Decline and fall

Sometimes I really do wonder about what's going on in the world. Two ways in which I am disappointed this morning:

1. A very famous pop singer given to profanity-laced, self-aggrandizing rants, or what amount to a grown-up throwing a temper tantrum, gets continued popularity and fame. (Note I am not naming who he is).

And yes, he may be an under-the-radar philanthropist and all that, I don't know if he is. But what I do see are all the things he says about other people and all the profanity (and yes, that matters to me) and the fact that he makes, estimating conservatively, 20 times what I do in a year. And I just sigh.

(Then again: Apparently he was complaining about the cost of textbooks and how a "friend" of his makes less in a week than what her son's textbooks cost at college, and I'm just going, "If I were in that position I'd be asking the friend "Hey, can I get your son's textbooks for him, even if just for this semester?" So I don't know.)

No, it's not so much that I'm jealous of his income and being famous would stink a lot in some ways. It's just, I think of the millions of people who work harder than I do (and are often paid less), all the people who keep the country running in millions of ways....and yet this guy gets lionized.

Of course, the same thing could be said of certain politicians.

2. Crime seems to be increasing here. At least it's not violent crime; it's the sort of petty property crime that shouldn't be but is, perhaps because of the ongoing bad economy*

A. A church in a town about 45 minutes away from here was burgled over the weekend. Apparently this is the third church burglary in that town. The police are now asking anyone who wrote a check for the week's offering to stop payment of it at their bank.

And that makes me wonder: Do banks always charge the fee (The one and only time I tried to stop payment on a check, it was $25), even when it's clear the check writer was the victim of a crime? Because I know some people on very fixed incomes who might donate $20 weekly to their church, because that is what they can afford to do, and to ask them to pay MORE than the check they wrote, just so some crook doesn't get the money....it won't protect the person's identity any, the crook still has the check with their account number and address on it.

Also, this just dismays me. I suppose because I'm a church member I feel more strongly about it but even when I was a kid, the church we belonged to left its doors unlocked during the week (at least to the sanctuary) on the grounds that if someone needed to go in and pray, or just needed to get out of the rain on a rainy day, they were there for it. I don't know how many people took advantage of that but it used to be people didn't steal from churches, or at least it was very rare. Not any more.

And I don't know. All theft is bad, but to me it feels worse when it's done from a church, or a food bank, or a charity group, or a non-profit daycare - people who are trying to help others and who generally have small budgets.

B. In a rural town a couple counties over, there have been mail thefts. Mostly checks people put out to pay bills. So again, police are asking people to go to extra trouble: don't put checks out in the mail.

And you know? A lot of people in rural areas STILL pay their bills by check. I still pay some of mine by check, in fact. And now I'm thinking: so, do I plan to have those bills ready to go out and take them in to work for the secretary to put in with the other mail she drops off, or do I carry them with me when I go somewhere and drop them in one of the big mail box drop-offs. (And yes, a determined crook could break into one of those).

But I have a lot more wherewithal to do that than some people - I have a job, for one thing, with a secretary who doesn't mind dropping off people's (stamped) personal mail when she takes the departmental mail to go out. And I live in town so the "big" mail boxes are around - the closest one is a few blocks from me. But for someone who is retired and living out in the country, it might NOT be so easy.

And that's what irritates me most about these petty crimes: it tends to hurt most the people who are least-equipped to deal with it. And it makes people have to change how they live their lives; it adds effort and complexity to things. (There are weeks where I'd find it blooming hard to make the time to drive to one of the mail box drop off points)

It's something that should not be, kind of like scam telemarketer calls. (Those can be dealt with by having Caller ID, except that you have to PAY for Caller ID.)

(*Then again, I know lots of people who grew up poor and who irritatedly point out that THEIR FAMILY never turned to crime as a way to make ends meet)