“So Odysseus Got the Cyclops Drunk and Stuck a Heated Stake Into His One Eye…”

My file celebrating the narrow-minded one-eyed giant sons of Uranus who somehow passed on their primordial DNA to many in our society is again full. I must give a few Cyclops Awards to those who have fulfilled Fred Allen’s observation when he said his agent was so narrow-minded that if he fell on a pin it would pierce both eyes.

CA #1: Why Don’t Banks Have a Cover Charge?

I was shocked and then amused by a communication from a bank listing all of the fees I could be nailed with if I continued service with that institution. There were 60 fees all told, listed on both sides of a large card.

Although I have been banking for 60 years, I am not a finance guy, so I didn’t understand half of the fees.

I don’t understand why a bank statement would need “Special Handling”—but if it does it will cost you 25 bucks. Maybe it means they will hide it from the IRS for you.

Changing Canadian currency runs the present currency rate plus five bucks. A young kid brings in a few Canadian “loonies” and wants real American money and gets stuck with a five buck fee. If you want a copy of your deposit slip it will run you a buck. Let’s see—500 sheets of paper in a ream so the bank can make 500 bucks for reaming you. That’s a good profit.

Anyway, I got to thinking that banks have not reached their limit yet on their creativity in the number of fees they charge, so I thought I would offer a few suggestions.

Why not charge five bucks a minute if a customer wants to talk to a human being? Heck, the rich pay as much as 600 bucks an hour to talk to a qualified shrink, why not the same rate for a teller?

Why not a cover charge like a bar that has a band? Pay five bucks when you enter and you could be entertained with country western, contemporary, or classic, depending on tastes and the size of your account while you wait for a machine to have time to serve you.

Why not put in pay toilets in a nice staffed restroom so banks can charge for emergency deposits? Such a practice would keep the riffraff out and create a high-end atmosphere.

So many banks offer free coffee. It only encourages loitering in the lobby. Why not charge for it?

Why not charge a fee for opening the night deposit box? A coin machine could demand at least four quarters.

Why not charge for parking?

I’m sure there are many other services which could be tapped for a few bucks. I was surprised that check cashing is still a free service for clients. Whoops! I should not have mentioned that.

CA #2: How Much Did You Say That Bikini Was?

A Washington Post reporter was curious about conspicuous consumption and how the ultra-rich were making out in Dubai in the Arab Emirates during our recession, so she took a trip to the Vegas of the Middle East.

Dubai caters to the super-rich from all over the world with hotel rooms starting at $1,500 a night (a bait-and-switch price) in a hotel shaped like a sailboat built on an artificial island by a rich sheik.

Dubai is known for an indoor ski slope where the outside temp often goes over 100 degrees.

The reporter wrote: “Dubai is repulsive enough to make most ordinary mortals start rooting for the collapse of global capitalism.”

I think what really got to her were the $800 bikinis flying off the shelves in an exclusive shopping mall. Perhaps a cloth consultant could explain how a bikini could cost that much.

Migrant workers from all over Asia work 12-hour days in Dubai for an average of $4 an hour.

I would think that a Cyclops Award should go to the customer who purchases an $800 bikini from a clerk who makes 33 cents an hour.

CA #3: The Day Nieman-Marcus Became a Consignment Store

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin sure made a big “you betcha” hit with John McCain’s reluctant base of fiscal and social conservatives when she red-meated President-Elect Barack Obama by saying he palled around with domestic terrorists. She also called him a member of the anti-American club.

But she did lose some luster when it was reported the Republican National Committee bought her and her family over $150,000 worth of clothes for the campaign.

Then came the bizarre tale the clothes would be donated to charity after the election. After all, Governor Palin said, her favorite boutique was a consignment store in Anchorage anyway.

Newsweek magazine tells a different story. According to Newsweek, Palin was given permission to buy three suits and hire a stylist.
But then Palin went “rogue” and became a “diva.” A wealthy donor was arranged by the RNC to purchase her clothes, so she and her purchasing agents hit the sidewalks. She spent over $150,000 at Saks, Nieman-Marcus, and other high-end stores. Deliveries were made directly to her hotel rooms.

Newsweek claims the donor was shocked when he got the bills. But that was not the end. Palin asked low-level staffers on the campaign to use their credit cards for “some” additional purchases.

The Tribune sent a reporter to the Minneapolis Nieman-Marcus to see what she could get for $75,000. The totally exhausted reporter said it took her 11 hours to blow that much money on clothes. Evidently Mrs. Palin, an experienced shopper at the Anchorage consignment store, did not take as long.

One of her aides has estimated she spent “tens of thousands” above the $150,000, including $20,000 to $40,000 for clothes for her husband. The “First Dude” became a very well-dressed snowmachine driver. For her extremism in the defense of capitalism and the loss of her political virtue, I think Governor Palin deserves a Cyclopes Award with Double Clusters.

CA #4: How Some Catholic Bishops Continue to Live in the Dark Ages

Practically every poll taken about Catholic values in the last decade indicates that the 65 million Catholics in the U.S. are split about abortion rights and are over 80 percent in favor of the use of contraceptives instead of Vatican Roulette, steel chastity belts, and kneecuffs.

There isn’t much doubt that the majority of bishops do not represent the thinking of a majority of Catholics. The president of the U.S. Conference of Bishops Cardinal Francis George opened up their annual meeting in Baltimore this year with a blast against abortion: “The common good can never be adequately incarnated in any society when those waiting to be born can be legally killed at choice.”

But Cardinal, what do you say to the fertilized eggs that are tossed in the garbage can when they are not “chosen” for the in-vitro process? Do you say: “Sorry, I didn’t mean you?”

Can you justify not providing Catholic women the morning-after pill after they were raped by the hundreds in the wars of the former Yugoslavia? Perhaps you remember that some of them gave birth—and then killed the baby because it was fathered by a rapist carrying out a political “function.”

Perhaps the Conference of Bishops should watch the tape of the birth of a child by a transgender “man” and then have a discussion of what life is really like in the 21st century instead of what it was like in the 13th.

Cardinal George also said that President Barack Obama, if he revives embryo stem cell research that George Bush has restricted, “will alienate millions of people, not only Catholics, and work against the unity Obama wants to achieve.” Doesn’t he realize that over 70 percent of the American people, including a majority of Catholics, want this research resumed because of the possibilities of finding cures for diabetes, Parkinson’s, and other diseases?
Can we afford to give each American bishop a Cyclops Award just to remind them that we live in the 21st century? Auxiliary Bishop Robert Hermann of St. Louis said: “any bishop would consider it a privilege to die tomorrow—to die tomorrow—to bring about the end of abortion.”

Please take a public poll at the conference. I’d love to see it. Would an Inquisitorial stake and fire be appropriate? It’s hard to imagine “suicide” bishops hiding a stake and firewood under their cassocks but that’s where Muslim suicide bombers hide their explosives.

CA #5: Sometimes People Come Back and Bite You in the Butt

It’s with a great sense of irony that black people, kept from voting or having their votes counted in 2000 by dirty tricks, butterfly ballots, faulty machines, long lines, threats of arrest for parking tickets and other offenses, and by highway patrol and local police heavily patrolling black residential areas on election day in Southern states, came back in a crusade of votes to elect Barack Obama in 2008.

They completely destroyed Karl Rove’s plan to have a permanent Republican majority from 2004 on.

It must have been delicious for Democrats on election night if they watched Fox News (Does anyone other than Republicans watch Fox News?).

Karl Rove was completing a statement that a John McCain victory would be virtually impossible without Ohio when he was interrupted by Brit Hume, the Fox anchor. He said, “Guess what, Karl? I’ve just received word that the state of Ohio has gone for Barack Obama.” Absolutely exquisite timing.

So I present a Cyclops Award to Karl Rove, for relying on white pro-life Bible thumpers waiting for the Rapture and greedy corporate types to win an election.