CAUTION: Identity Theft is Rampant...You may be its next victim right now....

Friends:
CAUTION: Identity Theft is Rampant ..... You may be its next victim right now .....

Yes, like it or not, some computer in India may have your number and you may lose your stash to some Nigerian nitwit scheme. This is not supposed to be happening to us privileged ones who live on this island paradise, God's Waiting Room, but it is. So, as model citizens, Renn and I have invited a couple of experts from the Computer Financial Investigations Division and IRS Criminal Investigations Division from FLETC to tell us how to protect ourselves from financial ruin --- Dennis Keith and Jim Wilson, respectively, will be our speakers Friday.

Of course, Identity Theft is not new, but inventive operatives have found novel technological means to separate us from names and money. This was more difficult in time past when identity depended on individual recognizance. You couldn't get away with much then. But we have ceased to be individuals, and have become numbers in cyberspace. Hence the problems.

In the good old days in Colquitt, one passed for who one was. As kids we'd play these silly games of riding horses of brooms, wearing pillow cases for Superman's flying cape, and things like that. We identified harmlessly with all sorts of characters. Even our mothers watched Queen For A Day on TV, hoping one day to have a clothes dryer. We all dreamed of being someone else, but just dreamed. There was a fellow, I think his name was Carl, who identified with a car motor. He was “not all there," ("touched" as they said in those days), and his 3 year old mind was imprisoned in the body of a 35 year old man. Everybody knew Carl and felt sorry for him, and he just roamed idly downtown and in the ally' where we played. Every day Carl came by, "Udduunn, uddumm, motor dead, honey ... udduunn, udduunn, motor dead, honey." This was to my knowledge his only vocabulary, and nobody wanted his identity.

Well, these days are gone for sure, and things have changed. We're mature adults now, right? Mature, yes, but we have found even ourselves wishing ofttimes we were someone else, a new identity, if only for a day. I like Woody Allen's remark, “My only regret in life is that I was not someone else." They say college grads these days will have 7-8 careers, each bringing new identities. Imagine. And as adults we have found inventive but subtle means of our own to change identities, and there are a 1001 Ways to do that: clothes, cars, jobs, friends, ideology, houses and so on. There are thousands of Elvis look-alikes, and countless celebrity wannabes and pretenders. I think a healthy response to our "mature" identity crises is to collectively take a good look in the mirror, have a hearty laugh, and get on with things.

But, you know, identity theft notwithstanding, life has always been full of angst and profound mysteries ... and things always get worked out. But sometimes I remember Carl, "Uudduunn, uudduunn motor dead, .. honey" ... and I wonder if he ever connected with his true identity and got his car started, "Vrooom, vrooom, motor alive, honey, motor alive." And, speaking' of mysteries, I sometimes wonder about my own motor ... you?


Bud
March 8 2007