I'm a little late on this one, but as I get the opportunity to bitch about Northworst Airlines, it's not like I'm going to pass this one up. The proposed merger between Northworst and Delta has been put on the back burner.

A new era of belt-tightening is beginning for Northwest Airlines, as its executives respond to abnormally high fuel costs and craft a future that in the short run isn't predicated on a merger.

The company's planned combination with Delta Air Lines was envisioned as a way to create a global airline that would be a long-term survivor in an intensely competitive industry. Their networks are compatible, with Northwest dominant in Asia and Delta strong in Europe.

But now that merger looks to be on indefinite hold, and with it the vision of building a larger company that could grow its way to greater profits while also being better insulated against cyclical downturns.

Now some analysts are forecasting that most major U.S. airlines will lose money this year, and additional cost savings are tougher to find because a number of carriers -- including Northwest and Delta -- already have restructured themselves in bankruptcy.

{...}An evolving part of that strategy is how to deal with much higher fuel prices than management anticipated.

Northwest revealed last week that its fuel bill could reach $5.2 billion this year if oil averages $104 a barrel. That's $800 million more than the carrier projected for 2008, or more than half of the $1.4 billion in annual labor savings that Northwest achieved from its workers during bankruptcy.{...}

Riddle me this, Joker: one of the reasons NWA went into bankruptcy a few years back (besides the fact that the fat cats at the top would get paid more if they reorganized under Chapter 11 before new bankruptcy laws were enacted) was because of "astronomical fuel prices" that they hadn't anticipated. Now, a few years later, they're still whining about how quickly fuel prices have gone up and how they haven't worked this into their business plan? How the eff is that possible, when anyone who fills up their car on a regular basis knew that the price of oil wasn't likely to go down anytime soon? Eh? How is it possible that the MBAs at Northworst thought that prices would go down and calculated their projections accordingly?

I've gone on at length in the past about how shitty it is to be stuck in a Northworst dominated hub. Everyone I know who lives elsewhere refuses to believe that the situation could be as crappy as it is. They have received good deals and good service from Northworst. I regularly get emails from my brother in Austin, who would really like me to visit, claiming that it's only a hundred and some dollars to fly from Austin to MSP, so why don't I buy the freakin' ticket already? Of course, I have to regularly disabuse him, because NWA wants twice as much from me to fly from MSP to Austin.

Northworst has a lock on MSP International Airport. They control over seventy-five percent of the gates. The population of the Twin Cities is close to three million people and we don't have a low cost airline available to us. Neither Southwest nor Jet Blue operate here. Why? Because Northworst won't let them in. They threaten and cajole the Metropolitan Airport Commission with the loss of their business, and because they've set themselves up in the dominant position, and MAC is worried that they could find themselves with a huge but empty airport, they cave every time. Never mind the fact that, in the early nineties, Northworst borrowed somewhere around $125 million from the state to stay out of bankruptcy, never paid the money back, let alone the interest on the loan, and then had the debt forgiven when they did declare bankruptcy. Never mind the fact that Northworst, an airline that didn't have one of its flights forcibly hijacked and crashed on 9/11, had its lobbyists up on Capitol Hill on 9/12, begging for federal assistance to keep running before the fires at the Pentagon and the World Trade Center had stopped burning.

Then there's the fact that they treat their customers like shit. They just don't give a rat's ass about the people who actually fund their billion dollar largesse. You pay through the nose for a ticket because you don't have any other option, (for instance, we have a family reunion coming up in August, and I checked the prices the other day, just to see where they're at. Currently, they want $506 per person to fly from MSP to Austin in early August. You're generally supposed to get some discount for purchasing early, but not now. They're going to get you coming and going. Get bent.) You show up at the airport to check-in for your flight, and, if you got stuck in traffic and are running late, be prepared to be yelled at about your tardiness by the ticket agent, with dire threats of your bag not making onto the plane hurled at you for good measure. If you're lucky, you walk away from the counter without paying anything extra. But, if you haven't packed carefully enough, or tried to fit all of the belongings of many people into one bag, you're screwed. They weigh every piece of checked luggage to make certain it doesn't weigh over fifty pounds and if it does, in the name of funding their worker's compensation plan (or so they say), they charge you $25 on the spot. You get through the hassle that is security, then you go and get a bottle of water for your flight, so you don't get dehydrated. Because the airport is paying off a load of debt Northworst forced them to take on to upgrade the airport (otherwise, of course, they would have taken their business elsewhere), you wind up paying $3 for the bottle of water, the costs of debt servicing having been passed on to the retailers through astronomical rents, who, ultimately, pass them onto you, the paying customer. Then, after you're treated to the hassle of getting to your gate, and after you've been treated indifferently by the rude gate agents, who always have something better to do than the job they're paid for, you get on your plane, where you're crammed into a seat that would only fit a toddler comfortably. If you want to sit in the bulkhead, or the emergency exit rows, you have to pay extra for the privilege of opening the emergency exit doors in exchange for a little more legroom. Once you're settled in your extra small seat, and are crammed in like sardines in a tin can, you are, predictably, told by the pilot, that you're going to be late taking off. To make up for the late take-off, the pilots jam up into the stratosphere as fast as they can, causing your ears to pop, for babies to wail, and for allergy and cold sufferers to moan in pain. The speedy rise in altitude is, of course, accompanied by a rapid descent, which causes even more pain and wailing. When you actually land, you have to suffer through an interminable taxi to the gate, the indignities of unloading, only to have to wait a half hour or longer to get your luggage, which, undoubtedly, will have been shaken and jostled by baggage agents who could not care less if you actually like your possessions and would prefer for them to remain in one piece. Never mind that your bottle of shampoo has exploded in mid-flight because of the massive shifts in altitude and all of your belongings are now covered in soapy goo.

But I've neglected to mention the wonderful customer service that the flight attendants offer. They no longer help people stow their carry-ons, but rather bitch and moan when there isn't enough room for all of them, and then get on the loudspeaker to berate people, and inform them that the plane isn't taking off until they, the passengers, get things sorted out amongst themselves and someone checks their bag. When they come around with the beverage cart, they sniff if someone requests something that would require them to do some work, like mixing a Virgin Mary. Then, if you're the husband, and are sitting on the aisle, prepare to have a flight attendant dump milk down your $800 black cashmere sport coat. They do, somehow, manage to apologize in this circumstance, but only because it's going to come back and bite them on the ass if they don't. They'll offer up some club soda and where to send the drycleaning bill, but if the jacket comes back from the cleaners with the milk stain intact, don't bother trying to get compensated for the loss of the jacket, because not only will they want a copy of the original receipt, which was lost to the sands of time, they want to know how much the jacket is worth now, forcing you to sort out the depreciation on a cashmere sport coat that's going to cost just as much to replace as when you originally purchased it. Because that's all they're going to pay for if you manage to get them everything they want in the first place, which happens to be an inordinately large amount of paper. They actively look for ways to get out of their obligations. But I digress. Then, after you manage to get your one obligatory beverage out of these people, if you want something to eat, because, perhaps, if you're me, you have to take medication that requires it to be taken with food, you'll have to pay extra for a teeny can of Pringles. Then, when they're done with serving, the flight attendants roam the cabin, collecting trash as quickly as they can so they can get back to their jump seats, where they'll bitch, loudly, about how onerous their jobs are, and how people can be such a pain in the ass, within earshot of said people.

And all this is if your flight goes off as planned. God help you if there are weather or mechanical related delays.

This is what passes for customer service on Northworst. I'm not alone in this opinion, either. While I'm sure there are nice people that work very hard for this airline to make their customers happy, and they will howl with outrage at this rejoinder, all I can say to them is that your compadres are ruining it for you. Again, I'm not alone in my complaints. Everyone I know here in the Cities has at least one Northworst horror story in their repertoire, and everyone they know has a similar tale of woe. We talk about it at dinner parties: it's a favored topic of conversation. When that many people have had a poor experience with a company, something's wrong. Unfortunately, Northworst does nothing to fix these problems. They file for bankruptcy, in part, to pay their employees less, and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to realize that the customers are going to suffer as a result. Furthermore, Twin Cities residents are supposed to consider ourselves privileged that Northworst has headquartered itself here, and that MSP International Airport is a hub. We're supposed to consider ourselves lucky that we have an international airline at our disposal. Well, pardon the language, but fuck that. We're expected to take it from all angles: as taxpayers we have to bail this stupid company out, and fund their largesse through tax breaks and airport expansions they declare they need to stay competitive, and then we're stuck using them because they have a lock on the market. We're held hostage by this freakin' company. I, for one, would have been extremely happy if they'd merged with Delta, because perhaps we would have started to receive some decent customer service. Perhaps they could have found some cost savings and stopped nickel and diming us at every turn. Perhaps we would have received some decent, fair pricing. But that's not going to happen.

I don't think I'm alone in saying that I hope Northworst does go out of business. It would be better for the people who are forced to fly this garbage airline because we have very few other alternatives, but it would be better for the Twin Cities economy as a whole, because, perhaps, the freebies we hand out to Northworst on a regular basis would finally come to an end. The free market would find a solution to the problem of all those empty gates at MSP, and we would finally get some competition in this market.

UPDATE: Oooh, how convenient! Proof of more nickel and diming to make my point!

If you want to check a second bag on your next trip on Northwest Airlines, you'll be paying an extra $25 starting May 5.

The fee applies each way on flights for passengers in coach class.

The move, announced this afternoon, follows an industry-wide trend started by United Airlines in early February.

If you travel extra heavy, you'll have heavier costs. The Northwest changes also include an increase from $80 to $100 for three or more checked bags, and an increase from $25 to $50 if a bag weighs more than 50 pounds.{...}

I can't check two suitcases without paying extra? Bite me. The sooner this airline dies a horrendous and painful death, the better.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So, this morning, I decided to walk up to the library to return some books. It was a relatively nice day, and since we're supposed to get six inches of snow tonight/tomorrow, I figured I'd better take the opportunity to get out and about before the world turned into one big slurpee.

I'm walking along, minding my own business, trying not to wipe out on the various icy patches, and despite the fact it's below forty degrees outside, the fact that the sun is shiny and warm, the walk is turning out to be a pleasant experience. A hint that spring is around the corner, and I'll soon be able to do this on a regular basis without worrying about ripping out my pants and can avoid all the public humiliation that goes part and parcel with such an event.

I approach a busy intersection and, because the light has just turned green, I start to walk across it. I'm not hustling, because I know from experience that I've got plenty of time to get across it, and it's nice outside---I'm not in the mood to pick up speed. I get to the other side, and, because I need to cross the intersecting road, I wait for that light to turn green. While I'm waiting, some prosperous looking jagoff in a silver Volvo, decides this would be a good time to honk his horn at me. I turn and look, and as his window is already rolled down, he starts yelling, "If the sign says 'Don't Walk,' DON'T WALK BITCH!"

Then he rolled up his window and drove off. Bewildered, I just held up my arms, in what is universally accepted code for, "What the fuck was that all about?" He saw me from his rear view mirror. I know he did, because he paused for a moment at the top of the hill, before jamming on the gas again and taking off.

What is it with these obnoxious drivers? I don't have to press the crosswalk button. If it's been a long time since Driver's Ed, let me remind you that----ahem---PEDESTRIANS HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY. And, yes, that includes not pushin the "Walk" button, and not moving as quickly as you'd like. As long as I'm not jaywalking, I'm in the right. The crosswalk button is there for people with small children, who need a longer period of time to make it across. I don't HAVE to press anything when the light is already green. That is my right by law. But, apparently, the law is not good enough for him. I did not move quickly enough for him, who, had to wait for me to make it across the width of one lane before he could turn right. And, God, you know, that JUST TOOK TOO FREAKIN' LONG TO HAVE TO WAIT FOR SOMEONE TO CROSS THE ROAD, so he had to delay his trip even more by stopping his car---in the middle of traffic, mind you---to yell at me.

This is becoming a problem around Cake Eater land, because this is not the first time some guy has yelled at me from their very fancy, very expensive cars about my failings as a pedestrian. I am sick of this shit. I regularly feel like Dustin Hoffman's character in Midnight Cowboy "I'm WALKING here!" Today, it was Volvo Guy. A couple of years ago, it was Black Toyota SUV Guy, who actually turned around, parked his truck, got out of said truck and tried to find me after I refused to move more quickly, so he could turn left, while I was carrying two heavy bags of groceries. His truck was about a foot from my person, he was gunning his engine, honking his horn, and, as I was royally pissed off at his behavior, I just stood there for a moment, refusing to move in one direction or another, to make my point. When I did move, he squealed around the corner and I went into another store. When I came out, the same guy was standing on the sidewalk, steaming, hands defiantly placed on hips, looking in the direction I had been headed. I walked right past him, a grocery bag in either hand. And he was, apparently, so pissed off that he didn't recognize me, even though I'd been about a foot in front of his truck, staring him down ten minutes previously.

Last autumn, it was Beemer Guy. early on a Sunday morning, I was walking up to the local bakery to get the husband a muffin. There was very little traffic at this hour, but there was some. One car in particular. I was waiting for the light to turn green at the intersection about a block away from our house, and when it did, this "gentleman" in a white, five series Beemer, who was waiting for me to do my business so he could turn left behind me, started gunning his engine before I could even enter the crosswalk. I was not only annoyed that someone had his panties in a bunch at seven-thirty on a Sunday morning, I was threatened by his behavior as well. I don't know about you, but I am NOT going to walk in front of a car where the driver is gunning his German-engineered engine. One slip of the foot, and I'm road kill. Thanks, but no thanks. I've spent too much time in the hospital already, I'm not looking for more. I waved my hand, insisting that he should go first. After he took advantage of my generosity, I shook my head and muttered to myself. He then stopped his precious Beemer, (again, in the middle of the street) and waits for me to get within shouting range. "If you've got something to say to me, SAY IT! YOU HAD YOUR TURN! I DON'T NEED THIS SHIT TODAY!" I just stood there, and stared at him until he decided to storm off.

Look, I'm a pedestrian. I walk places. I am used to coexisting with automobiles and the people who drive them. I am accustomed to obnoxious drivers, who regularly honk their horns at the slightest infraction, who blow through red lights and who are monstrously pissed off when I don't get out of their way as quickly as they'd like---and believe you me, you can never get out of their way quickly enough. Even if you're running, it's not fast enough and you should speed it up. Surprisingly enough, as well, I'm also used to the drunks who like to turn left, illegally, by turning into the wrong lane right in front of you, as in, if you'd been two steps further than you actually were, you would have been flattened. I am used to these people. I always make sure to cross at a crosswalk, with the light, so that if they choose to hit me, I will be able to sue them back to the Stone Age. But to actually start screaming at a random pedestrian? That's just not kosher. That should be a sign to you that you've got anger issues, and should start paying visits to a therapist. I don't really care if you're having trouble paying your mortgage, if your house isn't worth as much as you thought it was, if your wife is fucking the Guatemalan pool boy, if the lease payment on your overpriced sports car is getting to you, or if your kid didn't score well enough on the entrance exam to get into Blake. I don't care about any of these things. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SCREAM AT ME FOR NOT GETTING OUT OF YOUR WAY! I have every right to be there. When I'm there, in a crosswalk, you yield to me, asshole, not the other way round.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This was all anyone could talk about this morning at the hospital. How badly would it suck to be this person?

In what officials are calling a "tragic medical error," a surgical team removed the wrong kidney from a patient with kidney cancer last week at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, the hospital disclosed Monday.

Officials said the error occurred weeks before the surgery, when the kidney on the wrong side was identified on the patient's medical charts as cancerous. The patient, who was not identified, was left with the cancerous kidney when the healthy one was removed.

"We feel just profoundly responsible for this," said Dr. Samuel Carlson, chief medical officer for Park Nicollet Health Services, which owns Methodist Hospital.

Hospital officials said that they apologized to the patient and family, and "are working closely with them to support them in every way we can."

The hospital took the unusual step of announcing the mistake in a memo to Park Nicollet employees on Monday. "An error of this degree has, to the best of our knowledge, never happened at this hospital before," Carlson said.{...}

Discussion ranged about just how screwed this person is. How nurses usually marker up a leg that's to be amputated, and why couldn't they do the same thing with the kidney? Why wouldn't the surgeon have known they were looking at a cancerous kidney? (I fielded this one and said it might look perfectly healthy, but the cancer might actually be microscopic.) Why couldn't they just put back in the old kidney? (Because, duh, it was obviously dead because they hadn't kept it alive but were going to biopsy it instead.) If this person can now get a kidney transplant, and would be moved to the top of the list, or if they were eligible for one at all now, because of their condition? How bad must the morale at Methodist be today? But, mostly, what we discussed was just how big of a settlement Methodist is going to have to pony up.

We decided it was going to be big. In the tens of millions of dollars.

My sympathies go out to the family. But for God's sake, don't sign anything!

But there's a lesson to be learned here, and it's one that I was reminded of last week: know exactly what they're going to be doing, and if your version of what needs to be done differs in any way from theirs, make sure that difference is reconciled. I'm kind of amazed this happened in the first place. One would think the surgeon would have gone over what they were going to do with the patient, and then the patient would have said, 'Hey, you're talking about taking out the working kidney here. Let's try this again.' But, then again, if the mistake was in the chart long enough, and had been propagated enough times within the chart, well, maybe the patient thought the surgeon was taking out the correct kidney? Who knows?

This is a goof of tremendous proportions. I think the hospital is to be commended for not only going public, but to fessing up to their part in the whole debacle, despite the fact that by doing so they've clearly admitted liability. That's fairly rare in this day and age, when most hospitals would have hedged their bets. The surgeon is to be commended, as well, for voluntarily suspending their practice, while things are investigated. It's nice to know that some people have consciences.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Despite the fact he gets paid upwards of $20 million per picture, Tommy Boy Cruise, apparently, has failed to buy the ability to sing in key. Neither will all that money buy one rhythm.

Don't believe me? Watch for yourself.

Do you feel better about yourself after that? I know I do.

{ht: where I usually get these things}

Posted by: Kathy at 02:19 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...buy property in the province of Minneapolis. Not surprisingly, however, given the inclinations of the Minneapolis City Council, they want to do just that.

MInneapolis, Minn. — The Minneapolis Advantage is an effort to stabilize neighborhoods hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. It would pay homebuyers $10,000 to buy properties in certain inner city neighborhoods.

It's not a new concept. Some neighborhood groups have been offering similar incentives for years, and they say the city plan can boost their efforts to encourage homeownership.

The Minneapolis Advantage is still in the planning stages, but if adopted by the City Council later this month, there will be 50 loans available for qualified buyers to purchase a home in any of 18 neighborhoods.

Minneapolis City Housing Director Tom Streitz recently presented details of the plan to members of the City Council. He says the neighborhoods chosen for the program are areas that have high concentrations of boarded and vacant homes.

"We know that investors have come into some of these neighborhoods, and essentially flipped these properties over and over again. They've inflated the value," Streitz said. "They've stripped the equity, and in many cases they've stripped whatever quality materials were left in the house, and left devastation in its wake."

Streitz says the program may not be able to completely prevent a repeat of that scenario, but there are some safeguards.

For example, the loans will only be available to individual homebuyers, not corporations. The homebuyer has to live in the house and commit to staying there for five years. After that point, the loan will be forgiven. {...}

Ok, so not only is the City of Minneapolis considering offering interest-free loans to people whose religion bans them from applying for "traditional financing," they now want to pay people to buy up houses in one of the worst neighborboods in the city. And by "worst" I don't simply mean that the neighborhood is blighted because the houses are old and no one wants to upgrade, I mean "worst" in the sense that this is one of the neighborhoods that regularly earns the city the moniker "Murderapolis." It may be quiet now, but that's only because it's too cold for the crack/coke/meth dealers to go out and shoot one other. As soon as it gets warm outside, the melee will start afresh. And, if one should choose to take the city up on its generous offer, and the bullets start flying because the same city council won't fund the police department adequately, you wouldn't be able to move your family to a safer location because that would violate the terms of said cash payoff.

You might as well as someone to move to Mogadishu and tell them they can't leave when the warlords start rampaging. Again.

Mr. H, who is in the relocation business and knows something about real estate, and I were chatting about these same houses over the weekend, and he said that everything worthwhile in these houses has been stripped, either by flippers, or by squatters and thieves who moved in after the properties had gone into foreclosure. That means there is no plumbing in them, or electrical wiring---both are made of copper, and copper is particularly valuable right now---appliances, windows, furnaces, or wood, even, because if there were salvageable hard wood floors, those were stripped out for use elsewhere. They're just shells, and there's no way in hell that a $15,000 "incentive" renovation loan is going to bring these properties back up to code. Which, of course, the city will fine you for violating.

Then you have to remember that you'd be buying property in Minneapolis, where the property taxes are high, and I'm fairly certain there wouldn't be any sort of break on those particular taxes. Never mind the fact that, in the province of Minneapolis, you pay your taxes and you get squat in terms of city services, like plowing when it snows---and even then, they're more likely to tow your car than to actually get around to plowing the street---or even garbage removal (everyone in the Twin Cities has to pay to have their garbage removed. No one gets a pass on this one.), or even police, because they're strapped as it is stands. What anyone who decides to take the city up on its offer will get, however, is incessant, and expensive, meddling in their affairs. City inspectors will show up and will fine the bejeezus out of these people. They'll have to pay up the wazoo to get any renovation plans approved. And, of course, the property tax bill will, of course, go up when they make renovations and increase the value of the property.

Why would anyone, in their right mind, consider this to be a worthwhile endeavor? You know, other than the city of Minneapolis, that is.

This is just about as predatory as some on the City Council, or elsewhere, would claim the subprime mortgage market was.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I vented my spleen a couple of months ago at Garrison Keillor for suing his next door neighbors for blocking his view of open space. Well, he found a solution to the problem: he's moving.

The star of "A Prairie Home Companion" and his wife, Jenny Lind Nilsson, listed their house in the Ramsey Hill Historic District with a real estate agent this week. The asking price: $1.65 million, according to www.realtor.com.

Keillor and Nilsson sued their next-door neighbor, Lori Anderson, in January to stop her from building a two-story garage-and-studio addition to her house, saying the project would "obstruct the access of light and air to [their] property."
But the dispute isn't the reason Keillor and Nilsson are selling their house and buying another, said real estate agent Mary Hardy. Keillor wants a large, airy first-floor studio where he can work, she said. Keillor and Nilsson made an offer for a house in the 200 block of Summit Avenue that has about 4,000 square feet more space and sits on a half-acre lot on a bluff. While its listing price is no longer public, the house's taxable value was listed at just under $1.6 million.

The lawsuit that Keillor and Nilsson filed was settled through mediation about a week later, but terms were not disclosed.

Since then, however, new drawings have been submitted to and approved by the city, said Robert Humphrey, assistant to the director of the city's Department of Safety and Inspections. The new plans, Humphrey said, call for the addition to be built away from the property line. Otherwise, the project is essentially the same.
On Tuesday, it appeared that construction was underway.{...}

{my emphasis}

So those poor people went to all that trouble to try and satisfy Keillor and his wife---and undoubtedly had to pay a lot of money in legal fees, architect fees, and planning fees---and now he's moving?

Jackass.

If were them, I'd pull the old "flaming bag of dog shit" trick on his doorstep. Every day. Until he moves. He deserves it.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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