Got some interesting news stories to gab on today, so let’s get down to it, boppers!

The Rise Of The Concierge

There is an interesting story about the rise of companies offering concierge services to the super wealthy in London over at The Guardian.

How wealthy do you have to be? Well, you have to be able to afford five thousand pounds a month, or slightly less then eight thousand dollars a month Canadian, for the services, and even after that, you still have to foot the bill for whatever you ask of them.

But demand is high because of all the super wealthy people fleeing European financial instability to the safe and secure shores of the UK (score one for the British banking system), and the services often have long waiting lists and hundreds of wealthy and powerful clients.

I find this very interesting not because I am inherently fascinated by the actions of the excessively rich, but because I find it interesting that people who “have everything” are willing to pay so much for someone who has what they do not : knowledge, contacts, and competence.

The role of the concierge is a highly demanding and multifaceted one. It required an incredibly high level of knowledge, access, customer service capacity, patience, ingenuity, and raw competence. The concierge is the person who knows how to get things done, and I am inherently fascinated by such people because I am the sort of person who almost never knows how to get things done.

So I fully understand why someone is willing to pay so much for this rare and valuable capacity. Even if I had a billion dollars, I would still not be that kind of person. It reminds me of the famous Robert Heinlein story “We Also Walk Dogs”, about a company that specializes in solving people’s problems much like a concierge might. (The title comes from the fact that it started out as a dog walking company. )

Meet Officer Mitt

And in other news, the evidence that Miit Romney is a terrible human being continues to pile up, as a college classmate has recently revealed that in college, Mitt got a state trooper uniform from his father the Governor and used it to impersonate a state trooper and play a cruel joke on some girls.

And not only that, he bragged to his fellow students that he was going to do.

Basically, he got the uniform through his father, then governor of the state, who had uniformed state troopers as his personal bodyguard. He also got a big flashing light for his vehicle, He then used them to pick up and harass girls from a local girl’s school, and to play a “prank” where he pulled over two friends of his who were in on the prank and scare the friends’ dates, who they then abandoned.

Obviously, impersonating an officer of the law is a serious crime no matter where you live, and I find it very interesting that a rich and over-privileged college freshman like Romney would be so attracted to one of the only forms of power and privilege unavailable to him : the law.

My increasing worry about Romney is that he is so absolutely out of touch with reality due to his extreme wealth and privileged upbringing that he has absolutely no concept of the consequences of his actions. That he is exactly the sort of person who would do terrible things and not only not care that he hurt others, but do them with a smile on his face and the full and honest expectation of praise and approval at the end.

That is exactly the sort of person who is far more dangerous than any mere sociopath, because sociopaths at least have enough sense of self-preservation to try to avoid the appearance of evil. Romney has no idea anything he does would even be considered wrong by others.

He is a terrible candidate. I hope that means he will lose.

Today’s Most Popular Murder

Finally, we present the most popular death by bludgeoning in a long time, the case of a father who discovered his four year old daughter having sex with a man, and reacted by beating the man to death.

Predictably, the Internet is abuzz with people declaring this murderer to be a hero, as pedophiles are officially the most hated people in society, and thus perfect fodder for venting our vilest hate.

The guy is not a hero. He is not a villain either, for that matter. To me, he is a tragic victim of circumstance, someone who stumbled across the unthinkable, reacted in an extreme way, and now has to live with the knowledge that not only did he kill another human being with his own hands, but that he did it right in front of his already traumatized four year old daughter.

So not only the child molested, she saw her father kill someone. That is not the outcome of heroic action, it is the outline of a terrible life scarring tragedy. And I am particularly offended by the way the article offhandedly mentions that the Sheriff described the child as “OK besides the obvious mental trauma.”, as though that was just a minor thing she can just walk off.

To me, it is obvious that the girl would have been far better off if her father had just pulled the man away from his daughter and then held him till the cops showed up.

But no, people have learned that it is socially acceptable to wish all kinds of horrors upon pedophiles, and so they caper with glee at the prospect of one getting killed in the act.

Screw what is best for the child, we don’t care about her. We like it better this way. Much more satisfyingly bloody and violent. Scratches that deep down witch burning itch we all share.

Rape is wrong. Child rape is even worse. I am not defending the dead man’s actions.

But whenever people are cheering the murder of any person, count me out.