This makes my blood boil… it doesn’t matter where you live, the service from Waste Management (Rabanco) and/or Allied Waste is just plain crappy. I live in an upscale neighborhood in rural King County where folks have pride of ownership and keep their property up. For several years I used my own recycle and garbage cans and I routinely found them in the ditch, the yard or in the street, tipped over with the lids somewhere else. They have to actually get out of their trucks and hand dump owner supplied cans but they can stay in the truck if you use the vendor supplied can.
First I left very polite notes on the cans asking them to please not throw my cans in the ditch and to at least put the lids inside the cans instead of throwing them aside. That resulted in them tearing the handles off my cans and stealing the lids the next week. By the way, these operators make about $70,000 a year. I called and politely complained and was told, in no uncertain terms by an extremely rude customer service rep, that it was not the operators throwing my cans around “It’s probably some boys in your neighborhood just being boys.�
The very next week, my brand new cans looked like they had been in a demolition derby and I was pissed. This time I called and complained but not as polite and again I got the same snotty answer but this time with some advice. “Sir, if you would use our cans, with the hinged lid, this probably wouldn’t happen.� My reply was “Hmmm, you mean if I use your cans (that cost more because they are bigger) the neighborhood boys wouldn’t throw them in the ditch? I didn’t give her a chance to answer and asked to speak with her supervisor and was put on terminal “hold�. The next billing cycle I was charged for “overweight and additional cans�. I had only placed out a partially full 32 gallon can; when I called to complain about that, she told me I was responsible for whatever was on the curb in front of my house and that the driver noted there were “three cans and an overweight black plastic container�. I refused to pay the charge and demanded to speak to her supervisor and was put on terminal hold again. I ended up contesting the invoice via snail mail and the charge was dropped. I emailed King County, who has the contract, and complained bitterly about customer service. I received a short response with the contact information for the vendor.
The Mrs. was afraid I’d blow a gasket so she ordered a new container from the vendor which, buy the way, is a rip off. Their can will probably hold 35 gallons of water but, due to the design, I defy you to get 35 gallons of solid waste in it. And… when the wife called the service rep asked if we would like to keep our can or have it removed, she told them we wanted to keep it because it was brand new… they took it.
In addition, I had the same problem with the trucks leaking hydraulic oil all over the place. I called and complained about that and got nowhere. So… I called the sheriff’s office (I may have slightly exaggerated how much oil was actually spilled) and they told me to call 911 to get a deputy out there so I did. The deputy was reluctant to do anything until I ran the math past her. If that truck leaked a mere 1/8 cup of fluid at every stop and he made say 250 stops a day that equals about 40 gallons a month. She took a report but I have no idea if it ever went anywhere. I don’t know how many trucks and how many stops each truck makes, or how much they really leak but I’ll bet it is sufficient to land them a pretty hefty fine.
In any case, my service has not improved with the rental can and the only improvement is that I don’t have to chase down my can lids because they are now attached.
If anyone has successfully improved their service I would really like to hear how you did it. ogy in the behaviors of Barack and Michelle Obama?[/i]
Barack's life of social activism, coupled with an emphasis in his speeches on government social action to eradicate unjust suffering, aligns with Cone's words, albeit in a context that extends beyond the black community to the nation, and then to the world. Cone wrote:
"Therefore, whoever fights for the poor, fights for God; whoever risks his life for the helpless and unwanted, risks his life for God. God is active now in the lives of those men who feel an absolute identification with all who suffer because there is no justice in the land." (p. 47, Black Theology & Black Power)
Michelle Obama's recent statement about pride-in-country is thoroughly consistent with both the Africentric theology of Trinity UCC and with the black theology of their spiritual mentor's (Wright's) mentor (Cone). Her efforts to explain what she meant by her statement have, so far, been vague. The less she says, the better it will be for her husband's campaign. The more she elaborates on what she meant, the more damage she could do to his candidacy.
In the wake of her statement, some commentators were quick to respond with wonderment that she wasn't proud of such geo-political milestone events like the fall of the Berlin wall, the collapse of the USSR, the liberation of Kuwait, as well as, on a personal level, her elite education and the election of her husband to the U.S. Senate.
What they don't understand is that, while Barack is the softer, social justice side of black liberation theology, Michelle is the harder anti-white-supremacy side:
- The fall of the Berlin Wall was a seminal event in the battle between two white racist, oppressive political-economic systems. What's to be proud of there?
- The fall of the USSR was merely the victory of one racist system that has long exploited poor, non-white, Third World countries with economic colonialism over another system similarly guilty. What's to be proud of in that victory? Both brought havoc and death upon the surrogate countries when their Cold War battles turned hot.
- The liberation of Kuwait, too, falls into the category of white supremacist politicians exercising U.S. military power over an oil-rich region of the world. What's to be proud if there?
- And, the idea that her education should be a matter of pride could be heard as having a condescending tone that suggests she should be proud because she, a black woman, earned degrees generally reserved for whites.
These responses would be thoroughly consistent with Cone's theology -- the mentor of the Obamas' spiritual mentor. Cone's myopic theological worldview looks solely through the prism of his understanding of the experience of Blacks in America as victims of white oppression.
Ironically, while the media has occasionally focused on the religious beliefs of Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, a much more substantive faith element has been at work in Obama's campaign, and the media mostly hasn't noticed, or if it has, hasn't commented.
None of this, if accurate, makes Barack Obama a man necessarily unsuitable for the Presidency of the United States, nor his wife for the role of First Lady. But, it may give us cause to further explore their worldviews, and the perspectives of those who, like Dr. Cone, have influenced the formation of those views.
By Lee Cary
American Thinker
