Identity Theft: The Silent Catastrophe

Would it be fair to say that when the Great Recession hit in 2008, your world was rocked – though not in a good way?

If you answered “yes,” you’re certainly not alone; just about everyone in the United States – and, indeed, the entire world – is feeling the pinch. Credit is tight, the housing market limping, the job market stagnant. Monitoring the headlines and news crawls only seem to occasion new frustrations. The identity of the perpetators are at this point well established; the details of their doings highly publicized. You can’t help thinking that a few well-heeled, well-connected Wall-Street types managed to get away with massive fraud, if not outright theft. Your frustration is compounded by the apparent reluctance of governmental regulatory institutions to offer ordinary citizens any protection.

Suppose for a moment that the government did decide to offer protection. What form would it take? Theft left unpunished only encourages future fraud, which makes the matter of establishing the identity of any possible perpetrator a purely academic exercise. The zeal with which governmental and law enforcement officials pursue surveillence and monitoring technology suggests that they are out front in terms of combating such malfeasance (and, to their credit, they have come up with some pretty awesome toys). But you’re left wondering at whom their directing this technology. Recalling the recent events of the Occupy movement, you conclude that they’re surely not deployed against any criminals who happen to be wearing white collars.

Yet these white-collar crooks are precisely those who are most in need of monitoring. Rob someone by pointing a gun at her, and you’ll go to prison for a long, long time. Rob someone by extending her easy credit, however, and you’ll not only escape justice, you’ll make quite a lucrative getaway. We’ve all seen in the movies and on television the identity of the first sort of criminal positively established in a lineup, often by a witness under police protection. But when was the last time you saw an Armani suit on a culprit in those lineups? It’s safe to say, never. Illegal activity such as theft seems to have a characteristic fashion, and a sharply tailored three-piece is definitely not part of the ensemble. All the glamour is in fraud – the best clothiers, haberdashers, as well as the best food and drink.

Behind all the apparent glamour lies the hard truth that credit and fraud go hand in hand. This doesn’t necessarily have to be the case, though; effective monitoring of your financial and business affairs offers tremendously effective, and relatively easily secured, protection. The sad fact is that, as long as you continue to engage in social activity, you run the risk of at some point falling victim to theft. And these days crime of this sort is often computer-enabled, which means that you could be taken for hundreds, even thousands, of dollars by someone whose identity you’ll never ascertain.

There exist two extremely effective safeguards against this technologically enhanced form of fraud: identity theft protection and credit monitoring. Services like these go a great way toward alleviating the anxieties and uncertainties that attend modern life. It’s to your credit that you’re interested in monitoring your affairs so as to banish from it fraud and theft in all of their various guises. Not to get to philosophical about it, but identity is the calling card of the thing or event. This means that protection depends on recognizing the latter as such. Economically speaking, you and just about everyone else who considers themselves to be part of the 99 percent face a rough rode ahead. You can, however, smooth out the bumps by taking the appropriate measures today.

How to Keep a Lost License from Driving You Crazy

lost drivers licenseYou fear you may be facing an enormous hassle because you’ve recently misplaced your driver’s license. You’re certainly not savoring spending an entire afternoon at the motor vehicle department in order to get yourself a new one. But, more than this, you’re worried that someone can use your driver’s license number in order to commit the theft of your identity so as to commit fraud in your name.

So you’re afraid that your lost driver’s license has fallen into a stranger’s hands, and you can’t be sure of this unknown individual’s intentions. The sad fact is that identity theft is one of the planet’s fastest growing forms of fraud because the anonymity of it makes the crime attractive. Knowing this, you are justified in your anxiety.

You try to ease your anxiety be reminding yourself that, though some unscrupulous stranger may have your driver’s license, he does not have other information necessary to pull off a complete theft of your name – your Social Security number or your mother’s maiden name, for example. Yet, if the stranger with your lost driver’s license is determined enough, the lack of other identifying information. Your driver’s license bears your full name, date of birth, and residential address. With this information, a would-be identity thief can run a background check on you and gather a great deal more information. This additional information includes:

  • Address history;
  • Bankruptcies;
  • Criminal and sex offence histories;
  • Home value and property titles;
  • Marriage and divorce records;
  • Names of relatives, neighbors, associates, and familiars;
  • Telephone numbers.

In addition of the danger of an ID thief delving into your history, you also run the risk of having your lost driver’s license sold to other malefactors. This risk runs especially high in large metropolitan areas, in which their exist huge markets for identification documents. Your lost driver’s license enjoys tremendous street value, in other words, because it can be used as documentation by individuals who reside in the country illegally. Indeed, the information on your lost driver’s license can possibly be used to obtain a fraudulent Social Security number. (To the Social Security Administration’s credit, it has a good record of preventing most such fraudulent issuances; but all it takes is one time….)

Admittedly, these possibilities represent nightmare scenarios. It’s wise never to take your chances, however. It’s quite possible that were you to lose your driver’s license nothing would happen. Yet it’s also quite possible that consequences beyond your worst imaginings might follow the loss.

Immmediate action you should take in the event that you lose your driver’s license involves your earnings history and your credit. “What you should do is get a printout of your earnings from the Social Security administration for at least the next three years, to make sure that the earnings showing up on your record belong to you,” advises one knowledgeable participant on DSLReports.com forum. “Also get a yearly credit report for at least the same time frame to make sure that everything on it belongs only to you. Reporting the loss to the DMV should cover you legally.”

Your responsibilities don’t end with covering yourself legally, however. You must also take measures to protect your identity, finances and credit. This means you must secure the services of a reputable identity theft protection and credit monitoring specialist. Either provides you with a host of services that enable you to defend against the encroachments of any would-be fraudster. A lost driver’s license is occasion for worry. Fortunately, resources exist that allow you to alleviate that worry. But in order to do so, you must take the appropriate actions right away.

How to Keep a Stolen Social Security Card from Wrecking Your Life

stolen social security cardIt’s common knowledge that if you want to work legally in the United States and its territories, you need a Social Security number, which is a nine-digital unique identifier issued to citizens, permanent residents, and temporary workers desirous of earning a wage or salary. Elevated into law by the Social Security Act of 1935, social security numbers are issued by the Social Security Administration for the express purpose of tracking and taxing workers’ income.

The path to a social security card – that golden ticket to legal-worker status – lies through Form SS-5, which bears the title, “Application for A Social Security Number Card.” Once this form has been processed by the Social Security Administration, it’s usually only a matter of weeks before your Social Security card arrives to you.

With the exception of the number, which is uniquely your own, Social Security cards look pretty much alike. This seeming uniformity of appearance belies the fact that there are actually three types of Social Security card:

  • The first type of Social Security card is the most frequently issued. It bears the name and number of the individual to whom it is assigned.
  • The second type of Social Security card also bear the assignee’s name and number as well as the phrase, “not valid for employment.” Cards of this type fail to satisfy the I-9 form requirement, and therefore cannot be used to secure work.
  • The third type of Social Security card bears the assignee’s name and number, as well as the phrase, “valid for work only with DHS authorization.” Cards of this type are issued to temporary workers in the U.S. and satisfy the I-9 form requirement, provided they are accompanied by a work authorization card.

The variety in which Social Security cards come goes to show you how they are rather unproblematically obtained, as long as everything is on the up and up. Unfortunately, because these cards bear numbers that are uniquely identified with individual persons, they become cherished targets of identity thieves who wish to exploit other people’s finances and credit standing in order to commit various forms of fraud and larceny.

So rampant has the problem of identity theft become that experts and authorities alike warn citizens to keep their Social Security number a closely guarded secret. This means that under no circumstances should you ever keep your Social Security card on your person, because this dramatically increases the likelihood that it will get lost or will fall into the clutches of a crook grateful for the unexpected boon that has fallen his way.

Imagine for a moment that the unthinkable has happened: Your Social Security card has been stolen. Perhaps this was through no fault of your own; a clear-thinking person, you kept it safe from prying eyes. But somehow your Social Security card was stolen anyway. The sad fact is that sound precautions, though smart to take, sometimes prove less than 100-percent effective. So if you should discover that your Social Security card has been stolen, the Social Security Administration recommends that you take the following action:

  • Immediately contact the Social Security Administration – Whether you suspect that any unauthorized use of your Social Security number is the result of criminal activity, or simply an accident, you must alert the administration, either by telephone at 1-800-772-1213, or via the Web.
  • Review your Social Security Administration earnings statement. Sent annually to every earner age 25 or older, this statement (also known as Form SSA-7005) can reveal whether someone has made use of your stolen Social Security card. If you cannot wait for the yearly dispatch of this statement, you can obtain a copy by contacting the Social Security Administration at the telephone number listed above.
  • Contact the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) – Should your stolen Social Security card result in misuse by any unknown party, the Social Security Administration cannot help. The Federal Trade Commission, however, can provide you with resources that will allow you to set yourself on the path toward identity-theft recovery. You can reach the FTC by telephone at 1-877-438-4338 or via the Web.
  • Contact the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) – Should you discover that your stolen Social Security card has been used by someone seeking to obtain employment, the Social Security Administration cannot be of aid. You must contact the IRS, which can help you to sort out the situation.

Perhaps the question foremost in the minds of folks who have had their Social Security card stolen is whether they should request a new card. The Social Security Administration will issue you a new number under certain conditions. People ineligible for a new number are those who are trying to avoid the consequences of bankruptcy or legal proceedings.

Bear in mind, however, that the Social Security Administration will refuse to issue you a new card if no evidence exists that someone has used your number.

The Social Security Administration warns that a new card to replace your stolen one is not a cure-all or “magic bullet:”

Keep in mind that a new number probably will not solve all your problems. This is because other governmental agencies (such as the Internal Revenue Service and state motor vehicle agencies) and private businesses (such as banks and credit reporting companies) likely will have records under your old number. Also, because credit reporting companies use the number, along with other personal information, to identify your credit record, using a new number will not guarantee you a fresh start. This is especially true if your other personal information, such as your name and address, remains the same.

Additional bulwarks against the dangers introduced by a stolen Social Security card are effective identity theft protection and credit monitoring. These services work to streamline the process of identity theft recovery, whether the fraud suffered came as a result of a stolen Social Security number or some other misdeed.

ID Theft Protection and Credit Monitoring Hi-Tech Artillery Against Fraud

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that driving military research is the search for the perfect weapon.

You would think that this perfect weapon was discovered some decades ago, when Robert Oppenheimer and the rest of the “Manhattan Project” members split the atom – and ignited two Japanese cities, as well as a cold war.

It seems, however, that nuclear weapons, while certainly effective as far as they go, are less-than-perfect when it comes to conflicts which are something less than all-out war. Most combatants ultimately show themselves less than enthusiastic about the prospect of Armageddon. They’d rather win decisively and bring the troops home.

In low-intensity conflicts – those which do not escalate to the level of all-out war or nuclear exchange – the definition of “perfect weapon” departs quite a bit from the definition as it applies to hydrogen bombs. The Greek philosopher Aristotle considered any relative measure of usefulness or effectiveness as depending on a device’s “arete,” or peculiar virtue. This notion of peculiar virtue easily applies to weaponry. “That a good-shaped, well-finished weapon … manufactured with a view to its being used for a special purpose, is more convenient and effective than a ruder and less perfect weapon … made with a view to its being used for the same purpose, there can be no reasonable doubt,” observes an article in an issue of The Index. This fairly captures the notion of peculiar virtue, which captures in it various related qualities – utility, effectiveness, ease of use, and so on.

Some weapons’ peculiar virtues are manifest; others need to be discovered. In recent year military research has rendered up some pretty impressive weapons technology, one of the most of impressive of which is the railgun. It fires in a rather unusual way. “A railgun is an entirely electrical gun that accelerates a conductive projectile along a pair of metal rails using the same principles as the homopolar motor,” reads the Wikipedia entry on the subject.

Railguns use two sliding or rolling contacts that permit a large electric current to pass through the projectile. This current interacts with the strong magnetic fields generated by the rails and this accelerates the projectile. Particular characteristics are the lack of propellant (only the projectile and the electrical energy to launch it are required to be expended) and the ability to launch projectiles much faster than firearms-based technology allows.

No more smoke and flash of gunpowder with these guns. Instead a hum and crackle precede the devastating explosion.

The railgun brings the noise in a real hurry. “Projectiles fired from an electromagnetic railgun will travel up to 290 miles in less than six minutes, exiting the atmosphere before hurtling into their target at a velocity of 5,000 feet per second,” reports a 2004 issue of Popular Science. “The force of the impact will obliterate target without an explosive aid.”

Obliterating a target without an explosive aid is quite a novel devlopment, reversing as it does centuries of weapons technology, which has tended to move to ever bigger and more devastating booms. Railguns exchange explosive payload for greater muzzle speed, which, increased dramatically, more than compensates for the sacrifice.

The wizardry of the railgun has captured the imagination of writers, particularly those in the sci-fi genre. “The buzz of the railguns’ coils energizing was marrow deep, more penetrating than a mere noise could ever be,” writes David Drake in his novel, “Seas of Venus.” “When the guns discharged in rapid succession, the ballistic crack of a slug accelerating to thirty thousand feet per second in a few yards shattered the air like nearby lightning.”

Drake of course takes license for the sake of literary effect. But the reality of the railgun and its deadly effects require no embroidering or embellishment.

Effective identity theft protection and credit monitoring can bring all the power of a railgun to your arsenal. Identity theft is the world’s most rapidly growing form of fraud, the consequences of which can have you reeling should it catch you with your guard down. It behooves you, then, to blast ID thieves and related fraudsters before they blast you.

Avoid a Financial Belly Flop: Dive into ID Theft Protection and Credit Monitoring

belly flopJordan Topover despised his belly.

It had been a year since he had gone under the knife for lap band surgery. The surgeon sliced open his belly, parted it like a deer carcass, deftly twisted a rubber band around his stomach, and then stitched him up again. It took all of two hours and when he awoke from the anesthesia, he felt like a stuffed Thanksgiving turkey. But the thought that his stomach was now the size of a baby’s fist brought him joy, and when his mother helped the nurse roll him into a wheelchair and then rolled him home, he felt like a man on the verge of a new life.

Despite the littleness of the pouch his stomach now was, Jordan’s appetite remained huge. He ate. And ate. Tapioca pudding and Raisinettes and butter pretzels all found their way into that pouch. He couldn’t understand how it could accommodate so much food. Sometimes he threw up, like the time he ate a quart butterscotch ice cream garnished with a half-quart of Cool Whip; but mostly what he ate settled comfortably in the pouch, there to stay for the remainder of the digestive process.

Jordan’s doctor had promised his belly would slowly shrink, deflating like a gas balloon. It didn’t. At night, as he lay in bed, it rose before him, a gentle mound of white dotted with dark, curly hairs and the odd benign mole. He thought of the pouch buried beneath, the pouch that should have curtailed his appetite, that should have thwarted his desire to gorge. He imagined it had learned appetites of its own, that his own greediness had somehow modeled for it a new way of being. It had learned to expand of its own volition, making it a superfetation, a stomach of his stomach. The pleasures of the table infected it and it had grown to receive them. Never would the mound of fat above shrink; indeed, it was a protective rind, enveloping the pouch, protecting it so that it might expand in peace.

One comfort stayed his hand when he thought how easily he could end his life. (For life holds little joy for a fat man.) At the community pool, he made a real splash. There his belly was no lame protuberance, no fatty parasite on an otherwise healthy organism. There it was a vehicle for much amusement: He had perfected the art of the belly flop. Every Saturday he would go to display his talent at this arcade and often dangerous feat. He would heave his body up the ladder until he reached the highest diving board and would catapult his body, stomach down, above the water. His descent was at once clumsy and graceful. When his belly struck the surface, a slap fine and deep would resonate across the pool. Sunbathing men looked up from Reader’s Digests. Children left off frolicking to mark the cacophonic collision of flab and water. And women momentarily gazed from under heavily mascara-ed lashes at the resounding spectacle that was Jordan Topover.

These thoughts of glories past brought to Jordan’s mind a solution to present sorrows. The pouch would not shrink his belly. But it also made the belly flop an impossibility, for the incision through which it was introduced was red and raw. There remained to him only one solution: to destroy what failed to aid him in one final flop.

He headed off to the pool, resigned to a fate at once cruel and romantic. When he had hauled himself to the highest diving board, he looked down at the cool, blue water beneath. Only it could save him from the pouch within, the foreign body that was designed to heal but was determined to betray. As he flung his body into mid-air, he thought of how brief his glory had been. He thought of many things as he fell, how perhaps he never should have had the pouch, how he should have accepted his body as it was, how that great, white belly had, at times, brought him great pleasure. So lost was he in these thoughts that he never felt himself slap into the water’s surface, he never felt the sudden constriction of the pouch and then its explosion as walls of fat pushed in on it, making annihilation inevitable. As the men, women and children gathered round, they never suspected the drama that unfolded as the large boy fell from the sky, and they never suspected that Other, that secret sharer, which had grown slowly inside, the offspring of a medical intervention rash and dangerous, the brainchild of men too vain to consider that a creation designed to help might also seek the sweet pleasures of digestion unimpeded.

Jordan Topover died that day – and his pouch died, too. But had his relatives been less careful, it was possible that he could have lived on through an identity thief’s deceit. Every day the identities of the dead are stolen and used for nefarious purposes. Don’t let that happen to those closest to you. Encourage them to invest in reliable identity theft protection or credit monitoring. It will save them agony akin to that suffered by the tragic belly-flop champ.

Chop Away Fraudsters with Effective Identity Theft Protection and Credit Monitoring

axe

You greet the morning with a piping stack of flapjack to power your day’s labor. Sunrise trembles just below the horizon. The air is sharp. The distant crackling report of limbs eager to warm in the dawn light is a familiar aubade, none diminished for its many repetitions. Belly full, you feel quickened, ready to hoist the tools of your trade and exhaust yourself until your drunk on mountain air.

You’re a lumberjack, and you inhabit a peculiar kind of paradise.

A lumberjack works in the logging industry. He reaps the first harvest of trees and delivers them to mills dedicated to processing this bucolic bounty into various forest products.

“Lumberjack” itself is something of an archaism, denoting forester workers of yesteryear, who plied their trade largely by hand in principally virgin forests. This works was understandably sweated and arduous, and the wages paid quite low.

Yet despite the dirt, danger, penury and exhaustion, the occupation attained something of a romantic aura. Along with the cowboy, the lumberjack enjoys the status of legend. These days lumberjacks are not so much the alienated labor but the unsung heroes that made the United States great.

And heroic indeed describes lumberjacks’ labor. “For $1 a day the lumberjacks work 10 hours in the open, frequently with the temperature 10 to 20 degrees below zero and they subsist on the plainest of fares,” reports the “Hearings Before the Committee on Finance on the Proposed Tariff Act of 1921.”

Long hours in frigid weather for little pay and plain fare makes for a rare type of worker – hail, hardy, rough, and ready. You’d suspect, then, that given such conditions, only those most desperately in need of employment would apply. But the fact is that, though there is a “lumberjack type,” other personalities could be found in the forest camps. “The lumberjacks were not all ignorant men of a degraded class. Here and there among them could be found a college graduate whose ambition perhaps was not commensurate with his attainments, and who was content to work at hard labor all his life,” reports an issue of The Wood-worker. “The average jack, however, was without particular education except that gained in the school of his rough experience. It is a notable fact that, except during recent years, the lumberjack … was largely of old Yankee stock.”

As the complexion of the lumberjack profile changed, technology developed apace, reducing the need for such laborers, of Yankee stock or otherwise. “Modern technology changed the job of the modern logger considerably. Although the basic task of harvesting trees is still the same, the machinery and tasks are no longer the same. Many of the old job specialties on logging crews are now obsolete,” observes the Wikipedia entry on the subject.

Chainsaws, harvesters, and feller bunchers are now used to cut or fell trees. The tree is turned into logs by removing the limbs (delimbing) and cutting it into logs of optimal length (bucking). The felled tree or logs are moved from the stump to the landing. Ground vehicles such as a skidder or forwarder can pull, carry, or shovel the logs. Cable systems “cars” can pull logs to the landing. Logs can also be flown to the landing by helicopter. Logs are commonly transported to the sawmill using trucks. Harvesting methods may include clearcutting or selective cutting. Concerns over the environmental impact have led to controversy about modern logging practices. In certain areas of forest loggers re-plant their crop for future generations.

Replanting trees for future generations seems a step in the right direction toward sustainability in the logging industry. And sustainability must be the goal. If it isn’t, then Americans have only ecological destruction to look forward to. “Although sustainable logging is more expensive than conventional logging methods, timber from a sustainable source can obtain higher prices in markets for certified lumber,” write Mirjam Ros-Tonen, Heleen van den Iombergh, and E.B. Zoomers in “Partnerships in Sustainable Forest Resource Management.” The authors go on to note that “obtaining certification is complex given the comprehensive set of criteria that must be met, including ecological criteria and criteria regarding resource tenure and use rights and responsibilities, community relations and workers’ rights, benefits sharing, and monitoring and assessment.” Certification involves a certain amount of bureaucratic procedure, certainly, and thus adds to the cost of the raw material. But this cost may ultimately prove a mere fraction of the truly catastrophic cost Americans – and people throughout the world, generally – risk bearing down the line in the form of ecological devastation and its sequelae.

Devastation is something you face these days simply as a consequence of transacting your daily business. This devastation comes in a financial form, and is visited upon you by identity thieves and other sorts of fraudsters. Identity theft is one of the world’s fastest growing crimes. Instead of waiting around for a cyber-crook to take an ax to your credit, savings, and good name, you should sharpen your ability to respond to such an onslaught by securing the services of a reputable identity theft protection or credit monitoring provider. You log many hours on the Internet. You’d hate to see your reputation felled by some unseen ne’er-do-well.

Dragon-Kick Fraudsters with Black Belt–Quality ID Theft Protection and Credit Monitoring

ninjaThey are the stuff of legend: mild-mannered pious ascetics who when threatened become formidable opponents. These deadly holy men are the Shaolin monks.

The stuff of legend, as well as many a cinematic extravaganza, the Shaolin monks enjoy a storied history.

If you happen to be unfamiliar with this sect of warrior priests, the Wikipedi a entry on them gives the details. “The Shaolin Monastery or Shaolin Temple … is a Chan Buddhist temple at Song Shan, near Zhengzhou City, Henan Province in Dengfeng, China,” it reads. “Founded in the 5th century, the monastery is long famous for its association with Chinese martial arts and particularly with Shaolin Kung Fu, and it is the Mahayana Buddhist monastery perhaps best known to the Western world.”

Shaolin Kung Fu is truly spectacular to behold. The video clip below offers you a real sense of why this form of fighting is a martial art:

For all their prowess and ability, the fact remains that these ascetics are but reluctant warriors. “According to their Buddhist principles, Shaolin monks practice nonviolence,” Chris Crudell and Chris Ross observe in their book, “The Way of the Warrior.”

Crudell and Ross go on to state, however, the monks weapons “are famed for their their variety.” Known as “The 18 Arms,” these weapons are:

  • The broadsword;
  • The spear;
  • The short sword;
  • The three-sectioned Staff;
  • The two-sectioned staff;
  • The “Gou,” or hook;
  • The bamboo stick;
  • The “Zi-Wu,”, or deer-horn knife;
  • The “Guan Dao,” or halberd;
  • The “San Jian Liang Ren Dao,” or three-pointed halberd
  • The pointed spear;
  • The tiger fork;
  • The “Bodhidharma staff”;
  • The monk’s spade;
  • The staff;
  • The nine-sectioned steel whip;
  • The “Chiu,” or hammer.

With such a fearsome armory, it’s a good thing that these monks observe the precept of non-harm.

Indeed, warfare has given way to tamer pursuits for these good monks. These days, they perform their feats more for financial than for personal security. “The monks were at the height of their power in the Tang dynasty, though they were still a force to be reckoned with in the Ming, when weapons were added to their discipline,” write David Leffman and Martin Zatko in “The Rough Guide to China.” “However, the temple was sacked during the 1920a and again in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution, when the teaching of kung fu in China was banned and Shaolin’s monks persecuted and dispersed. Things picked up again in the 1980s, when … there was a resurgence of interest in the art. The old masters were allowed to teach again, and the government realized that the temple was better exploited as a tourist resource left to rot.” A tumultuous half-century saw the monks go from paramilitary power, to proscribed sect, and then to premier entertainers.

That they’ve become entertainers is perhaps a preferable fate, because it spares the sect the embarrassment of their renown. Many critics simply could not reconcile themselves to the notion of Buddhist monks taking up arms. “The Shaolin Monks proved themselves ready and willing to fight, and presumably kill, in order to hold their property,” writes Alan Cole in his book, “Fathering Your Father: The Zen of Fabrication in Tang Buddhism.” “Of course, this is a bit shocking if one holds to the idea that Buddhist monks simply practice meditation, read sutras, and sweep the courtyard.”

The only idea more shocking than the prospect of being maimed by a monk is that of falling victim to an identity theft. ID theft is one of the fastest growing forms of fraud, and, with the advent of the Internet, has become a truly global phenomenon. No retiring contemplative should you be when confronted with this crime. You must, rather, take up arms against it. A reputable identity theft protection or credit monitoring service can help you do precisely that. You don’t need to be in a cloister to realize that it’s best to avoid conflict. But when conflict finds you, and you find your finances drained and credit wrecked as a consequence, it’s high time that you practiced a little computer-aided kung fu on your adversary.

Don’t Let ID Thieves Dog You This Winter

dog sledding“Mush!” comes the cry from behind the lead dog leanly loping through the haunch-deep hardpack. “Mush!”

Trailing this shout, a whip-crack resounds, electric in the sub-zero air, the sting it threatens to deliver greater motivation than the idea of the warm encampment at trail’s end.

The team and steam with effort – indomitable fire amidst vast oceans of ice. Their minds consumed with the urge to run, to strain against the halters that bind them to the lead line, suspending in themselves something shapeless and old, a pinprick of ancient light common to each. Holy. Primal.

Each dog points its muzzle toward the horizon, peaks indistinct (even to these sharp-eyed creatures) in the sunless noon. Each dog trails its tongue as if it were a pendant waving in commemoration of dumb energies.

As if galvanized by these energies, the driver tenses against the rear of the sled. He hunches most of the time, straightening only to flick his whip. He does so abruptly and quickly. “Mush!” Hiss!” “Crack!” A few dogs respond with clipped barks; their noises cost them additional effort best conserved if they are to reach base by evening, but such is their aversion to the master’s sting that they feel they must now and again protest….

Some enemies of dog sledding protest that the sport is a species of cruelty. They cite horrific abuses, neglect, and inhumane practices. A recent atrocity involving sled dogs offers a sense of the degree and extent of cruelty these poor animals must suffer. “It was a story that shocked the world and raised questions about a controversial sport in [British Columbia, Canada],” reports a December 27, 2011 News1130.com story. “An estimated 100 healthy sled dogs were killed by an employee of a company in Whistler, apparently when business slumped after the Olympics tourism boom.”

News of this post-Olympiad cull took a long time to make the rounds – some eight months or so. Once folks became aware of this mass murder, sentiment quickly turned against the guilty mushers.

Even if they’re spared a bullet to the skull as reward for their efforts, sled dogs risk sustaining many kinds of painful injuries. A post on EnvironmentalGraffiti.com lists some of the most common, which usually happen in the course of a race. These include:

  • Death;
  • Paralysis;
  • Penile frostbite;
  • Bleeding ulcers;
  • Bloody diarrhea;
  • Lung damage;
  • Pneumonia;
  • Ruptured discs;
  • Viral diseases;
  • Broken bones;
  • Torn muscles and tendons;
  • Vomiting;
  • Hypothermia;
  • Sprains;
  • Fur loss;
  • Broken teeth;
  • Torn footpads;
  • Anemia.
  • External myopathy (wasting of muscle and tissue);

Rare is the dog that escapes any or all of these injuries during an Iditarod. Even the hardiest dogs find the race exhausting, and many never complete the trip. “On average, 53 percent of the dogs who start the race do not make it across the finish line,” the EnvironmentalGraffiti.com post reports. Those that do make it across finish line are certainly worse for doing so. “According to a report published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, of those who do cross, 81 percent have lung damage. A report published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine said that 61 percent of the dogs who finish the Iditarod have ulcers versus zero percent pre-race.”

Lung damage and ulcers are steep prices to pay for the musher’s fame and glory. Yet the musher does also suffer, though indeed not so traumatically as the mushed. In his 1897 book, “Manitoba Memories,” George Young offers an honest assessment of his involvement with the sport:

“My experience in dog-sledding was of the following order: First ‘period –quite amusing…. The second period – barely enjoyable…. The third period is one of desire to have done with dog-sledding for ever.”

Many activists no doubt share Young’s sentiment and would have done with dog sledding forever – for everyone and not simply for themselves.

The fact of the matter is, however, that the sport represents a vital part of many a hyperborian economy. Adventure tourism is big business. And what greater adventure can you have than mushing a team of huskies across the tundra, businesspeople in these regions reason? “Mountaineering, kayaking, dog sledding, backcountry hiking and wilderness camping – once the arduous means for accomplishing polar exploration and pioneer settlement – have all become popular tourist activities,” observe John Snyder and Bernard Stonehouse in their 2007 book, “Prospects for Polar Tourism.”

Adventure tourists – particularly those interested in dog sledding – appear to be after an experience similar to that recounted Egerton Ryerson Young in his 1890 book, “By Canoe and Dog-Train Among the Cree and Salteaux Indians.” “At first it seemed very novel, and almost like child’s play, to be dragged along by dogs, and there was almost a feeling of rebellion against what seemed such frivolous work,” Young writes. “But we soon found out that we had travelled in worse conveyances and with poorer steeds than in a good dog sled, when whirled along by a train of first-class dogs.”

It’s sad indeed that a train of first-class dogs should have only death and debilitation to look forward to. Yet such seems to be their fate.

Like a sled dog, you could be bounding toward a similar future, in a manner of speaking. At large roam identity thieves intent on mushing you to financial ruin, as they drive you cruelly to exhaustion in order to satisfy their criminal desires.

Effective identity theft protection and credit monitoring go a long way toward helping you to snatch the whip from any fraudsters hand. Take action today, before the frozen wastes of ruined credit claim you and your loved ones.

Identity Theft: Today’s Juvenile Delinquents Tomorrow’s Fraudsters?

Mikhail Bakunin, one of the prime movers of the political theory known as anarchism, once wrote, “The passion for destruction is also a creative passion.”

This passion burns with as much intensity in 21st-century America as it did in Bakunin’s 19th-century Russia. And it burns particularly bright in American youth. Energetic, over-stimulated, alienated, and feeling hemmed in by their immediate surroundings, teenagers are frequently seized with the impulse to rebel, to tear down the oppressive structures that they believe limit their ability to act for or express themselves.

Destruction for the sake of self-expression seems rather extreme. Yet a little rebelliousness is beneficial – healthy, even.

Allow rebellion too much latitude, however, and it inevitably becomes pathological, chronic. Civil society begins to suffer a degradation of the order that it so crucially requires for smooth transactions in ordinary affairs.

The rebellious individual suffers, also. Falling heavily on him is not only community censure but his own creeping brutishness. Should he rebel frequently enough, he may just forget what it means to be a human being.

Reminding rebellious youth what it means to be human being was Jerry Sandusky’s stated purpose for his mentoring practices. The disgraced Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach, who is currently being prosecuted for alleged sexual improprieties, claims that he showered with his charges in order to teach them how to wash properly. “Some of these kids don’t have basic hygiene skills,” a recent USA Today article quotes Sandusky’s attorney, Karl Rominger, as saying. “Teaching a person to shower at the age of 12 or 14 sounds strange to some people, but people who work with troubled youth will tell you there are a lot of juvenile delinquents and people who are dependent who have to be taught basic life skills, like how to put soap on their body.”

The Sandusky case aside, the notion that roaming the streets in cities and towns throughout the U.S. are juvenile delinquents incapable of effectively applying cleansing agents beggars belief. But anything is possible.

Fortunately, in the age of the Internet, wisdom is only a few keystrokes away. A WikiHow.com piece offers instruction on how to master the fine art of showering. Anyone who wishes to get himself thoroughly clean must:

  • Undress;
  • Brush or comb his hair;
  • Set the water running and adjust it to the desired temperature;
  • Monitor the water temperature for any change, particularly change in the direction of increased heat;
  • Wet thoroughly his entire body, including the head;
  • Work a small amount of shampoo into his hair;
  • Follow the shampooing with a small amount of conditioner worked into the hair;
  • Apply some gentle facial soap to a thoroughly soaked washcloth and scrub his face with it;
  • Apply bar soap or body wash to this same washcloth;
  • Rinse off the soap;
  • Remain in under the showerhead for a few moments after the soap suds are removed in order to rinse any lingering soap residue;
  • Turn off the water, twisting the faucet knobs firmly in order to completely stop the flow;
  • Exit the shower and stand on a shower mat;
  • Dry off with a clean, dry towel, beginning with the head, and then proceeding to the face, arms, torso, legs, and private areas;
  • Moisturize those areas prone to drying, flaking, or itching, apply deodorant, and body powder;
  • Put on a clean outfit;
  • Gather his belongings together and exit the bathroom or shower facilities.

These instructions are so clear and straightforward that even the most incorrigible – and hygienically challenged – juvenile delinquent ought to be able to follow them.

If evil is born of ignorance, and if juvenile delinquency is a species of evil, then it stands to reason that juvenile delinquency is born out of ignorance, whether it be of washing or other civilized behaviors.

“Recent trends in juvenile delinquency mirror the overall crime rate,” write Larry J. Siegel and Brandon C. Welsh in their 2011 book, “Juvenile Delinquency: Theory, Practice, and Law.” “The juvenile arrest rate began to climb in the 1908s, peaked during the mid-1990s, and then began to fall; it has since been in decline.”

Welcome news, indeed, that juvenile delinquency rates are in decline! This shouldn’t distract from the fact that, even if it happens less often, incidence of teen and pre-teen crime happen more frequently than you’d like. The goal should be not merely be that of further decline, but eradication.

Can juvenile delinquency ever be eradicated? That’s truly a tough question. Experience and knowledge of history would suggest that as long as there continue to exist juveniles, there will continue to exist also juvenile delinquency. This means that society must continue to deal with shocking misbehavior of the sort on display in the video clip below (Warning: adult language).

The passionate destruction captured in this video is undeniable. You’d no doubt be surprised to learn, however, that, from a legal standpoint, these unruly teens commitment no crime. “The legal basis of juvenile delinquency extends back to the very earliest times and is explicitly related to the development of the legal philosophy that excused children from guilt for criminal acts,” writes Joseph Slabey Roucek in his 1970 book, “Juvenile Delinquency.” “While children … cannot commit crimes it is abundantly obvious that some of them violate the criminal code and must be culturally dealt with some way, most likely as a separate category.”

No matter what category they occupy, destruction passionate or otherwise cannot be permitted to persist if communities would like to have clean, well-ordered stores in which to shop.

And then there is the issue of recidivism. If allowed to continue in his antisocial ways, today’s juvenile delinquent may well become tomorrow’s adult crook.

Among the crimes this adult crook is liable to commit is identity theft, the world’s fastest growing from of fraud. If your community finds itself incapable or unwilling to deal decisively with the delinquent teens in its midst, then you owe it to yourself to secure the services of a reputable identity theft protection or credit monitoring provider as a hedge against these hoodlums’ future misdeeds. Jerry Sandusky may have stepped over the bounds of decency when he took it upon himself to teach his young wards how to bathe, but he did show that delinquency will prevail if those in power to combat it refuse to do so. Don’t be one of those do-nothings. Lock down your information, finances, and credit today.

Don’t Let ID Thieves Crash Your Winter Getaway

ski tripYou find work boring, so you decide to take a trip to Hawaii, or maybe to a Caribbean island. It doesn’t matter so long as it is far away from work.

Booking a seat on an airplane is easy; newer technologies make it seem as though the computer does it for you. You pack socks, some with holes (What does it matter, you think, the natives walk barefoot on sand, and so shall you) and two button down shirts emblazoned with palm fronds and three pairs of shorts. At night you sleep without pajamas, so you do not worry about packing a pair.

The taxi arrives on time and the airport isn’t terribly crowded – a good sign. You take your seat by the window in the wide-bodied jet that is to ferry you to rest and relaxation and maybe a romance. You entertain ordering a drink, once it is safe to do so. The engines hum, your seatmate snoozes. He smells mildly of summer sausage and you grow hungry. At 10,000 feet peanuts will be served, and not a minute or foot before. You look out the window. Other wide-bodied jets, pointed in different directions, are stationed on the tarmac. Behind their small, egg-shaped windows you can see the heads of passengers bobbing in and out of sight. You cannot see their faces, and you wonder if they can see yours.

The engines hum, then growl to life. The aircraft jerks away from the jetway. A stewardess, dressed in a white blouse and navy blue pencil skirt, smiles near a bulkhead. She holds a yellow oxygen mask and you think of a rubber duck you had as a child. She waves it in the air and then presses it to her nose. She has a smear of plum lipstick on her left canine and perfect, peach-colored nails. You wonder what she smells like. Your neighbor coughs, stirs and pulls the safety pamphlet from the front seat pocket. He follows along, mouthing instructions and squinting at a small boy in an orange life jacket bobbing in the sea. In the next panel, a smiling blonde woman pats out a fire on her seatmate’s leg. You wonder if you will have to pat out a fire on your seatmate. You hope not, and your stomach rises and then falls as the plane pushes forward and lifts. The pilot’s smooth voice explains that the weather in the Caribbean is warm and calm and that the flight will last two hours and twenty minutes. You look to your watch and wonder if it would stop ticking if the plane crashed.

Two stewardesses appear pushing a gunmetal grey cart. They offer drinks, butter pretzels and peanuts. A child screams and grabs at the peanuts. It looks like the child in the safety pamphlet. Would it too bob cheerfully in the sea if enveloped in an orange life jacket? A stewardess, the one with the plum canine, offers you a drink. Whiskey, you say, and she produces from deep within the cart a small plastic bottle, which she places on your tray along with a plastic cup filled with ice. It’s good, you think, and wonder if the island has whiskey for visitors. No doubt the islanders prefer rum. The travel agent said they were happy and hated work. They eat coconuts and bananas and make love, she said with a warm smile. You’ll love it. Very relaxing. The brochure too said the natives love visitors and welcome them with brown, laughing faces. You think of the small hut reserved in your name. Many nights for laughing and romance, you think.

The descent is near. The engines slow. The child who looks like the child in the pamphlet screams again. His mother shoves a pacifier in his mouth and he screams with his eyes. Your neighbor groans, opens his eyes, and asks if the plane has landed. You point to the window and he goes back to sleep. The stewardesses sit side-by-side in their jump seats. They cock their heads together and whisper. You wonder if they too have a hut reserved on the island. A grumbling in the belly of the plane means the wheels have descended. It is below the clouds now, and the island spreads out below. Cars small as ants thread thin roads. What appear like small tufts of grass dot the landscape. In the distance, you see the airport.

A loud bang shakes you out of a daydream. You look to your seatmate and his mouth is a small “O.” His eyes roll upward, like those of a disturbed horse. His sweat has a caraway tang. Summer sausage.

The stewardesses are standing, their bodies released from the harnesses of their jump seats. Their mouths too are open, but you cannot hear words. You imagine their bodies as separate parts. In your mind’s eye, you see a small, plum colored canine in a tuft of grass. Then the smell of smoke wakes you again. The plane is on the ground. It is burning, and people are shoving and stumbling their way toward the exit. You find yourself shoved down a yellow slide. Groups of smiling, nut-brown people stretch out thin arms. You are safe.

Accidents can happen to anyone. Some are more common than others. The chance of experiencing a harrowing landing is one in a million, but identity theft happens every day, to thousands of people. Don’t let yourself be a victim. Sign up for identity theft protection or credit monitoring today. It’s never too early to begin to safeguard your future.

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