By way of a reminder of the wide range of humankind among whom we live… 

The good, the proud, the brave:

From the weekly Standard, to which I subscribe, I refer you to an on-line article that really makes me feel good.  These folks know adversity and they know recovery.  And may I remind you, they are volunteers.  I’d be proud to stand with them any day. 

Go HERE.

The media have been reporting recently of rising rates of pill use in this country.  Gee, who’d a’ thunk, eh?  Been down the aisles in what used to be called a drug store lately?  Products are stacked high & deep enough that short people can’t reach some of them and doctors are writing prescriptions so fast the script pads are smoking.

I don’t think that’s all bad, either.  We, mainly the US customers  who pay the majority of research costs by pharmaceutical companies, have made great strides in discovering rather artificial remedies for various ailments, diseases, and conditions.  

So, yesterday I placed an order on-line for a sizable sum, let’s say roughly $1K.

Around supper time I got one of those automated calls from the credit card company saying that I had tripped the fraud flag and they would like me to verify some purchases.

Their automaton rattled off three relatively small purchases I made, two weeks ago.  No other purchases were mentioned, and specifically not the large one of the day.  I pressed “2″ to indicate that each of the purchases was in fact made by me.