Sundries

-- Yesterday's mail contained a form from a life insurance company with whom I hold a policy. Said policy was purchased when I was about a year old by my parents -- as an investment vehicle rather than because they thought I was at risk of perishing. At any more risk of perishing than any other toddler, that is. The form told me that the company did not have a verified address for me and needed me to write, call or visit them online to either verify the current address or supply a new one. Since this form reached me via the mail, you might think such contact to be superfluous. You would be wrong. Verifying the address by using contact information provided by the company in a letter to me required a good half-hour of being placed on hold, checking information, being placed on hold again, hanging up because of being on hold for 15 minutes, renewing my acquaintance with the company's prerecorded system, being placed on hold, checking information again and being placed on hold a fourth time. I closed the conversation by asking the customer service rep with whom I was dealing -- who had a lot more on the ball than the first one with whom I spoke -- why verification was needed when they had successfully reached me via my current address. "I'm not sure, sir," was the reply. "Is there anything else I can do for you today?

-- In the July 27 edition of National Review, Ross Douthat recounts his experience of watching the Star Wars prequels with his kids and finding he dislikes them less than he used to. The article is titled, "How I Learned to Appreciate the Star Wars Prequels." My own description of how I learned to appreciate the Star Wars prequels is pretty simple: I watched The Last Jedi. After seeing Rian Johnson's bizarre combination of iconoclasm, preachiness and narrative illogic, even "Hold me, Ani" doesn't sound so bad. I was going to say, I watched The Last Jedi and Solo: A Star Wars Story, but even I'm not dumb enough to fall for that.

-- After reading my Facebook news feed over the last couple of weeks, I'm thinking of creating my own 2020 Face Mask Challenge. It would go like this:

1. If you believe face masks should be worn in order to help reduce or slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus, then put yours on. Don't tell me why.

2. If you believe that face masks should not be worn because the call to wear them is more about public control than public health, then do not put one on. Don't tell me why.

You may note a similarity in elements of the two challenges.