FOREWARNED It so happens that I still have and use my original Social Security Identification card. This small piece of lightweight red, white and blue imprinted cardboard was issued to me in whatever FD R year it was that "SS" became operative throughout the land. It has been in my wallet all those years; a wallet which has been replaced a number of times..
It is only recently that I have been oft reminded about what a card that small piece of pasteboard material really is. I am now being warned daily - hourly , perhaps, that overbearing, conniving criminals crouch behind each and every computer within awareness of the term NASA ; lurking there next to every 09-chewing monster mechanism, desktop, laptop (if you have that much lap left), hand-held and a newer mini-modes so small they have been found yet! These crooks are organized to lay their filthy manicured fingers on my fabulous family fortune! And, I am told they will spare no horror will even outdo anything night time cable-TV can offer in the ways of torture and misery to get that which they want so desperately which we are said to have.
We have been warned since ID-Fright became fashionable to cease and desist from printing our Social Security Identification Number on every check we write along with interesting phone numbers, Fax, cell phones, E-mail addresses, and Skype ID. The same facts are handy on business cards if you have them, library cards, swimming pool passes, car wash appointment and all applications for anything. We've been doing many of those for years, We are now urged to stop.
I met a salesman just this week who told me, with pride, he had hidden: his Social Security number-"years ago" - including successfully getting his state to refrain using it on his Driver's License. He does not carry a Social Security card in his wallet. The card is kept in a Safety Deposit Box at his bank.
The whole affair calls for the use of common sense. Too many of these sad stories about who was taken for what are merely re-runs of he same old tabloid treatments of our constant criminal scene.
The real difficulties lie ahead of us.
We are working toward a social and political system in which every man or woman will be, essentially, a "number" with everything tied to that designation.
That will be a time when numbers will spell new kinds of trouble. Imagine a time when the Odd Numbers secede from associations with all Even Numbered folks. 'Tis then, we will will discover what numbering problems really mean.
Andre w McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 7-14-06 [c455wds]
