wshaffer

Here's a weird thing to be on the lookout for: I got a phone message from a "Lt. Mike Stevens of the San Jose Police Department Warrants Division" saying he was trying to contact me and giving a number at which I could call him back.

Something about this struck both Daniel and me as fishy. He didn't give a case number or any other indication of what this was about. The San Jose Police Department doesn't actually appear to have a "Warrants Division" per se. And a quick Google search on the phone number suggested that it was a random Verizon wireless number. It certainly didn't bring up any hits associated with the San Jose police.

Then I turned up this news piece about a scam in Orange County in which someone posing as a "Lt. Mike Stevens of the Orange County Warrant Division" scammed peopled by pretending to collect unpaid traffic fines.

Just in case, I called the main switchboard of the San Jose Police Department, and they confirmed that it was a scam call.

So if someone calls you from your local police department, you might want to be careful and call the main police number rather than calling back whatever number they give you.

So remember that little incident back in April where someone ordered some stuff off the internet using my email and home address? Well, one of the companies is back asking for payment and threatening to take me to a collection agency if I don't pay up. This is the same company that:
* Assured me that I would not be charged for the goods when I spoke to their customer service people.
* Sent me an email stating that the purchase had been refunded, dated just 9 days before their letter demanding payment.

Fortunately, I have a copy of the identity theft complain I filed with the FTC back in April, plus a transcript of the online chat featuring their customer service representatives stating that I wouldn't be charged, and a copy of the email about the refund. Armed with this documentation and the sample letters from the FTC website, I have drafted a Sternly Worded Letter that I dare to hope will set things right.

I'm not sure if there's anything I can do about the fact that this company has relentlessly spammed me with ads for expensive fitness products of dubious efficacy ever since this "order" was placed.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I think I am possibly the last person on earth who might conceivably be interested in this book who hadn't read it or seen the film. So, I'm slightly uncertain about the utility of reviewing it. But here goes...

In 1996, Jon Krakauer joined an expedition climbing Mt. Everest as a reporter for Outside magazine. He ended up getting a bigger story than he bargained for, as a storm caught climbers on the mountain, resulting in 12 deaths, including several members of the expedition Krakauer had climbed with.

I've always found stories of high-altitude mountaineering fascinating, albeit in a way that makes me feel slightly uncomfortable. They're always stories of extremes, both physical and mental. People perform amazing feats of strength and endurance, or suffer complete and total physical breakdown. (And sometimes do both alternately or sequentially.) People show amazing bravery, compassion, or quick thinking under nearly impossible circumstances, or exhibit unbelievable selfishness, apathy, or stupidity. (Again, sometimes the same people at different times.) I can't decide whether Everest stories reveal something important about human nature or are merely sideshows about people behaving freakishly under freakish conditions that humans were frankly never meant to endure.

Anyway, Krakauer has a talent for sketching out the personalities of his fellow team members in a way that make them very vivid. And he has a real talent for making a complex series of events clear - I've read some other accounts of mountaineering disasters, and many writers have a lot of difficulty juggling varied accounts of what happened on different parts of the mountain without creating a muddle. The book is a fast and gripping read.

Of course, this very vividness and clarity has opened up Krakauer to criticism. Some people have objected to the way they or their relatives were portrayed in the book. And Krakauer was not actually present for some of the most dramatic events of the book, and is able to document that for at least one incident in which he was present, his memory was faulty, fogged by exhaustion and oxygen deprivation. It's possible that of the differing versions of events in the 1996 disaster, Krakauer's may have prevailed just because it is the most compellingly written.

In Krakauer's defense, he seems to have tried hard to make the most honest account he could. The second edition of the book, which I read, includes a section in which he addresses some of the criticism of the first edition. Of course, he may be misrepresenting his critics, but in general he seems to acknowledge where they have legitimate points.



View all my reviews

The Guardian has posted a collection of videos showing police violence against demonstrators at the G20 protests in London earlier this month.

It's really starting to make me wonder just what on earth is going on in the Metropolitan police. When the footage came out last week of the apparently unprovoked police assault on Ian Tomlinson, it was disturbing, but one could console oneself with the idea that it might have been a relatively isolated incident. The accumulating video footage makes that seem unlikely. (With some of the videos, I'm willing to concede that perhaps I lack the knowledge or the context to put what I'm seeing in perspective. But the Tomlinson video or this one are particularly astonishing. I'm sorry, but you can't convince me that attacking someone who is walking away from you with his hands in his pockets is acceptable police procedure. Nor is backhanding someone across the face.)

What really creeps me out is my suspicion that if Tomlinson hadn't collapsed and died mere minutes after that video that I linked to was filmed, none of this would have gotten any particular scrutiny.