From cbs13.com in Sacramento:

Michaela Brummund is a young widow going through the most difficult time in her life, burying her husband Lance Corporal Gavin Brummund, a marine killed in action.

Michaela has decided to move back to Copperopolis in Calaveras County to be closer to family.  But her Verizon cell phone does not have service in the small town.  But the cell phone company is not showing any compassion for the war time widow.

“I called them to cancel.  I told them the situation with my husband.  I even said I would provide a death certificate,” Michaela said.  Despite the circumstances, Verizon is imposing a $350 early termination fee. …

The family says a Verizon customer service representative told them that “nothing could be done” about the termination fee.

Nothing at all could be done. It never can. Because that’s Verizon’s policy. There are no exemptions for war widows. If there were, it’d say so right in the policy: “Verizon’s Early Termination Fee Policy exempts war widows”.

Besides, if Verizon makes an exception in this case, pretty soon every war widow who wants to move closer to her family to start her shattered life over, in one of the many vast areas across the country where Verizon doesn’t have coverage, will want the company  to waive its early termination fee. And that just wouldn’t be fair to the stockholders.

Thanks to CBS13′s report exposing Verizon’s callousness (kudos to the station), the cell phone company waived Michaela’s cancellation fee and issued a weaselly, dishonest statement:

“Verizon Wireless has long supported our troops and worked with members of the armed services with flexibility. Once we understood this Marine’s widow’s circumstances, we quickly resolved the situation. We regret any undue frustration we may have caused the Brummunds. Our thoughts and prayers are with Mrs. Brummund and her family.”

Translation: Even though the Marine’s widow told us what happened and offered to show us her slain husband’s death certificate, we’re pretending we just found out about that. Only the reporting by the news media of our unconscionable, loathsome decision has pressured us into waiving the $350 fee that literally is meaningless to our business’s success.

(More Fighting the Power)

VIDEO: Louisiana Mom Kindra Arnesen Speaks Truth to BP Power (and Oily Lies)

Girl, 12, to Sue NYC for Excessive Force in Unwarranted Arrest for Doodling on School Desk

Bank of America Employee Fired for Helping Customers Being Gouged By BofA Policies Tells Her Side

Here’s a young mother of two children who lives in Venice, La., speaking at the Gulf Emergency Summit on June 19, videotaped by PBS News Hour.

Arnesen apparently was handpicked by BP officials to be one of the Gulf residents to whom they could hand-feed their corporate propaganda, so she was invited “behind the enemy lines,” as she puts it, given a security clearance and allowed to witness BP operations strategy meetings, take tours of the affected areas via helicopters and boats and generally swallow a bunch of bullshit.

Unfortunately for BP, Arnesen is “not at all impressed.” Watch her deliver an inside report from the belly of the BP beast…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3bzypjTIWg

(More Fighting the Power)

Girl, 12, to Sue NYC for Excessive Force in Unwarranted Arrest for Doodling on School Desk

Bank of America Employee Fired for Helping Customers Being Gouged By BofA Policies Tells Her Side

If there’s any justice in the world, she’ll win the case. What the school and the police did was an outrage to common sense and decency, and an abuse of authority that almost defies description. That not one single adult in the chain of command said, “Hey, wait, we can’t arrest a junior high student for writing on a desk,” says a lot about the power of group-think and the mindlessness of power.

From the New York Daily News:

Victim of power

A lawyer for Alexa Gonzalez and her mother officially notified the city that they’ll seek $1 million in damages for the alarming incident inside Junior High School 190 in Queens.

The legal papers describe Alexa’s ordeal as an excessive use of force and a violation of her rights. “We want to stop this from happening to other young children in the future,” said the family’s lawyer, Joseph Rosenthal.

Using an erasable lime-green marker, Alexa scribbled the message “I love my friends Abby and Faith.”

Oh, wow, it must have been some kind of terrorist code language.

The poor girl was arrested, handcuffed and marched out of the school to the local police station, where she was detained for hours. Get a load of this, as reported on AOL.com:

Gonzalez describes the ordeal as traumatizing and excessive, saying that after her Spanish teacher caught her doodling on her desk with erasable green marker, she was “physically dragged by a teacher and an assistant principal” to the dean’s office, where school safety officials searched her by placing “their hands inside the rear and front pockets of her jeans.” Police were then summoned to arrest her.

Searched her? For what? Another dangerous marker?

The legal papers filed by Rosenthal said Comacho was not permitted to accompany her daughter to the precinct and was instead told to go home and wait for a call. The documents also said that Gonzalez was detained in “an enclosed room” at the precinct and handcuffed to a pole for more than two hours.

Vile. Beyond. Belief.

Police spokesman Paul Browne told the Daily News that officers should have used better judgment after being called by the school.

Ya think? The cops should have said, “Fuck you, we’re not doing anything. Give the kid detention.” But too many cops like nothing better than to exercise power, the more arbitrary the better.

The kicker is that Alexa had to go to family court, where she was ordered to write a book report (about what? her booking?) and “an essay about what she learned from the experience,” according to AOL.com.

I have a pretty good idea what she learned: That some adults are dumb shits and that power corrupts absolutely — and imbecilicly.

Now meet former Bank of America employee Jackie Ramos (video below), who was fired by the bank on Nov. 25 for helping customers who were being gouged by the bank’s policies. As HuffPost’s Arthur Delaney reports:

Ramos, of Fairburn, Ga., worked as a “customer advocate,” which involved calling people who fall behind on credit card payments and either encouraging them to pay or modifying their accounts. But not all customers qualify for modification programs that will help them, and Ramos grew tired of saying no after six months on the job.

“So I stopped denying people,” said Ramos. “I helped people get on programs that they didn’t necessarily qualify for but who definitely needed the help.”

Sort of like what banks did when they were handing out credit cards to high school kids, dogs and others who “didn’t necessarily qualify.” You’d think BofA would have promoted this young woman for taking some initiative instead of terminating her!

On the other hand, an employee who says stuff like this…

“There was something inherently evil about my job.”

…could be a real buzz kill at the office Christmas party.

Watch Jackie’s YouTube video explaining why Bank of America fired her. It’s another inside, personal account spotlighting the soulless, self-serving policies that compel corporations to abuse their customers and prey upon the weak and helpless.