I think Anne is trying to make the point that no matter how sh*t-headed someone is, you can't resort to those tactics yourself. But what do you do when clearly you are on the "being screwed" side? I don't know. I've been dealing with contractors for a year now and have definately gone to the dark side with them. It didn't make them any better at getting the job done. My blood pressure was raised and my relationship with them became adversarial. My bathroom still isn't finished.

How do you take some control without losing control? Fifty dollars isn't enough to go to court over, but a letter to the BBB might bring some relief. Cancelling the check that was originally wrote out works too.

Unfortunate news for our ID, YOU have to be the bigger, more professional person and sometimes take a small loss in the name of peace of mind. For a business person, the negative reprecussions from dishonest dealings eventually ruins business. The carpet guy couldn't even cover a $50 check...obviously he's on the ropes along with his stinky carpet. Who wants to be him?

It is hard to take when someone is so rude and willing to cheat--you want to smack them in the head and feel the full satisfaction of knowing they feel the full force of your wrath. But it never works out that way...it just turns into an ugly quagmire where you are still the loser.

those people who think running the carpet man out of business is realistic...just how do you suggest she do that? You need proof to do that and she had none. The point is, the guy stacked the desk so she (and others) were going to get screwed. The big picture notion is that he has a crappy business that is going nowhere and he is digging his own grave.

In terms of a $50 loss, it's better for her to walk away than to go on a crusade against the scumbag--anything she could do would cost more than $50 in time and effort. If prayer allows her to do so, good. Better than festering over a situation that won't resolve satisfactorily.

Yes, life is unjust.

My Mom turns on the O'Reilly Factor, but not because she agrees with anything he says. I think she enjoys her hour of moral outrage at the RNC talking head and we sit down with a drink and yell at the TV together. I wouldn't say my Mom was necessarily a conservative when growing up, but we didn't do peace marches or any of that. Today we sit together and talk about the death penalty and the war in the gulf and I look in wonder at my Mother who was so angry at me at one time for my "Swords into Ploughshares" bumper sticker--we are actually on the same side. How did this happen? I guess we all change as we get older.

It took nearly a full year for our two tiny bathrooms to be remodeled. All I can say is that if a contractor low-balls the price you should be very careful in defining what you are getting. Many times I was completely despondant, harassed, angry, bitter, frustrated and just plain out of sorts having those guys clumping in when ever to do what ever. I eventually just paid them and finished the job myself. They sucked and I'm finding all sorts of things they did wrong. They suck. The most positive spin I can put on this is that it was a "learning experience". At the worst...ugh, let's not go there.

the point that is driven home for me is that once violated, a person can never feel truely safe again. These belts and corsets illustrate a fantasy of the measures we'd have to take to feel safe again...to completely isolate and arm that which is most vulnerable. It's the same fantasy we play out in everyday life spanning from gated communities to "home land defense" to rampant consumerism (surrounding ourselves with things to make life seem more stable, real and perfect).

The real danger has transformed into a persistant imagined danger that permiates every corner of life.

I would love to see this first hand.

I can't speak on how widespread the belief in the infalibility of the Koran is in the modern world, but I think it's a stretch (at least in today's USA) that Christians don't believe in "hell, in the angels, or in the earth having been created in six days". They do. At least when they identify themselves to me, there is an expression that to them the Bible is absolute and infalible.

Considering how things are going politically here I see that the sorts of things happening culturally in the Middle East could happen here in less than a generation. The countries that are laboring under fundamentalist regimes today were modern leaning and secularly goverened less than 50 years ago.

why did today's column remind me of this:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33540

just let me know where...