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Makes HOAs look good…

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…almost. There’s one in every neighborhood, of course: the nutcase or the malcontent who makes life a pain for everyone around him. Check out the story of this winner! How would you like to have him living next door?

HOAs have their drawbacks. But at least they can keep this kind of lunacy under control, simply by foreclosing on the lunatic.

In my experience, though, HOAs don’t head off every problem — and in some cases they cause the problems. Have you ever known anyone who served on an HOA board to say they liked the experience? Two of my friends have had endless headaches with neighbors who let hordes of cats run loose, in direct violation of the HOA rules. Nothing has been done to stop them, and in fact the violators have loaded the board with people who resent the rules and want to get rid of them — all of them, not just the loose pets thing. Kill-the-Beasters on the extremely local level, we might say.

Another couple lives next door to a woman who is batsh!t crazy and who does all sorts of stupid little things to annoy and harass them. She threatens to drive over residents who are walking in front of their homes (like much of Phoenix, the place has no sidewalks). She went a little overboard when she menaced a city councilwoman. But nothing came of it. With one exception — her boyfriend, who lives in the same development — all of the residents want her to subside or be forced to subside, to little avail. Fortunately, though, this one doesn’t paint her house in crazy colors.

HOAs are not for me. I don’t need another layer of government lording it over me and picking my pocket. So that lets out virtually all new construction: all the recent developments in the Valley are organized as HOAs, even though if you look at the real estate listings around the state, you’ll see NO HOA! all caps bold face featured in ads as a hot selling point for central city houses. A lot of people don’t want to live in an HOA. But the choices are slim, unless you’re willing to buy an older house in an urban area, or get a large plot of land in the boondocks and build your own.

I feel exceptionally lucky in having come to rest in this part of the ’hood. With one minor exception, all the immediate neighbors are quiet, and they all keep up their property. Those who are mentally ill are discreetly so.

The Perp owns two houses, one catty-corner across the street and one two houses down, in which he lodges his daughters. One, whom he used to call his Pretty Daughter, seems to have decamped — she was managing a fly-by-night nursing home he installed in another part of the ’hood, and it is generally believed she lives on the premises. Two young men, allegedly her “nephews” but more likely renters, live in Pretty Daughter’s house. They make a fair amount of racket with a couple of noisy three-wheelers that they like to tool around on, but not often and never for very long. Other Daughter dwells in the second house. Her schizophrenic husband moved out, and so the occasional dramas that would take place there have ceased.  Like her ex, whom she met while she was on an extended “vacation” to parts that her father would not name, she also lives on disability, and so most of us figure she also suffers from mental illness that precludes a steady job. She’s an exceptionally sweet woman…you wonder how she could have sprung from the loins of the Perp.

At any rate, both of those two houses are quiet and kept tidy. The other neighbors are very pleasant people who fit into just two categories: Couples who have lived here upwards of a two decades, raised their kids, and are aging in place; and young people who don’t want to commute, delighted to have found one of the only moderately priced tracts in North Central in which to raise a new flock of kids.

The part of the ’hood where my last house stood was not so perfect. The neighbors were an immediate cause of my desire to move.

The bunch across the street consisted of a young working divorcee who was trying to support her aged parents and a very difficult teenaged boy. They would park their cars all over the street — I got into the habit of backing into the garage because it I couldn’t back out of the driveway without risk of hitting some of the rolling stock. As the boy got older, he got nastier: he beat up on a girlfriend and I believe he also abused the old folks.

Then the couple next door to them, who were exceptionally nice people, sold to a violent nut case, given to throwing furniture through the front window. The day he got into a screaming fistfight with a contractor on his driveway was the day I decided to put the house on the market.

But there was also the “pastor” and his wife who liked to go off on months-long “missions” to convert the heathen overseas, during which they would rent out their house. One time they rented it to a clan of Gypsies (real Gypsies, according to the police), who turned it into a used car lot — parked used cars  with “FOR SALE” painted on them all over the yard and up and down the streets. Even though he evicted them when one of the neighbors found an address through his church and reported the happenings, it still was an annoying, property-degrading mess.

And there were the Russians whose teenaged boys could NOT be taught how to use a garbage can. The alley behind their house was always…interesting.

And the widow of the lovely man who died…he had taken care of her, as it develops, just as he had taken meticulous care of their home. She was bipolar, severely so, and couldn’t care either for herself or for the property. The place rotted away until finally she left — probably foreclosed. She was much liked by the neighbors, and so that was pretty heartbreaking.

And the “Contractor”: a self-employed loser who let the house where he was living go to rack & ruin. WHAT a mess. He had a dog that would come over the fence and attack my German shepherd whenever I walked anywhere near the place. As it developed, the former owner had stupidly carried back the mortgage when she sold to him. It took her almost two years to evict him, during which of course he lived there for free.

And the settlement house for indigent adults. They at least were quiet, and the proprietors sort of kept up the property.

And the couple who painted their house lime green. Hubby did this one day while the wife was at work. She told a neighbor that she was shocked…but she never did get him to repaint it to her taste. Fortunately, the front yard had a lot of shrubbery that blocked the view of the place.

LOL! All that local color has moved on, lhudly sing huzzah.

But the ultimate reason I moved — construction of the damned lightrail — stayed.

The city bulldozed an entire row of homes along Conduit of Blight Blvd — including one of the prettiest homes in the tract. The racket, dirt, and chaos that ensued went on for several years, and now, as we see, we have a wonderful train that freights drug-addicted bums straight into the ’hood. Because people in Richistan have money and concommitant political clout, the City built a rather attractive buffer zone, complete with a ten-foot-high decorative wall, along Conduit of Blight. But you still get the bums and the BONG BONG HONK HONK of drivers trying to clear the drunks and the stoners off the rails as the train bears down on them.

At the time, I actually wanted to move out of the hood: get as far away from the ill-advised train as I could. But I simply couldn’t afford anyplace comparable in an area where I wanted to live. Ticky-tacky suburbs are not my cup of tea, and Yarnell was just too far away and too ill-supplied with daily amenities (like, say, a grocery store and a gas station?). Then as now, a comparable house east of Seventh Avenue — anywhere east — would cost at least a hundred grand more than I could get from my house.

Satan and Proserpine had done a lot of upgrades to this house, and the cost was essentially an even trade. They did, it is true, misrepresent some of the things they’d done, so pulling out their DIY efforts, replacing them, installing xeric landscaping, and bringing the wiring to code added another $40,000 to the house’s price. But today, thanks to gentrification by the younger generation, the house is worth over $110,000 more than I paid for it.

And today, also thanks to a major recession that led to a spate of evictions followed by the present wave of gentrification, the neighbors are a LOT fancier. 😀

 

 

 

Yogurtified Fried Green Tomatoes

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How dearly do I love fried green tomatoes? Let me count the ways…

The grocery store on the way home from this morning’s bidness meeting occasionally carries green tomatoes. Today they had some, so…GRAB!

What I failed to grab was some eggs with which to bread the slices. One can just sauté green tomato slices in butter and/or olive oil. But…what a sacrilege. Lightning could slice right through the kitchen ceiling and strike you dead as you commit this crime before the Stove God.

Contemplating this frightful state of affairs, I recalled the pint of yogurt residing on a shelf in the refrigerator door. And I recalled how good fried chicken can be when breaded with yogurt and flour, cracker crumbs, or both…

The plan:

Place about a third of a cup (give or take: three soup-spoonsful) of plain yogurt in a small, wide bowl. Add a splash of water (you’d like it to have the consistency of very thick cream) and mix together well, so as to make a smooth dip.

On a plate, toss several handsful of white flour (okay, probably whole wheat would work, for the health-food aficionados). If desired and youhappen to remember, add a small amount of cornmeal (or a large amount, depending on your mood and your regional preference). Season to taste, in the time-honored tradition of Our Mothers, with salt & pepper. Or not, if you’re trying to avoid salt.

Melt a generous dollop of butter in a pan while fiddling with the rest of this. Turn off the heat if the butter melts before you finish diddling.

Slice the tomatoes into thick slices. Mine were average-sized tomatoes; I sliced each into three pieces. First thinly slice off the top and the bottom, so there’s un-skinned tomato on both sides of each slice.

Turn the heat back on.to medium or the low side of medium-high,. under the pan of butter. If desired, add a splash of olive oil (so healthful!). (But not necessary.) Dip each slice (both sides) first into the yogurt, and then into the flour/crackers/cornmeal/whatever. Set the coated slice into the heating pan. I always put the side with the most cooking area down first, on some theory that must have made sense at the time I dreamed it up, but today…who knows?

Allow the slices to cook over medium to medium-high heat until the first side is richly browned. Gently turn the slices over. Turn the heat down to low, and allow the tomatoes to cook until they are cooked through (definition: “soft and squishy on the inside”).

Serve these as an appetizer, a snack or a side dish for meat, fish, or whatever pleases you. Or as a meal. WhatEVER.

This, folks, is soul food for WT. But your ethnic persuasion matters not. Cooking a tomato through changes its flavor, and the result is ambrosial.

LOL! Run that word past Donald Trump! 😀

Scallop Delight

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I love scallops, having learned how to cook them properly from that august avatar of Bumhood, SDXB. And every now and again, Costco sells packages of wild scallops — especially at the stores in fancier parts of town. So the other day when I was over at the Paradise Valley store, I grabbed a packet of the things.

They freeze reasonably well (in fact, the scallops Costco sells on the fresh-fish counter are “previously frozen”), so buying a lifetime supply is a rational thing to do. Divvying it up into seven scallops per serving (which IMHO is probably excessive) gave me three meals’ worth.

Sauteed scallops are exceptionally delicious when served over carbs: pasta (!!) or rice (!). But I’m going to fat again, so trying to stay away from comfort foods full of flour, rice, and potatoes. So decided to serve these things only with a side of fresh veggies. Ideally, I would’ve coveted a side of roast asparagus. But lacking asparagi and feeling no compulsion to drive out into the homicidal rush-hour traffic, park, dodge panhandlers, stand in line to pay, dodge the bums again, and drive back home, I decided instead to use some of the chard that grows in the backyard. Also residing in the backyard: a crop of fresh, juicy, tree-ripened limes. The result was very pleasing.

So: try this…

For the scallops

Enough scallops for the number of diners (four to six large ones apiece)
Chopped garlic (one clove or more, to taste)
Sprinkle of ground cumin (optional)
Butter
Fresh lime or lemon
White wine (optional)

For the greens

A couple fistfuls of fresh spinach, chard, kale, or whatever lights your fire
Sprinkle of nutmeg
Olive oil
Dash of balsamic vinegar (probably optional)

You’ll want to set up everything for both dishes before starting to cook, because the cooking goes very fast. So first, dry the scallops on some paper towels and sprinkle lightly (if desired) with cumin. Place a chunk of butter in a frying pan. Slice the lime or lemon open, and of course pour yourself a glass of the white wine.

I added some beet and lettuce sprouts culled from an over-enthusiastic new garden crop… Mix & match as desired.

Also, roughly chop the greens. In another frying pan, pour in enough olive oil to lightly cover the bottom of the pan.

Because the greens will take just slightly longer than the scallops, you’ll want to start with them but have the pan for the scallops ready to go.

So, heat the pan with the olive oil over a medium to medium-high fire. Toss in the cut-up greens.

Immediately turn the heat on under the scallop pan so as to melt the butter. Stir the greens while waiting for the butter to melt; as soon as that happens, toss in the chopped garlic.

Stir the garlic around for a few seconds and then add the scallops. Gently cook the scallops over medium- to just barely medium-high heat until they’re cooked through, which will not take very long. Do not overcook. They should just begin to brown, but probably because the butter is browning more than because the shellfish is browning.

At this point, squeeze a generous amount of lime or lemon over the scallops. If you don’t have any citrus, then just splash in some of that white wine you’re drinking. You probably could add the wine with lemon or lime, but I personally prefer one or the other.

Quickly remove the shellfish and the veggies to a plate. Serve with…yeah…the wine.

How can you lose?

Life in the ‘Hood: This, that, and WTF?

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The ‘tother evening I went over to a small neighborhood party down in lower Richistan. That was amusing. A variety of locals, young and old, new and veteran, gathered in one worthy’s front yard. The beauty of events like these is that you can learn a lot about the ‘hood, invariably fascinating in an old, established district like ours.

So after the corgi cuteness had broken the ice — corgis do have their uses, even in the absence of sheep — I sat down next to an older woman who said she’s lived here for 40 years.

The current hot topic of conversation is the bums imported on the lightrail. None of the locals are hearing any of the argument that this neighborhood has nothing like the problem we used to have in the Encanto area when it was gentrifying. There, you couldn’t stick your nose out the front door without encountering a derelict. Here, even though you find their leavings in the alleys — drug paraphernalia, feces, and toilet paper, you rarely see the bums themselves, except where they hang around the QT and the Circle K in the war zone at the intersection of Conduit of Blight Blvd and Gangbanger’s Way, which happens to be the end of the line for the damn train.

She — the old gal — insisted the place was over-run with them, and that the alley running behind her house is the main Bum Thoroughfare through the ‘hood. Could be: she lives close to the home where the drug-addled fool jumped a neighbor’s fence and molested her two little girls while they were playing in their backyard. Fortunately the mother caught him before he could make off with either one of the children.  Oh well.

Where the two ne’er-do-well men who lived in the wrecked house with their old mother until she died have moved out, they left their cats. These cats were mightily neglected while they were living there — mostly the neighbors fed them. So it has become a Neighborhood Project to figure out what to do with the cats.

At the moment at least one of them has gone missing: someone has put up a sign on the mailbox offering $100 for information on the absent cat.

The old gal said that while the brothers were running their shade-tree car repair business, there were at least two explosions at that house. Not surprising: Orderly was not their middle name. 😀

The neighbors speculate that the house will have to be torn down, now that the family (or whatever they were) is gone. They had the roof, which is designed to be clad in asphalt or cedar shingles, sprayed with a thick layer of white roofing foam. It’s a gawdawful mess that will require the entire roof to be removed. The fix-&-flippers, facing an unholy job, only paid about $350,000 for the place, even though it’s over 2,200 square feet on a large piece of irrigated land.

In Phoenix, you can keep the original set-back on a house that you’re re-building if you leave one or two walls — any walls — standing and claim it’s a re-hab, not new construction. This enables speculators to build what is essentially a new house yet get around some of the newer, more onerous code requirements. So we expect that’s what we’ll see in the near future.

Not a corgi…

Meanwhile, the old gal said she lives right behind the other major eccentric in the ‘hood, the one who was breeding the “King shepherds.” You may remember, she tried to sell me one of these outsized Ger-sheps. This is the house where the Level 2 sex offender dwells — supposedly a child molester. Evidently those sex-offender-tattler websites are not read by real estate buyers, since two families with small children moved in on the same street…one of them right next door. At any rate, Our Informant reported that this woman never got rid of the litter of pups she had, and so now NINE adult German shepherds live and bark in her back yard. Right behind Informant’s home.

She said before this woman got the German shepherds, she had wolf hybrids, which used to jump the wall and roam around the neighborhood.

How exactly this differs from the coyote who lives in the alley over there escapes me. Said coyote, whom I’ve seen twice in the past week or so, undoubtedly has something to do with the mysterious disappearance of the abandoned cats.

{sigh}

It’s interesting how these central urban neighborhoods age and evolve.

When Richistan was built, in the late 1950s, that would have been a pretty nice area. It was a little too close to Conduit of Blight — in those days Realtors would advise buyers looking in North Central never to buy west of 7th Avenue. But nevertheless, a couple of areas in the frowned-upon zone managed to be developed into upper-middle-class areas. They were in the Madison School district — the only decent school district in the city proper, at the time — rendering the location highly desirable for young professionals who did not want to commute. So: doctors, lawyers, business execs, and their Junior-League wives.

Richistan has kind of held its value, largely because of a couple of very fancy enclaves over there and of course because of the school district. But over time, as the kids grew up and went away, it developed a kind of…hmmm…senescent eccentricity. Hence, the wolf lady and her questionable son, the shade-tree repair garage, Mr. “Freeman” the Tax Revolt Guy, and a number of run-down houses that, in recent years, have lent themselves to profitable fixing-and-flipping. The nearby horse properties were sold and turned into small McMansion tracts.

The area is looking pretty good now — Zillow had a “Zestimate” of $468,000 for the garage with the foam roof. I’m sure they’ll get much more than that, once the place is cleaned up and refurbished. Those irrigated lots alone are worth almost that much. I’d kill to have one — but keep the 2250-s.f. shack, please. If I could get the lot alone and built a human-sized house on it, I’d jump at the opportunity. But that ain’t gonna happen.

Meanwhile, the low-rent district where I live has also evolved. Built in the early 1970s, it’s more distinctly a tract — Richistan consists of what used to be called “semi-custom” houses. Over here, on the wrong side of Main Drag NS, the houses all look alike: the same block exteriors with only about four or, at the outside, five different elevations. I got in during the Savings & Loan crisis, when people were going belly-up right and left: a predecessor of the Bush Recession. The original owner of my first house here had died, leaving her son stuck with a house whose value was fading fast. My Realtor talked him down by 30 grand, presenting me with a mortgage I could barely afford, but which I swung by taking on SDXB as a “renter.” {snarkle!}

Quite a few of the residents were original owners, most of their houses well maintained. A number, though, were eccentrics or people who couldn’t afford to keep the houses up, and as the S&L recession continued, a number of places were sold to Canadian speculators who turned them into rentals. Needless to say, those houses went downhill fast.

Then the Perp moved in. By now the recession was over and the houses were beginning to regain their value. He started buying up houses from elderly owners, who had NO idea what they were worth. These he would turn into rentals, with little or no fix-up. Before long, I think he had eight or nine houses in this six-square-block tract.

Needless to say, the Perp’s activities did nothing to improve the neighborhood. He failed to chase me off, despite threatening a judge and scaring the shit out of my lawyers. But I did learn, several years after I moved into this house — which is in the same tract but further away from Conduit of Blight, the War Zone, and what at the time promised to be the Construction Project from Hell, which the City launched to build its damned lightrail — that the people who lived here sold because they were afraid of the Perp. Apparently he had terrorized the neighbors all around this corner. My neighbor Terri moved in at the same time I did, and so whoever owned her house evidently moved because of the Perp; plus he bought a house catty-corner across the street from me and another place two lots down and installed his daughters in them. Dave, proprietor of Dave’s Used Car Lot, Marina, and Weed Arboretum, was pretty stolid: it would be hard to scare him off. Besides, he was armed. The people next door to Pretty Daughter moved out and some guy turned that house into a rental.

This was the state of affairs during the Worst of Times.

The Crash of the Bush Economy, though, did this neighborhood a favor. As real estate values ballooned to the exploding point, whoever was backing the Perp (we believe he was fronting for an investor, or at least was advised by someone who knew what he was doing) told him to sell all of his rentals — which he did, right at the top of the market.

A few of these were purchased at outrageous prices by people who wanted to live here — they fixed the shacks up within reason. A few were bought by people who couldn’t afford them or who shortly lost their shirts in the recession. But owners like Dave and the woman who bought my first house (and wrecked it) were forced out, having borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars against equity in houses that were now worth less than they paid for them before the run-up in fictional value. A few were bought by landlords who sold them to real people after values returned to normal. This got rid of the Perp’s Rental Empire, and it also evicted a number of folks who were not keeping the houses up.

As property values recovered and the City decided to let parents send their kids to any public school of their choice, the young and the upwardly mobile have rediscovered the place. Houses here now sell for what they were supposedly worth at the height of the Bubble. Again.

Is this a new Bubble? Yeah. Probably. But when it bursts, I doubt if values will fall as drastically as they did. Arizona is the home of the Boom & Bust Economy, and so real estate ups and downs are just business as usual. And since a fair proportion of these houses now belong to people who have put a lot of money into fixing them up — or bought them expensively from fix-&-flippers — I doubt if we’ll see a big exodus in the next recession.

In the WTF Department? The motion-sensitive porch light by the kitchen door has been out for a long time. Haven’t paid much attention, because in the summer it stays light so late that I rarely go out there while it’s dark. But now that the days are getting shorter, it occurs to me that really…I should change that lightbulb.

So I drag the stepstool out there, climb up, and start to remove the bulb. On a whim, though, I tighten it before unscrewing it…and LO! On it comes!

Whaaa? Why was the lightbulb sitting there half-unscrewed?

The only thing I can figure is that the house vibrates a little with the air-conditioning. Maybe that jiggled the thing loose. It was actually quite loose, though, as though it had been deliberately loosened enough so that it wouldn’t come on.

Wannabe burglar? Doesn’t seem likely: there are a lot of other motion-sensitive lights out there. Wouldn’t you think he would’ve unscrewed them all?

Maybe not: the rest of them are out of reach — you’d need a ladder to get at them. And if you didn’t know the yard well, you wouldn’t know there’s a ladder stashed right around the corner.

Oh well. It’s working now. 🙂

Side Gigs: Ride-sharing? Does your insurer know?

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So if you have nerves of steel or you live someplace where the traffic isn’t as batsh!t as the Phoenix area’s, the idea of renting out your car’s back seat to Uber or Lyft riders sounds kind of appealing. Presumably you could set your own hours, and for relatively little effort pick up a few bucks to help make your life more tolerable.

Okay, hiring out as a rideshare driver is not everyone’s cuppa. But if the idea appeals to you, think it through carefully.

There’s something you need to know: your auto insurance will not cover you, your riders, or your vehicle if you get in an accident while you’re driving for hire. And while those highly lucrative companies that make their profits by treating you as an employee but claiming you’re not an employee may tell you that they’ll cover damages incurred while working in their hire, it ain’t necessarily so.

Friend of mine recently got into an accident while driving for Lyft. He did not understand that he needed to buy commercial insurance to cover himself, his car, and his passengers, which can cost ten times as much as regular personal insurance. Apparently the ride-share companies now claim, in a vague way, that they offer some degree of coverage, but whether they really do and to what degree is unclear. Not only is your regular personal insurer unlikely to cover your liabilities, when they find out you were driving for Uber or Lyft, they’re likely to cancel your policy. At that point, you will be left seriously up the creek…

Friend reported the accident to Lyft, whose representative told him to try to collect from his own insurance. He had been told (he says) that Lyft would cover accidents that happen while the car is contracted to the company. Supposedly, Uber and Lyft will cover medical expenses and other damages up to $1 million, even if an uninsured or underinsured driver is involved, if you’re on the way to pick up a fare or carrying paying passengers. But since ordinary auto insurance does not cover costs incurred while ride-sharing for pay, what Lyft was quietly asking him to do was to defraud his insurance company by neglecting to mention the circumstances. Unfortunately, he’s the type who cannot tell a lie.

Of course, his own insurer told him to take a flying leap.

So he returned to Lyft: they refuse to answer his calls. He is now stuck for the cost of repairing his own vehicle, for medical and other costs incurred by the customer, and for costs suffered by the other car’s driver and passengers.

And, he notes, the Lyft gig never paid enough even to cover the ordinary depreciation on his vehicle.

In some (but not all) states, you can buy rideshare insurance. These policies generally cost less than full-blown commercial coverage, but…one wonders.

Even if you have rideshare coverage, you must let your regular policy issuer know. If you do not, they’re likely to cancel your insurance.

But think about this: if my friend is right and net profit from gig taxi-driving doesn’t even cover the depreciation on your car, it certainly isn’t going to cover the cost of extra auto insurance. Car insurance isn’t cheap to begin with; it’s sure not going to get cheaper when you’re using your vehicle to drive strangers around through city traffic.

The take-home message? If you’ve got any common sense, look for some other ways to make a few extra bucks. Mowing lawns might be good. Cleaning pools is said to be lucrative. Painting houses? Cleaning? Anything but ride-sharing.

 

Another Brave New World “Benefit”

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So this is charming: Amazon proposes that (for $250) you give them a key to your home and buy a two-way camera/monitoring device to put at the front door. In exchange, they will send their delivery people — who are side-giggers on a par with Uber drivers, from what I can see — into your home to set packages inside the door.

Well. In the age of package piracy, that sounds in theory like kind of a kewl idea.

But…

What about the dog? the cat? If some guy opened my front door today, Ruby would shoot outside and head for Yuma. No, she would not come back. No, she would not allow some stranger to catch her and put her back in the house. She would be gone. Permanently gone. Lost and gone forever, O my darlin’ Clementine.

If Amazon had owned a key to my front door when Anna the GerShep held forth, they would have had a contract deliveryman without a foot.

Hm. Whose liability would that be? Amazon’s, for coming up with such a dopey idea, or for at least not asking “do you have a dangerous dog laying around the house”? Or the homeowners’, for giving a key to some feckless delivery guy, knowing the dog would remove his foot if he tried to get in when they weren’t home?

Interesting legal question.

And…

Do you really want Amazon monitoring activities at your front door, or anywhere else around your house? Don’t we have enough Big Brother in our lives already?

My god, this stuff is amazing. Who would think Americans would be so hot on “convenience” and “kewl” that we would simply abdicate all pretense of privacy in our lives? It just goes on and on.

Brave new world? Weird new world.