Credit News

I’m the kind of guy who pays off my credit cards every month, and only uses credit cards that don’t have annual fees or some other charges other than late fees or interest. I don’t buy stuff I can’t afford. My wife is the same way.That’s one of the reasons I married her.

So what that means is that money essentially sits in our accounts, earning interest for us, and the credit card companies pay us some of the money they collect from people who aren’t like us, in the form of cash back or rewards.

Hover recent legislation to help out people who buy things they can’t afford is prompted credit card companies to make the difference by punishing people like me, as Sandra Block reported in USA Today.

Starting next year, Bank of America will charge a small number of customers an annual fee, ranging from $29 to $99. The bank has characterized the fee as experimental. But card holders who have never carried a balance or paid late fees could be among those affected.

Citigroup, meanwhile, has started charging annual fees to card holders who don't put more than a specific amount on their cards, typically $2,400 a year. Other banks are charging inactivity fees if customers don't use their credit cards during a specific period of time. You heard that right: You could be spanked for staying out of debt.

Ain't that wonderful? All is not lost though.

For example, the Fidelity Rewards American Express card pays 2% of cash back to a Fidelity account, with no limits on cash rewards and no annual fee.

If you don't care about rewards and just want a credit card that doesn't charge an annual fee, consider applying for a card through a credit union. Many credit union cards charge no annual fee and offer below-average interest rates.

Associations, such as the USAA, which provides products and services for military personnel and their families, also offer good deals on credit cards, according to Consumer Reports.

Check out the whole story for more tips.

If all my cards end up charging a fee because I stay out of debt, I will simply drop them and use my credit union debit card, which I can use just about anywhere without paying any fees. Sure, my credit score will go down, but I'm not planning on moving and I'll save up and buy my next car with cash which is what I did with the last car we purchased.

I would be more apt to stick with a credit card if the company dropped cash back or other rewards instead of charging people like me fees. It is their choice what they want to do with their cards. It is my choice whether or not I will keep using them.

Marriage Should Mean Lots of Lovin’

S.O.S. IN THOUSAND OAKS, CALIFORNIA wrote in to Dear Abby:

I have been married two years to a wonderful man, but we're having problems in the bedroom.

Most people do at some point. One thing those of us who promote the principle that sex is for marriage should never do is downplay this fact to youth. We should not give them the idea that married sex is always spectacular simply because it is within marriage.

Both of us are very uncomfortable talking about our feelings, especially when it comes to sex, and I just can't explain to him what I want him to do and vice versa.

Yes, that is a big problem.

I have tried many times to say things indirectly but have never been successful.

That doesn't work with men in any other area of life, and it won't work in lovemaking, either. You need to be direct, but not in a way that puts him down. Tell him what he does that you like. Say "I need more of that" or "You really make me hot for your bod when you..." Other helpful things to say:

"That feels good."
"Rougher/harder"
"Softer/gentler"
"Take me!"
"Slower"
"Faster"
"I need you inside me right now."
"Lick me here."
"Touch me here."
"Just like that! Keep doing that."
"I'm almost there."
"Please put on this costume. I will make it worth your while."

Direct him with your hands, if you need to. Most guys love this sort of thing – in fact, it turns us on. A good husband wants to be your bedroom hero.

I can't talk to him directly because I am very embarrassed.

Embarrassed about what? You're married. He wanted you. You wanted him. You are supposed to have intimacy. You should be doing this stuff with each other and having the time of your lives doing it. God says so in the Bible, so if you care at all what the Bible has to say, then it is your duty to love each other in this way.

This has started to destroy our marriage, and now we generally prefer to sleep alone so that we don't have to have sex.

That's too bad. He wants to please you. He doesn't want to disappoint you. But in order to please you, he needs to know exactly what to do, and he can only figure that if you tell him. You may not even know yourself, in which case it will take a lot of experimentation and practice – which is part of the fun, and part of the bonding and growing together as bride and groom.

Dear Abby responded:

Please talk to your doctor and ask for a referral to a licensed, experienced sex therapist.

I would specifically look for one that believes 1) sex is for marriage and 2) men are not wrong for wanting sex more than women and 3) would not recommend anything that would cause either of you to lust after others. (Try asking your pastor, if you have one, as pastors often deal with married couples having problems, and can recommend a good therapist.) There are plenty of great resources from people who take this approach. Here's a good place to start and these people know what they are talking about.

I could stand to be better at telling my wife what I want. I've always been a little shy about that, and then she has shot down some things I have made clear, which isn't exactly encouraging. I'm way too sensitive in that respect, I think.

Craving

This is another entry on sex. If you can't handle that, then click away.

Through what is these days a rare confluence of events, my wife went to bed for sleep the same time I did the other night. This allowed us to have some quality time together, alone, without there being a time limit. Unfortunately some of her body is still off-limits. The upside of this (uh, no pun intended) is that such a situation forces me to get creative and act like we are making out with boundaries... because we are. This time, that meant spending a lot of time kissing, nibbling, and otherwise using my mouth and fingers to create sensations on/in her mouth and all about her head and neck.

That's a lot of fun, and gets very passionate. (Try it sometime if you have been married a while and the lovemaking is getting routine. Just stick to kissing and touching from the neck up for as long as you can stand to not to anything else.)

She was really digging it, and I was manually trying to bring her to orgasm even though she was covered "down there".

Unfortunately, there are times when my wife just can't quite get there, even without being covered. She thinks it has something to do with her disability, and she swears it isn't a problem for her, despite advice from a woman I once read in a lad mag that said it wasn't OK to not bring her to the big O (in other words, the advice was ALWAYS bring her to the big O).

In my past relationships, my partner almost always got there. I have told my wife, just like I have told all of my previous partners: never, ever fake it. If it just isn't going to happen, tell me. If I need to do something different, tell me. But faking it is a very bad idea.

For me, it is much more difficult to get a woman there (and my wife is the only woman that matters in that respect now) if I can't get d0wn there with my mouth. And even when my wife just isn't going to reach that peak, I still enjoy "practicing" that way. I don't know how I got like this, but there's almost nothing I enjoy more.

Anyway, it was a good time. Certainly better than nothing, and better than simply having her "work" to get me off out of a sense of duty. When I'm not permitted to reciprocate I feel an obligation to make it end as soon as possible, and so it is less enjoyable. That, unfortunately, has been what has been going on for a while now due to temporary conditions.

Bottom line: I look forward to when I can return to having my wife's thighs clamp my head.

Caffeine is My Friend

Wanted to check in with an update on one of my "gripes".

I am consistently getting way too little sleep these days. I'm talking like five hours a night being the norm unless it's a day off. I'll return from work, having been gone for over twelve hours, and my daughter will be itching to get out of the house and burn off some energy. It's too dark already these days to take her to the local park. Instead I drive to what is basically a mall and we walk around for a while in a place that is more interesting and safer than the local park.

Then we return home and have dinner long after I should already be asleep. I'm thankful my wife makes dinner, and she notes that I do not get enough sleep. When she makes that notation, I pretty much bite my tongue. Unfortunately, I can't think of any way of address the situation without depriving my daughter or hurting my wife's feelings/getting her upset at me... which wouldn't result in change anyway. She would probably point out that the situation is temporary. It might be. I fear that it won't be, though. It seems like there has been one temporary thing after another, and they've all had the effect of keeping us from settling into a routine we both think is best. My wife has always been somewhat of a homebody, and if she doesn't feel like she can keep the kids safely under her control while out and about, she's not going to do it. But are her feelings based on reality? I'm not sure.

I feel like crap whenever it is clear that my daughter hasn't burned off enough energy during her day – like when I have had to work an extra long day and I get home too late to take her out. She'll ask me to take here somewhere, and it kills me that it would be even more impractical than usual to grand her wish.

If we had moved close to my family, my daughter would be getting outside and getting her exercise while I would be taking care of work. I enjoy spending time with my daughter, but I can enjoy it at home with her, instead of prepping her for a drive, getting her into the car, and driving there, being in a location where I have to be alert and on guard, and then driving back.

My mother and sister both tell me I need to get more sleep. But my daughter has needs, too. She didn't create this situation. So her needs come first.

Again, my gripes are relatively minor. In general, I love my life.

Thomas Friedman on President's Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

In case you haven't seen it, you should check out New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's opinion piece on this subject. Friedman is no anti-Obama critic.

He calls on Obama to give an acceptance speech that includes this statement...

I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers who stand guard today at outposts in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan to give that country, and particularly its women and girls, a chance to live a decent life free from the Taliban's religious totalitarianism.

I will accept this award on behalf of the American men and women who are still on patrol today in Iraq, helping to protect Baghdad's fledgling government as it tries to organize the rarest of things in that country and that region — another free and fair election.

I will accept this award on behalf of the thousands of American soldiers who today help protect a free and Democratic South Korea from an unfree and Communist North Korea.

I will accept this award on behalf of all the American men and women soldiers who have gone on repeated humanitarian rescue missions after earthquakes and floods from the mountains of Pakistan to the coasts of Indonesia. I will accept this award on behalf of American soldiers who serve in the peacekeeping force in the Sinai desert that has kept relations between Egypt and Israel stable ever since the Camp David treaty was signed.

I will accept this award on behalf of all the American airmen and sailors today who keep the sea lanes open and free in the Pacific and Atlantic so world trade can flow unhindered between nations.

Please check out the entire piece. I think the speech Friedman proposes would send the right message to the rest of the world in response to those who bestowed the aware on Obama because they believe he will make the USA more like Europe.

Daycare of the Year Award

Breaking news from the Associated Press...

In Lake Elsinore (Riverside County, in southern California's "Inland Empire"), there was a little mishap at a home that had recently been used as a state-licensed daycare center.

It appears that 23-year-old Benjamin Kuzelka blew his own hands off making high end explosives.

The good news, though, is that the explosives authorities found at the place should take some attention from it also being a pot farm.

Fortunately, no children were there at the time of the explosion.

Letterman and Leno

What exactly did Letterman do wrong?

As Letterman mixed wisecracks with contrition, he said his wife, Regina Lasko, had been "horribly hurt by my behavior" and stated flat-out that those affairs "are in the past."

Well of course they are in the past, by definition. This does not mean there will not be any more. However, if these affairs happened before Lasko and Letterman married, then he really doesn't have much to apologize to her about. Just because he was shacking up with her doesn't mean he was obligated not to have sex with anyone else. If he explicitly made such a promise, then he broke his promise, and that's about it. (Since Letterman doesn't publicly proclaim to follow Christ, I'm not applying Biblical standards.) He has more obligation to apologize to her for knocking her up out of wedlock and not marrying her until after the baby was born, shacking up with her for years. Even then, she consented to all of that, right?

During the hour, Letterman apologized to his staff, which, he said, had been subjected to "being browbeaten and humiliated" by reporters since his revelations.

And then there are the sexual harassment and favoritism issues. If we're going to have government regulation of employer-employee relations, then sexual harassment needs to be treated seriously. We can't only apply it to unattractive conservative men who aren't wealthy or powerful.

Letterman, 62, began dating Lasko in 1986, and they have a son, Harry, who was born in November 2003. All the affairs took place before Letterman's marriage, said Tom Keaney, spokesman for Letterman's production company.

So why the apologies - honestly? We expect a man to only sleep with a woman to whom he has no formal commitment? Why would it be okay for him to fornicate with her, but not other women?

But the CBS producer accused of blackmailing Letterman used pages from a former assistant's diary that described an affair with the "Late Show" host, a law enforcement official said Monday. The ex-assistant, Stephanie Birkitt, went to live with CBS News producer Robert Halderman, who found her diary describing her relationship with Letterman and used it to help blackmail him, the law enforcement official said Monday on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

Gotta love those physical diaries that some people keep around. She probably also told all of her girlfriends too, giving every detail imaginable. But the written word is something else – especially in the hands of a desperate and perhaps jealous guy.

For a celebrity the caliber of Hugh Grant, publicity - including speculation of career suicide - was unavoidable when he was arrested with a prostitute on Hollywood's Sunset Strip. But then he retreated to NBC's "The Tonight Show" to try to explain.

What was to explain? It was easy for Hugh Grant to get sex. Guys like him go to prostitutes for one or both of the following reasons: 1. He wants the woman to go away and leave him alone after they have sex; 2. He has some sort of fetish, or perhaps a somewhat normal desire, that his girlfriend won't accommodate.

Back to Letterman – some people are calling on CBS to dump him. I don't know if they should or not. What would happen to the average CBS employee under the circumstances? But on the other hand, isn't Letterman more of an independent contractor? His actions are a liability for his own production company for sure – someone could easily sue for sexual harassment. It is probably a liability for CBS, too, but as the article says, ratings are way up because of this.

People screw up and have sex with people they shouldn't. Letterman is just the latest in a long line where it has gone public. I don't think he was doing right by his employees, and I also don't think he was doing right by Lasko, but that is more about things to which she willingly consented. Although I haven't committed these sins (sex with employees, "cheating" on a shack up), anyone who reads this blog knows I've done plenty of wrongs of my own.

The fact is, if CBS dropped his show, he would be able to go elsewhere easily. That gets me into my other topic, which I am keeping short. NBC already runs Leno at 10pm (Eastern/Pacific), eliminating five expensive hourlong dramas from the schedule. ABC could do the same by taking Letterman aboard. Some TV industry people blame Leno for reducing good TV jobs. But considering that even with five less evening hours for drama programming, NBC is still running SVU twice a week (showing the same episode twice), is Leno really to blame? Looks like NBC would have dropped at least five hours of drama with or without Leno.

Another Statistic

Looks like we have another case of a bad boy knocking up a woman, then making her life hell until he finally murdered her. Ah, but there will be no trial for him. This comes from the Orange County Register, and takes place in beautiful Anaheim, home of the Angels and Disneyland.

A man wanted on suspicion of abducting his 5-year-old son and killing the boy's mother and her boyfriend earlier in the day was shot by police Wednesday night and later declared dead, officials said.

About 6 p.m., undercover officers fired at and wounded Anthony Castillo, 31, who they suspect killed Heather Courtney Sorensen, 31, and Stephen Rene Serna, 35, according to Anaheim police Sgt. Rick Martinez.

Stephen chose to date a single mother of a minor child – which is a no-no, whether you are just looking for sex or a looking for marriage. Sadly, he paid for it with his life. His poor family.

Martinez said Castillo was armed and a gun was found near him.

Even if there had been no gun found, it would have been reasonable for cops to assume he was armed, after what he did.

Castillo is suspected of shooting to death Sorensen, the mother of his son, and her boyfriend, Serna, during a confrontation around 5:45 a.m.

More proof that Serna was neither a category 3 nor 4. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been there at that time. Category 4 types don't linger after the deed, and don't shack up.

Castillo showed up at the apartment – armed with a gun – and got into a shouting argument with Sorensen, Martinez said. The confrontation ended when Castillo fatally shot the two, police said.

This is one of the things that can go very wrong when you get involved with the wrong people.

After the shooting, Castillo was seen running through the apartment complex with his 5-year-old son… An Amber Alert was issued to help locate the missing child, and he was found safe around 10 a.m. at his grandparents' home

At least the son wasn't physically harmed. He's been subjected to enough evil with the drama he's no doubt lived with since he was born, and being present at the murder of his mother.

Castillo has had previous encounters with law enforcement as recently as two weeks ago, when police were called to Sorensen’s apartment regarding a domestic dispute involving Castillo, Martinez said.

Sounds like a real prince.

What a horrible story all around. The one upside is that the taxpayers will not be paying for a trial, endless appeals, and lifetime incarceration with food and medical care for the murderer. I don't know for certain another person's heart or their relationship with God (or whether their brain was literally broken to the point of uncontainable insanity), but as someone who does believe in both Heaven and Hell, I can take a guess where Castillo is spending eternity.

Ladies, be very careful who you let in to your body.