The Daily Peeve / Rant

[Alan]

IL, you are generally right about the specificity of benefits, but there are individuals and stores that participate in EBT fraud. In my area the rate is $1.00 in EBT for 50 cents in cash. Welfare phones are also resold.

My brother in law has done a nice little side line business in buying and selling EBT cards over the past dozen or so years. He sold his first couple of free phones for cash and then was surprised to find he couldn't get another after "losing" more than one in a several week period. Frankly, it surprised me too, the checks and balances on that system were better than I expected.

[jp1]

I am more and more of the opinion we should scrap all our social welfare programs and go with UBI. There are people so beaten down by life they can't deal with the paperwork and bureaucracy to get benefits they deserve, including mentally ill people living on the streets, and undeserving people who through persistence or a good lawyer get benefits they don't deserve. UBI for all citizens would avoid these problems, though I think create others, like addicts having more money to OD with.

I tend to agree with you. When I read about all the limitations of what things like SNAP benefits can be spent on, etc, I just think to myself, "surely these people are in the best position to know what they need to be spending money on. Selling one's SNAP benefit at $.50 on the dollar because one perceives some other need to be more important than food is probably only done because some other need really is more urgent than food. The only winner in that situation is the person that bought that SNAP benefit at a sharp discount. And it also infantalizes the person receiving benefits from the government program by assuming that they are too stupid to be able to make rational decisions on their own behalf.

[Yppej]

This is the second day on a row I have tried to find out what an eye appointment would cost me. Neither the providers nor my insurance company can tell me. They are still working on it. My insurer outsourced customer service to another insurer but did not provide them with rate information so even though I have the CPT billing codes I cannot get the information I want which I am entitled to by state law.

[iris lilies]

Here is a rant, and I hope no one gets hurt in the process, haha:

I love white kitchens and think they are classic, and I also think white/ ivory/cream kitchen cabinets in a traditional style are entirely appropriate for my Victorian city house and my Hermann cottage.

But renovators and home decorators have so overdone white kitchens in recent years, I hesitate to put white cabinets in our Hermann house. That’s what I gravitate to, but I dont want my kitchen to look circa 2018. I dont want it to be entirely common.

Driving home this stupid trend was a TV show I watched recently. It’s a reality show about the Hollywood set. An actor and his wife bought a 70s style split foyer house they are renovating. They are putting in sleek and modern finishes. Oh wait – the kitchen is going to be—and this is a direct quote, “farmhouse style.” It will have one of those dumb sinks that hang out and white cabinets. Because yeah, they live in a farmhouse. In the Hollywood hills. In their 1974 split foyer box.

A sleek and modern kitchen would be great in that box. Too bad the owners are devoid of imagination, and they even have a decorator who should be guiding them to something less stupidly trendy for their box.

[Alan]

But renovators and home decorators have so overdone white kitchens in recent years, I hesitate to put white cabinets in our Hermann house. That’s what I gravitate to, but I dont want my kitchen to look circa 2018. I dont want it to be entirely common.

Our white cabinets and appliances are circa 1995.

[JaneV2.0]

Some flipper bought and remuddled my SO's condo. I hate every single thing she did to it from the mint green walls to the ugly stripey faux wood floors to the uber-shiny white on white kitchen. It was built in the seventies, too.

ugliness.jpg

[Teacher Terry]

I like white kitchen cabinets. In our house we gutted much of it but the cupboards were new. They are a very light maple and are fine but not what I would have chosen.

[Geila]

Jane - that is indeed very ugly.

Iris - why don't you do painted cabinets? I'm partial to green myself but you can just pick something that you will enjoy looking at everyday. No one says you have to do white!

[catherine]

I'm neutral on white--depends on the rest of the house/decor. However, I did see one of those stupid FB slideshows: "Trends On Their Way Out" and white cabinets was one of them, because supposedly people didn't realize you see dirt much more easily on white and they don't want to have to wipe them down all the time.

I painted over my white cabinets in my VT house--they are now Wasabi. I love it.

http://media.benjaminmoore.com/WebSe...tch/AF-430.jpg

Jane, I agree that they have given your SO's place the charm of a hospital kitchen. Aggravating.

[JaneV2.0]

I've certainly seen white kitchens done well, and--in general--I like painted cabinetry.