Phishers of men

“Ruh-roh … I just got a Facebook friend request from ‘you,’” said the text that came as I was feeding the dogs and deciding what I would make for myself for dinner.

I got a second text from another friend a few minutes later, while I was working on a foolproof Facebook password that I hope is foolproofier than the one I had had until a few minutes earlier.

Phishing scams must be a lucrative business, or else so many people wouldn’t be trying to obtain my personal information all the time. So far this week, I’ve gotten calls from “Denver,” “Newton, Kansas,” and “Clayville, New York.” I didn’t answer, but I’ll bet the callers eventually would want to know something about my bank accounts.

The most insidious attempts come from people posing as Facebook itself. I have gotten about a half-dozen messages from “Facebook” telling me that a user has reported my page as violating community standards and so the page is suspended until I verify certain information. At first I was alarmed, and then I took a chance on ignoring the messages. It’s funny, but for a suspended page it remains remarkably vibrant and usable.

The first text came from my pastor, so my mind drifted to a fantasy where some demon approaches a few lowlifes and proclaims, “Follow me, and I will make you phishers of men,” and they descend into a dark place where they spend the rest of eternity contacting people to tell them their car warranty is about to expire, their credit card has been suspended, or their grandson needs bail money and the cops are insisting they be paid in Walmart gift cards.

Why do they keep trying? Was H.L. Mencken right when he said, “No one has ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public”? Do that many people willingly turn over their passwords and Social Security numbers and bank account information to these scammers? I have to conclude enough people are fooled to make it worth their while.

We live in ridiculous times, and we have to be on constant alert against rascals. Best advice: If something seems phishy, it probably is.

Just a hint of fall color

The other day I mentioned the blasts of orange and red on the otherwise still-mostly-green trees in our little neighborhood not far from the waters of Green Bay, but I neglected to show you. Autumn is a pretty time of year.

Actually, all four seasons have their beauty, but you don’t need me to tell you that. Sometimes the job of the writer is to point out the obvious.

It is well past my bedtime, but I have not taken any time to write a blog post today, so this is obviously one of those filler posts to maintain the daily streak. When you have posted something every day for 1,152 days, you’ll probably throw up a lame post or two yourself.

Make it an amazing day — After all, Sept. 26, 2023, will only happen once.

Along came a Spider-Man

I had Friday night dinner with Son of Red and his beautiful bride. At one point I admired the 2-year-old grandson’s Spider-Man suit. (Actually the 10-year-old grandson is the real Spider-Man fan in their family.)

I remembered that when I was 10 years old, almost nobody in the world knew who Spider-Man is. But I did. Three months after my 10th birthday, I found a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #4 among the new comics at the IGA in Milton, Vermont, during our family vacation, and overnight I changed from an occasional reader of comic books into a diehard fan.

Now that I’ve navigated a few more birthdays, you can find Spider-Man merch in just about any store that sells clothing or backpacks or you name it. Most folks have at least a passing knowledge of Peter Parker and M.J. and all his friends, and the dastardly villains he’s faced along the way.

It’s fun to have been on the ground floor of a global phenomenon. I kind of get to know what it was like for those first kids who bought Action Comics #1 back in 1938 and discovered this new hero called Superman, or the first kids who bought The All-Story magazine in 1912 and read the story of the son of a lost English lord named Greystoke and how he turned into Tarzan of the Apes.

When you discover something wonderful, you want to share it with the world. And so one of the coolest moments of my life was sitting in a movie theater in 2002 and watching the now-familiar story of a teenager, a radioactive spider, and the tragedy that befalls his Uncle Ben unfold on the big screen almost exactly as it appeared in the original comics.

All of those thoughts and memories flooded in as I held the 2-year-old’s Spider-Man suit. Peter Parker and I have come a very long way together.