls for no reason
• Calls just not ringing/missed calls even when I was here
• Caller ID/Call waiting that just doesn't work more than 50% of the time--if you're lucky
• Inability to talk on the phone and run the microwave nearby at the same time without sounding like an alien or hearing callers who sound like them on the other end
• 9-1-1 that "might not work" when I need it to
• An alarm system rendered useless until I spent an additional $75 to install a special "connector" to the system so it would work again (Vonage said no such change would be necessary)
• Customer service SO AWFUL, it makes the service you get at Home Depot or Best Buy look like dinner out at a five-star restaurant!

And here's the clincher: In the three short months we've had the service, it's cost us MORE than Verizon would have for the same time period.

• $69 set up fee


• $29.99/month


• $75 for alarm connector

And today, a total of about 6 hours of daytime minutes (at approximately 40 cents/min) used because we were suddenly and irrevocably WITHOUT A PHONE at our house and had to use cell phones to make vital calls pertaining to our move!

Verizon would have been $49.99/month, period.

What the hell happened? Well, in preparation for our move outta here, I have been calling to set up shut-off for various utilities. With all others, you can "schedule" your shut-off for a future date. This is just how it's done so you can
a) Avoid making ten phone calls the day of a move
b) Avoid FORGETTING to shut something off and incurring charges beyond the point where you're using service
c) Avoid keeping new tenants/owners from turning on their service

Comcast had no problem with this
Keyspan and Mass Electric had no issue either
Even the alarm company had no problem with it!

But not Vonage, aparently, not like they TOLD me this would be an issuse though. What they did spend inordinate amounts of time telling me though was how I should transfer my number to my new location despite the fact that:

• It's not a local number to the state where I'm going


• They don't even have local area codes where I'm going--my next door neighbor would be calling me long distance


• I have no choice in either of these matters


• I have no choice but to move to a location they do not service

And the clincher:

• They charge a $39.99 termination fee if you cancel within a year!

I managed to argue my way out of the termination fee, but this was before we even got to the point of what I thought would be the scheduling of the shut-off. The guy told me he could NOT help me beyond explaining policies to me because only the account holder could administer it. He made it sound all official, like when they record your voice as you agree to cell phone contracts, long distance service selection, etc... So I dutifully handed the phone to my husband who was outside working in the yard, and rather than explain why he was on the phone, the customer service guy merely asked his name (to which he responded) and then put him on hold. A few minutes later the guy came back on the phone and said "OK, I've shut off your phone."

My husband was like "WHAT THE FUCK???? You mean NOW?" And the guy was like "Well, uh, yeah, isn't that what you wanted?"

NO DUMBASS! Not like you asked! Not like you LISTENED when I said I wanted to SCHEDULE shut-off for next week!

So my husband told him to undo what he did, but the guy could not. He'd rendered us cut-off from the outside world and couldn't do a thing to change it! We ripped him a new one and he simply hung up, leaving us without dial tone.

My husband called back on his cell phone and they told him they could only sign us up for a NEW contract, but we could cancel in 30 days if we wanted, but we probably wouldn't get the same number, and it would take at least 3 hours to turn it on again! My husband went through three different people, asking for supervisors each time, and coming up empty each time, and in the end, after 3 hours, NO PHONE!

So we called back AGAIN and they said "Oops, looks like someone didn't initiate the process, it will be on in three hours this time, promise" and said he'd call back to confirm.

Three hours later, no call back, no phone.

MEANWHILE, my fancy new connector in my alarm system is now a liability to me getting Verizon back. I have to have it removed for Verizon to work properly, but calling Verizon to sign up for service anew was the only way to get phone service again any time in this lifetime (and even that is taking overnight)!

So here I sit without phone service because one guy had his head so far up his ass this morning his ears were filled with his own fermenting festering SHIT.

This company is so awful, they couldn't find their way out of a paper bag. Use them at your own risk and remember, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

I've learned my lesson, never again.