Open Letter to Tyler Asher, President, Safeco Insurance
Good day, Sir:
I have written to you before about your rogue claims department headed by Kent Stiles, Senior Claim Resolution Specialist II, but you did not respond. As I received a letter from you detailing the cost of my renewed homeowner insurance policy, I thought I should respond before Stiles finds a way to not renew the insurance.
Why would Stiles prevent me from renewing my insurance? Perhaps it is because he is covering his embezzlement (?) or money laundering (?) activities, perpetrated through property claim fraud. Your entire claims department, your Presidential Service Team, as well as a host of managers and other adjusters are involved in this fraud, with knowledge that this is fraud. I have informed Safeco many times in the past three years of what has happened to my claim. All of the complicit individuals have done nothing. Stiles must be pretty powerful. I asked him if he was the president of the company, but he never answered.
Stiles has made a practice of not answering my questions. Perhaps you will. Does it typically take 19 days to respond to a claim? Is it standard procedure to have an engineering analysis of damages conducted only to abandon that report with no explanation? Is it standard to maintain a claim record in a restricted status for three years, such that no one except the embezzlers have access to the file? Is it customary to force an insurance holder into an unfinished project, with no utilities and none of their personal goods returned to the property? Is it usual for an adjuster to authorize a complete rebuild of a property and then not report it to Underwriting? Is it correct to pay a contractor for goods and services not provided, against the wishes of the insurance holder?
Kent Stiles has done all of these questionable actions. He has destroyed my home of over 60 years, destroyed all of the growth planted for the pollinators, destroyed my privacy, and has attempted to destroy my reputation. I am sure he will find a way to cancel my insurance before it comes due. He couldn’t cancel it presently because I paid my premium in full.
Can you tell me if Protech is a preferred contractor in your Innovations Network? Stiles sent him here with an adjuster named Mazandarani. I thought they came to talk with me about making the repairs to one room of my house as indicated in the engineering report. They gave me a lot of hooey about being a part of the Network, the benefits of using the services of one of your Network contractors, etc. They had me sign a bogus contract for repair, packed me out of my home, and housed me at a distance so I could not easily keep track of what they were doing.
After being out of my home for over 6 months, violating the contract, I filed a complaint with the Department of Insurance. I had to file multiple complaints before one of them was taken up by a man named death, John Mort. Mort never had Stiles answer my questions. He never required him to provide the superseding documentation that said my entire home had to be demolished instead of simply repairing the one room that was damaged. It seems Mort works for Stiles. He closed my complaint without telling me he was doing so. When I contacted him to find out the status of my case, he mocked me and told me good luck trying to prove $430K was not spent on my project. My claim was settled for $48K. I received the checks. However, I never received the checks for this $430K charge that is reported as two different amounts in Lexis-Nexis and Verisk.
Sir, I don’t want to renew my insurance with you, and Stiles will likely make my wants irrelevant as he did when he paid the contractor against my wishes. I cannot get affordable insurance elsewhere because my claim history is loaded up with claims. I only ever filed one claim with Safeco, but there were four claims listed in my history. I was successful in getting changed the cause of damage, which was wind but reported as water by Stiles. I was also successful in getting one claim removed. As long as Stiles is the only one providing responses to Lexis-Nexis and Verisk, those lies will remain on my record.
I learned only today that adjusters change the claim numbers on claims so that they can deny renewal. I was issued one claim number in 2016, but that claim number is not included in my claim history. I hate to assume, but I am going to assume that Stiles will prevail this month in finding a way to prevent renewal. Who, then, will take responsibility for this fraud, for the destruction of my property, for the ruining of my life?
I hope to hear from you or a credible representative soon. And thank you for writing me about my insurance renewal.
Sincerely,
VJ Hamilton
OX5953267
Case Dismissed
W Somerset Maugham for Pride Month
Transformation
Slow Turtle Speaks
Antidote to Despair

Beware of Manipulations of Public Sentiment
Why?
Indoctrination. All of us have been subjected.
Else, why would we all think we’re middle-class?
Hidden agendas. Inundated daily with propaganda telling us who we are, what to buy, how to think. Why do we think we are autonomous individuals?
Immaculate conception. Dropped out of favor.
Else, why are women the only ones punished for pregnancy?
People. Pavement dwellers. Permanent renters. Why is carceral real estate the most available?
Heat and hate. On a date.
Why won’t we learn before it’s too late?
Sinéad O’Connor, Sr. Truthful Witness
Sinéad is a protester. Sinéad is a voice that defies simple adjectives. Sinéad is complex, indomitable, inspiring.
Sinéad is missed.
Texas Murders
Greg Abbott, governor of Texas, makes me miss Ann Richards and Molly Ivins more and more every day. Abbott surpasses Trump in his cruelty and utter lack of compassion with his need to label those murdered as illegal immigrants. Legal or illegal, the dead were human beings. The survivors are human beings. Where is Abbott’s humanity?
Bet Abbott thinks he’s a Xtian. WWJD, indeed.
Memoir
Many people are writing, talking about everything. I hesitate to add my voice to the noise. Of course, all is not noise, but one must work to get through the cacophony to hear the music. Perhaps that’s why so many peple post photographs or other sorts of pictures and let them speak wordlessly for themselves.
I spend a lot of time reading and watching YouTube. I can choose what I want to be subjected to from what is allowed to trickle through on the one of two social media apps I use, unless writing this blog is also social media, boosting me to three. I’m still a news trawler: I watch one dose of PBS Newshour, lots of DW and Al-Jazeera, very little of msm from the states. Most of the time, I have no clue of who the people are whose activities are being promoted so vigorously. Most of the time, as I scroll headlines, do I see that their stories are newsworthy at all. Lots of self-promotion, pushing consumption, and significant efforts made to make the public fearful, anxious, panicked.
I also spend a lot of time learning new techniques in knitting, weaving, spinning, all hand and needle crafts. I love the videos about how to reuse things like brown paper bags! Our climate is taking a beating and I want to do my part to not contribute to our collective demise even though what I can do is not even a drop in the bucket of cure.
Now that I have escaped the hell that was my life in that other state, I’m a more contented, if not more optimistic, individual. I am beginning to see some small spark of the good that continues to try to blossom amidst the shootings, book bans, homelessness, drug addiction, efforts of strip us all of our rights to privacy and autonomy, nascent fascism, and general stupidity that pervades our culture. Maybe it is just the good that I have encountered in my new abode. Maybe I just want to be hopeful, though I’m told hope is for suckers.
Which leads back to this nagging desire to write a memoir. I feel like I’ve lead a charmed life, having outrun all the statistical threats to my life and general well-being. I feel a need to chronicle them, if for no other reason than to compare then with now. Sometimes, writing this stuff down helps me remember who I am.
Did you hear Arnold talking about his Nazi dad? He’s quite a guy. Flawed, human, and thoughtful. Such a fact to remember. Such a fact to share with the world. Maybe sharing is a good way to remember who we are and who we want to be.