The Lonesome Death Of The Mall

 

For people of a certain age, you can remember the first time you went to a mall.

Around the Metro Atlanta Area, most people went to the Lenox Square Mall, which is in Buckhead, a section of Atlanta known for its traffic, offices, and people who are better than you.

But not us at Manis Manor.  My father could think of nothing worse than traipsing around a building of stores with his wife and his feral children.

My mother was raised in the Mississippi Delta, where going to town meant going to the store. There, you would meet somebody you knew. It was a social occasion. It was different in suburban Cobb County, Georgia, where it was just like Ellis Island with all the new people who moved here from far away lands like Indiana.  She always said, "I went to K-Mart and didn't see anyone I know."

Therefore, we didn't go to the mall.

One day, a friend took my brother and me to Northlake Mall.  A whole new world was presented to me. They had a store that only sold Levi's Blue Jeans. They had a store that just sold records. The big album on sale was Neil Diamond's "Hot August Night" to show you how long ago it was. 

Northlake had big department stores: Rich's and Davidson's. Those store sold name brands.  The clothes were fancier and didn't look like the clothes we bought at K-Mart.

Soon, we wouldn't have to go to Northlake Mall. We would have a nice mall of our own: Cumberland. 

Cumberland Mall had Rich's and Davidson's, too, but also had a Sears and J.C. Penny for us lesser folk.  It had a store called Spencer's Gifts which was full of tacky, naughty, and gross stuff. On top of that it had two bookstores: B. Dalton and Walden Books. 

There was a Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor.  Do you remember Farrell's?  Before we knew it would kill us, they served all kinds of ice cream treats.

One of the treats was a sundae called "The Zoo" and was meant to be shared by a group. The Farrell's employees, all who just happened to be attractive high school girls, delivered "The Zoo"  with a big hullaballoo, sirens blaring, the whole nine yards.

I found this from Wikipedia: "Another menu item that was served in a mini pig trough was the "Trough". If the person who ordered it ate the entire sundae, employees would come out banging on a drum, announce the accomplishment to the entire restaurant, and present the customer with either a ribbon or a pinback button that said, "I made a pig of myself at Farrell's!"  I remember the "Trough" with great fondness.  I remember they oinked at you, too, but maybe that was just a Cobb County thing. And no, I never had a "Trough".

Next to Farrell's was a little shop that sold chicken sandwiches. It was called Chick-fil-A.  I wonder what happened to them.

Well, time passed on. Farrel's went away. I would go to Cumberland a lot, particularly when I was dating my wife. I also worked near Cumberland and spent my lunch hour there. Once, I went to Walden Books, and the great writer Pat Conroy was there.  I talked to the son of The Great Santini for 15 minutes because nobody showed up for his book signing.

The month my wife and I married, they opened another Cobb County mall: Town Center.

Town Center was newer and bigger than Cumberland. They had the same stores, but it was 80s bright.  It was a fun place to go. 

And at Christmas time, it was packed.

We went to Town Center during Christmas time this year. It wasn't packed.

People have, for whatever reason, given up on Town Center.  It needs a touchup and some paint. The parking lot hasn't been paved and restriped in years.  They have a lot of stores you have never heard of and kiosks out the ying-yang.  I will say, if you need a baseball hat, you can find it at Town Center.

There are many reasons for the decline of Malls.

One is that going to a mall is a great big pain. You have to fight traffic to get there, and then you remember you can order it online.

Two, and I'm going to sound like the old fuddy-duddy I am, but the youth of America killed the mall.  Roaming in packs, looking like they are part of some punk rock band from the 70s. 

It became a hangout, and many people decided not to hang out there anymore.

Rich's and Davidson's were bought out by Macy's. This week, Macy's closed three stores in Georgia, but the Cumberland and Town Center stores were safe.  For now.

There's talk of repurposing Town Center with apartments. There's also talk of turning it into classrooms for Kennesaw State. Who knows?

James Lileks said about malls: "It was wonderful! People loved it!  Until they didn't."

It is kind of sad because nobody will have a fond memory of adding something to your cart and then clicking for checkout. 

 

Do Better

 

Like most of you, I spent a good part of the holiday season thinking about the H-1B Visa Program.

Sorry, I was pulling your leg. I spent a lot of time thinking about the College Football Playoffs which is almost as complicated as the H-1B Visa Program.

The H-1B Visa Program allows US employers to hire foreign works in specialty fields like IT because Americans are fat lazy doofuses.  (This is not true.  Some of Americans are skinny.)

Who is to blame for Americans being dumb-dumbs while all foreigners are really smart?  Well, according to Vivek Ramaswamy (you remember him?) it is all our culture's fault. 

In a 12/26/24 post on "X" (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter), Ramaswamy said, "The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture."

Our culture "has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer)." 

He says, "A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates Cory from “Boy Meets World,” or Zach & Slater over Screech in “Saved by the Bell,” or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in “Family Matters,” will not produce the best engineers."

Okay.

I went to Wheeler High School in the 70s and we celebrated our prom queens because they were easier to look at than the Math Olympiads. We were really shallow people back then.   

I'm not so sure our culture "venerates" Cory from "Boy Meets World because I'm not sure which one was Cory.  Americans do venerate Urkel because he is the only funny one on "Family Matters."  If Americans actually do not venerate Urkel, it is because he spent a good part of his time trying to get smacky face from Laura Winslow instead of trying to become an engineer.  Not that I would know that. 

Ramaswamy adds, "(Fact: I know *multiple* sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates)."

Here's a "fact".  "Multiple sets" of immigrant parents in the 90s could be two, twenty, four hundred, or a million people.  I'm unaware of any study that blamed American Youth Dumb-Dumbness on too much "Boy Meets World."  I'm not sure that this argument proves proves Hal and Helen's kids were successful STEM graduates because they didn't watch "Family Matters". But then again, I watched a lot of "Gilligan's Island" growing up and I didn't become a wildly successful STEM graduate. In my defense, I can talk for hours about why Mary Ann is way hotter than Ginger. 

Ramaswamy goes on to say, "More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less ‘chillin.’ More extracurriculars, less ‘hanging out at the mall.'” 

You hear a lot that adults are "stuck" in the decade they came of age in.  This is not the 90s. I'm not too sure Ramaswamy has been to the mall lately. You don't see a lot of kids just "hanging out" at the mall.

In fact, you don't see a lot of people in the mall anyway.  

On top of that, there aren't Saturday morning cartoons anymore. We have entire channels devoted to cartoons. You would think Vivek would know that. 

Ramaswamy is right to the extent that there is a culture problem.  We put too much emphasis on sports, particularly "travel" ball, which separates the talented kids from the less talented kids.  We place too much emphasis on entertainment as a career when entertainment is just as iffy as sports as a career because, often, it is just a matter of luck rather than talent.

But, as Jack Butler of National Review says, "We won’t solve these problems by disdaining possible sources of virtue, by misapprehending contemporary social realities, and by mechanistically funneling more and more people toward preset pathways of supposed success."

In the television show "Young Sheldon," ten-year-old Sheldon Cooper is placed in the local high school because of his "once in a generation intellect" (his words, not mine.)

His only friend is a South Vietnamese immigrant named Tam.  Sheldon and Tam eat lunch in the library because the East Texas high school crowd shuns them.

One time, Tam's mother left a note in Tam's lunch.  It said, "Do better".

We need people to push us to do better. And sometimes, we need to tell them to chill. 

 

2024: Good Days And Bad Days

Here we are at the end of 2024.

2024 felt like it was twelve months long. Then, on the other hand, it felt like it was 365 days.

It was a year like President Biden. It had its good days, and it had its bad days.

You remember President Biden.  They said he was sharp as a tack, depending upon you definition of "sharp" and "tack".

I had several favorite President Biden moments.  One was when he called a news conference to dispute the Hur report that the President was really a nice old man but still thinks he can play "flanker" for the Delaware Blue Hens.  He yelled at the White House Press Corp and referred to Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as the "president of Mexico."

Then Biden agreed to debate Donald Trump in June and taunted Trump before the debate. Then the debate started, and Biden looked like Floyd R. Turbo.  It was so bad it made Trump look good. Think about that. 

This caused the Democratic Party to panic because Trump is an existential threat to democracy, the earth, sun, moon and all things bright and beautiful so the big boys in the Democratic Party pushed Biden out and put Vice President Harris in as the nominee because she was A) so brat, B) born in a middle-class family and C) joyful.

Donald Trump had good days and bad days, too.

He was indicted on several major felonies, the main one being a "big poopy head." This caused Trump's poll numbers to fall.

Ha, ha. Wrong. As Dana Carvey once said, Trump is like a Batman villain.

BATMAN: "I have you now, Trump!"

TRUMP: "I don't think so, Batman."  (A rope ladder from a helicopter drops  down, and Trump grabs it and flies away.)

If I may toot my own horn, I noted at the time Trump was a parking ticket away from winning the election in a landslide. I was close to being right. All of the lawfare had the opposite effect, making Trump more popular.

Trump had a very bad day in Pennsylvania was he was shot at by a young man who did not have the wits to be rich and handsome.  Trump survived.

After Kamala Harris wowed everyone with her brattiness, she picked (check notes) Tim Walz to be her running mate because he was what some people (snotty young college graduates) think a white man should look like.

This caused a chain reaction of Zoom calls:  "White Men For Harris," "Older White Men For Harris," and "White Men Who Mow Their Yards For Harris."  

The national news media, coming off of their hard-hitting, dogged reporting of President Biden's cognitive abilities ("He looks fine to me"), tried for most of the summer to get an interview with Vice President Harris to ask her out her middle-class background.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump picked a new running mate, JD ("JD") Vance of Ohio, who once wrote a book called "Hillbilly Elegy". Somebody posted on Twitter that Vance wrote about his sexual attraction to couches in his book.  Of course, the book did not mention couches, but several people noted that he didn't mention he wasn't sexually attracted to any other type of furniture. Which meant Vance was"weird".  Then, the country met Tim Walz, and soon learned what weird looked like. 

A big issue in the campaign was if Haitian refugees were eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio.  Finally, our American news media jumped at the opportunity to make Trump look like a goob, which he happily provided to them.  It turns out the refugees were not eating dogs or cats or couches, for that matter. 

The election finally came, and as a citizen of a "battleground state," I was glad it was over. I expected a close, tight election result. The opposite happened. Trump won around 2:00 in the morning and began to make America Great Again by selecting Matt Gaetz as Attorney General and annexing Greenland. 

Robert F Kennedy, Jr. had good days and bad days, too.  He announced that doctors had found a dead worm in his brain.  He also announced he had "hit" a bear and decided to drop it off in Central Park. (Of course, why not?)  But then, Trump nominated Kennedy as the Health and Human Services secretary.  So, in a short span of four years, we've gone from "you're fired if you don't get the vaccine" to "Hurray for Polio" because Kennedy, a lawyer, knows all about vaccines.

Some had bad days, like the Boeing Corporation, which apparently has no quality control manager because every plane that suddenly fell out of the sky was made by Boeing.

Other people had good days, like the actors who won Academy Awards, whose names I have forgotten.

The Atlanta Braves had mainly bad days because all of their good players were injured with season-ending injuries, which never happens to the Los Angeles Dodgers. 

Bill Belichick had good days. He has a new job as the Head Coach of The University of North Carolina and a new girlfriend who is way too young for him.

I had good days, too.  I retired from my paying job on September 1st. I highly recommend it.

There were some bad days, too. My brother-in-law died after a two-year battle with cancer.  He was a good guy. 

 

Comments From A Health Insurance Worker Bee

 

Just so you know where I'm coming from, I wrote this about a week ago on Facebook.

"I worked at United Healthcare from 1995 to 2002. They bought the company I worked for, Metrahealth, which was a merger of the health insurance divisions of MetLife and Travellers. I worked for Metlife on The General Motors Informed Choice Plan. The merger took place on 1/1/95. Which means by September of 1995 when we were bought by UHC,  I had worked for three companies and never left my desk."

 
I was posting about the murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare. He was shot in the back, walking to the entrance of a Hilton Hotel before 7:00 in the morning.

I have walked past this Hilton several times during our various trips to New York.  If my memory serves me right, it is where Don Draper would meet Conrad Hilton on "Mad Men."

The killer hopped on a bike, rode away, and eventually caught a cab, which took him to a bus station.  This guy ended up in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where somebody recognized him at a McDonald's, called the cops, and he was arrested. 

We found out that his guy is a scion of a very wealthy family and wasn't some workin' class Joe killing THE MAN because United Healthcare denied Memaw's heart surgery.  

He attended a tony private school and earned a bachelor's and a master's from the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school. 

In comparison, Brian Thompson comes from a small town in Iowa, and his father was a grain elevator operator.  He graduated from The University of Iowa.  The fact he rose to the top of the healthcare insurance industry from relatively modest beginnings is something we used to celebrate in this country instead of shooting in the back.

Like many, I have been disturbed by the reaction of some, mainly on social media, regarding this murder. But social media is social media and you have to take it with a grain of salt.

Instead, I was really taken aback by what some "smart" people said, like a former Harvard law professor (Elizabeth Warren) said.

She said, “Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far. This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the health care to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone.”

It is not the answer but a warning to go ahead and pay for non-covered services because the boss man may get shot over it. 

In a column in "The Guardian," Arwa Mahdawi wrote, "If you spotted the person who shot Brian  Thompson, would you a) turn them into the police or b) continue to go  merrily about your day? Judging by the gleeful reaction to the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s murder, 99% of the United States would choose option b."

I know it is a column, and hyperbole is a tool of the trade, but I seriously doubt 99% of the United States would choose option b.

Mahdawi goes on to describe health insurance as a "racket" whose primary goal is to maximize their profits by killing people. Oops, sorry, that is hyperbole again.  The goal is to maximize their profits by denying claims.  Mahdawi links a CNN article about people complaining about when United Healthcare rejected a claim. Graciously, CCN notes, "stories could not be independently verified by CNN."

 I can only tell you my experience working in the health insurance industry for 17 years and working in the revenue cycle of a large health system for 21 years.

We never had a meeting where we were chewed out about paying too many claims.  Nobody ever said, "Go out and deny those claims!"  A denied claim meant a phone call from the insured, which was almost always difficult. 

One time, I took a call that started like this: "I'm going to say this very clearly. If you don't say that Metlife is going to pay my claim, I'm going to take this gun in my other hand and kill myself".  (I said, "Can I put you on hold for just a second?" The person explained their issue. It wasn't something to kill yourself over.)

Another time, an insured was upset regarding a claim denied after being medically reviewed by a clinician.  He told me, "I hope you have someone you love in the hospital and they die."  At that moment, my nine-month-old son was in the hospital with Pneumonia. (By the way, this was about a podiatry claim. And before you can say it, this was long before HIPPA was ever thought of.)

So, no, the people in the insurance companies never denied a claim with glee.

During my time with the insurance company, one of my duties was to process claims for expatriated General Motors employees. I worked on claims from all of these other countries, which are supposedly so much better than the United States. 

First of all, you would be surprised how much the charges were similar to those in The United States. The total wasn't as much, but they paid upfront in taxes by the citizens of that country.

Secondly, some countries have a two-tier system in which, yes, you can go to The British NHS hospital, or you could go to the fancy-schmancy hospital Charles and Camilla go to. 

When I went to work from the hospital system, I worked on many accounts covered by United Healthcare. United Healthcare has many people covered under self-funded plans provided by the company they work for. This means United Healthcare only administrates the "contract" from the company.

Most of these plans do not have a "pre-existing" condition clause. Some do. It may sound mean, but insuring someone has a pre-existing condition is like selling homeowners insurance to a house that has already burned down. 

United Healthcare also owns several smaller companies that sell to small businesses (like UMR and Golden Rule).  They tend to have large out-of-pockets, and some have pre-existing condition clauses. 

For my United Healthcare accounts, sometimes they paid quickly, and sometimes they did not. (My advice: do not give birth to twins if United Healthcare insures you. Trust me.)  But for the most part, I don't remember a delay with many United Healthcare accounts. Maybe I have just forgotten. But they tended to pay the high dollar and the low dollar claims in about the same amount of time. 

I would never say the healthcare system in America is perfect.  I will say, it seems like every time someone steps in to "fix" health insurance, it seems to get worse. 

Healthcare is a complex issue. The idea that it can be fixed by shooting executives is a mental healthcare issue more than it is anything else.

 

This Week's Picks

 

 

 From #1 to #12, the College Football bracket seeding is as follows.


#1 Duckies
#2 Texsass
#3 Methodists
#4 Boyzee State
#5 The Lions of Nittany
#6 Our Lady
#7 Jawja
#8 Ahia State
#9 Tennysee
#10 Indiana Wants Me
#11 Alabama
#12 The Sun Debils

As you can tell, this next-to-the-last seeding of Alabama has caused a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth, mainly from South Carolina fans.

South Carolina has the same record as Alabama, plus they beat Clemson, which should count for something, but it doesn't since they are not Alabama.

Miami got dropped, too, but they got beat by Georgia Tech and Syracuse at the end, so, really, guys, you don't have too much to complain about.

The other big thing in college football last week was the I'm Going to Plant Our Flag At Your Midfield brouhaha. The idea is that the visiting team "conquers" the home team, which is so embarrassing.

Michigan beat Ohio State in Columbus for the fourth time in a row, and one of their players planted a Michigan flag in midfield. This caused a ruckus, and the police had to get involved and use pepper spray to break it up.

It happened at the UNC-NC State, Florida-Florida, and Arizona-Arizona State games. It didn't happen at the Georgia -Georgia Tech game, mainly because that game is still going on.

This Week's Picks!

Jawja vs Texsass:  Georgia and Texas face off in the SEC championship.  Georgia beat Texas a few weeks ago, but you never know which Georgia team will show up.  This is a battle for the bye.  I think Texas is out for blood and will win this game, although it really doesn't matter.  Texas wins.

Methodists vs Clem's son:  Another new to the league Texas school is playing for a championship. Clemson has been playing pretty well and they have been this way before. I want SMU to win. They won't. Clemson wins.

Ducks vs The Lions of Nittany:  On paper, this looks like the best game. Number one versus number four.  I watched the Ohio State-Penn State game and I thought Ohio State was the better team.  Oregon has been the best team in the country. Oregon wins.

I Owe A State vs Sun Debils:  Your guess is as good as mine. Sun Devils win.

On The Beloved Owls front:  If you have been keeping up with Kennesaw State, you know it hasn't been the best season. Their head coach got sacked and they won only two games.  This past week,  Kennesaw State hired Jerry Mack who has a pretty good resume, to be the new head coach. Good luck, coach!

 

Yellowstone Recap

 

 

 This is a quick recap of episode 11 in Season 5 of Yellowstone.   

We see the assassination of John Dutton. It takes three men to take down a Kevin Costner stand-in. John Dutton wears jammies. I thought he'd wear blue jeans just in case he had to do some emergency ridin' and ropin'.

Beth has left Rip in West Texas and is barreling down the interstate learning Italian because she is a genius that just happens to have a hot body and a quick temper. Capiche?

Suddenly, she feels a chill, because Beth is a clairvoyant in addition to being a psychopathic she-devil. 

Back to Kayce moving into his cabin of love. Many minutes are used to show Kayce and his dullard son move furniture. While he is sleeping, he feels a chill, too. He wakes up, and his cell phone rings despite not having it on the charger. 

Back to the present day even though nobody tells us. The Lawyer Son is meeting with the new Governor and the old girlfriend senator. In keeping with all things Yellowstone, the topic of conversation is selling the ranch to the evil corporation.

Governor Dutton's old assistant quits and is hired by the Girlfriend Senator.

Kayce drives to the morgue and convinces the Medical Examiner to re-examine the body due to Kayce's place on the Livestock Commission or being a cow sheriff or something. I never quite understood why he is so important.

What do you know?  The Medical Examiner sees things she didn't see during the first examination.  She didn't notice all of the bruises on stand-in Kevin Costner.  The cause of death is no longer listed as a suicide but is listed as "Moving On To Other Projects".

Kayce drives over to the Capitol and throws Lawyer Son across a desk.  Lawyer Son tries to act, and for a second, you think he might not get slapped in this episode.

Skanky Lawyer and The Subcontractors (I saw them open for The Police) freak out because murder is illegal in Montana.

Kayce goes to see Beth, who is watching TV on her computer. The Native American Big Wigs come to the ranch to express their condolences.  Beth and The One In The Suit have a serious conversation about how much makeup Beth wears because she is somewhere in her forties, but she is still fine.

Skanky Lawyer buys a flip cell phone and drives to Lawyer Son's house. Lawyer Son drops in, and they have a fight, and she gets to slap Lawyer Son, which makes it the second episode in which someone slaps Lawyer Son.  In fact, they should call this show "Punch Jamie" because the guy does have a punchable face.

Skanky leaves the house in a huff.  Lawyer Son calls her, and they seem to make up but just then Skanky gets killed by a blond-headed assassin. ("Blond-Headed Assassin" was the WWE Champion in 1987).

Cuss words:  Plenty.  F-bombs fly in Montana.

Violence:  Mainly on Jamie.  You see Fake Kevin Costner shot in the head.  

Sex:  None

Wind:  A lot at the ranch.

Makeup on Beth:  A ton.

Length of episode:  With commercials, One hour and fifteen minutes.  Without commercials, twenty minutes.

Where Are The Cowboys?  They just disappeared.

Next week:  "Yellowstone" returns to The 6666 ranch to watch Taylor Sheridan ride some horses.  Beth punches Jamie. Rip and Lloyd talk about the good old days when a man could just shoot somebody and throw them off a cliff just across the border without the Federal Gubmit getting all involved.  Kayce's wife cries about something. Kayce sees that stupid wolf again.

This Week's Picks-Week Thirteen

 

 

Hey, y'all- the new seeding of the 12 team playoff has been released!

From #1 to #12 is as follows.

#1 Duckies
#2 Texsass
#3 Myamme
#4 Boyzee State
#5 Ahia State
#6 The Lions of Nittany
#7 Indiana Wants Me, Lawd I Can't Go Back There
#8 Our Lady
#9 Bamy
#10 Ole Miss
#11 Jawja
#12 Mormons

 

Well, it appears winning your conference is now WAY more important than the strength of schedule. How else can you explain Boise State having a bye over, um, Ohio State, who lost by one point over the number one team in the nation, Oregon?

But what is college football without our yearly argument over rankings?  Sure, it is neat to see Indiana winning, but are they better than Georgia, Ole Miss, and Alabama?  

I don't think so.

Here is a picture of one of the committee members explaining their rankings.

 

 

This Week's Picks!

 

Jawja vs Umassssssss:  After a humiliating loss to Ole Miss, Georgia bounced back and defeated Tennessee and is in the playoff picture. For the moment. The Dawgs opponent this weekend is UMass, who has a 2-8 record this year and fired their coach the other day.  Georgia wins. 

Bees vs Werewolves of Raleigh:  Two middling ACC teams duke it out in Mid-Town Atlanta.  North Carolina State is probably the better team on paper, but they've had some injuries, and they are 5-5.  Georgia Tech is 6-4.  They don't play this game on paper. Tech wins. 

Indiana Wants Me vs Ahia State:  Indiana gets its first real test this Saturday against the Buckeyes. They won't pass it. Ohio State wins.


Okie vs Bamy:  Several years ago, this would have been a big  deal game. Not any more.  Bama is just too big  and fast for Oklahoma. The Tide will roll. Bama wins.

 

My Beloved Ows vs Florida International:  Last week was an emotional game given that Brian Bohannan was let go.  The Owls lost the game in overtime which means if things had fallen their way, they would have two wins.  Oh well, Florida International is the large state school in Miami.  The most famous alumni is Andy Garcia.  Owls win.