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It was her dream home when Tammy Wynette and her husband and musical partner George Jones moved into this Lakeland, Fla., home a few months after their 1969 marriage. Wynette was at the height of her reign as the queen of country music when she told the Tampa Tribune in a 1971 interview, “This is home for us. … It’s the only place we want to be.”
When retailers and restaurants offer freebies, the point is to draw attention—not controversy. The only reason to protest 7-Eleven for giving out free Slurpees or Haagen-Dazs for dishing out free ice cream cones might be that the complimentary serving sizes are too small. But what do you expect when you’re paying $0? Now, though, a Texas-based pizza chain is drawing heat over its upcoming giveaway—in which pizza is free only to customers who order in Spanish.
Banks, the thinking goes, have never met a fee they didn’t like. Yet one credit card charge that has been standard for years—the “foreign transaction” or “foreign currency” fee, which tacks on an extra 3% or so to every hotel stay, meal, or tchotchke purchased outside the U.S.—is slowly but surely being dropped by more and more card issuers. Why?
