Brendon J. Wilson | Page 133 | www.brendonwilson.com

March 8, 2004April 17, 2012 by Brendon J. Wilson

The “S” Is For Surcharge

One of the first things I worried about when I came to the States was the apparent lack of debit card use. In Canada, it’s almost pointless to carry cash – why would you bother? Every store, from the lowest corner store to the largest department store, handles Interac. Not only is it convenient, but it’s free. In the unlikely event that a merchant didn’t accept Interac, I could always use a credit card before reducing myself to <shudder> cash.

Since then, I’ve discovered the “check card” – the American equivalent. Basically, it’s the same thing as a debit card with one important distinction: it also doubles as a credit card linked to a bank account that is accepted anywhere that accepts Visa. Sweet! Now I had absolutely zero motivation to use either cash or a credit card! Or so I thought…

It wasn’t until I was in an In-N-Out Burger that I noticed an interesting new trick on the part of retailers. Instead of widely adopting acceptance of these hybrid cards, the exact opposite appears to have happened. For example: In-N-Out Burger doesn’t accept credit cards. Therefore, it doesn’t accept check cards. And on a completely unrelated topic, they have an ATM machine in the corner.

And there’s the rub.

Now, instead of just charging something to my credit card, or using a debit card, I either need to have cash on me or pay $3.50 to get money from the white-label ATM machines that grow like mold in these establishments (i.e.: in the corners). That’s right, $3.50: $1.50 charged by the ATM itself, and then another $2.00 charged by my bank for using a non-Bank-of-America ATM.

While I agree it might make sense for smaller businesses specializing in small ticket items to attempt to pass along card processing costs to improve their margins, there are some places where this seems downright inappropriate. Take the gas station for example: If I fill up using the “serve myself” pump and use a check card as payment, I’m doing the station a favor: I’m serving myself, and the station is avoiding the need to handle cash or hire staff to process payments. Everybody wins, right?

Bzzzt! Wrong! Welcome to Surcharge Country!

in Opinion 1 comments

February 25, 2004April 17, 2012 by Brendon J. Wilson

All Over A Word

Oh no, here we go again: gay marriage has come to the forefront of American politics, spurred by San Francisco mayor Gary Newsom’s recent decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Cue the delirious claims of the imminent downward spiral of family values and the collapse of society.

I really don’t get the opposition to same-sex marriages, much less the call for a constitutional amendment, for a number of reasons. The biggest annoyance is the lack of structured, logical arguments against same-sex marriage – if it’s so wrong/destructive/inappropriate, shouldn’t it be simple to demonstrate why?

Time for a quick tour of the arguments…

Let’s start with the claim that the traditional definition of marriage is between a man and a woman. These arguments are grounded in religious beliefs that God/Allah/your-deity’s-name-here says it’s wrong, according to an interpretation of the Bible/Quran/your-scroll-here. This viewpoint tends to ignore that said religious documents have been revised, tweaked, or changed wholesale at the whim of numerous rulers over time. I don’t mean to be sacriligious, but if I was The Almighty, I think I’d seek a better representation of my will on Earth than a document that’s seen more patches than a version of Microsoft Windows.

Another version of this argument attempts to dress up religious rhetoric in scholarly garb: gay marriage serves no purpose, as the purpose of marriage is to provide an environment for rearing children. I’ll be honest, there might be something to this – after all, if a gay couple can’t reproduce, aren’t they just taking up space, from a strictly evolutionary standpoint? But on the other hand, the same argument could be applied to couples who are incapable of producing offspring, either by choice or physiological incapability. I’m a stickler for consistency, so if we’re going to make propagation of the species a prerequisite to recognizing marriage, we’d better be prepared to apply the same rule across the board, right?

The final argument has less to do with whether or not same-sex marriage should be recognized, but the legal and legislative process by which it should or should not be recognized. Some groups claim that the Mayor has no place changing the law – I’ll agree with that. However, I won’t agree with the same groups’ claims that the courts are “out of control” and “rewriting the laws” without legislative oversight. Here’s a clue: that’s their job, to enforce consistency in the law. If one law says “we don’t recognize same sex marriages” and a higher law says “by the way, the federal government can’t discriminate”, then the courts have to apply the higher law. This isn’t something new; it’s the way it’s always worked. It’s the way it worked when equal rights for minorities were enforced, and when women won their right to vote, so why should we expect it to work any different now?

The most unsettling part of this debate is watching people trying to justify their own prejudices on screen, while trying to not come off like jerks. If you believe the soundbites, then nobody’s against same-sex marriage, they just don’t want to call it marriage, due to the traditional connotations of the word “marriage” as being a union between a man and a woman. It sounds to me like all the laws need to be re-written to replace “marriage” with “civil union” and make the separation of church and state definite. Of course, I’m not about to believe that this would actually solve the problem, but it’s nice to think it would. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure we have bigger problems that affect all of us that we should be solving instead of quibbling over a word.