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Archive for July, 2012

One Person’s Myth

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on July 7, 2012| 1 Comment »

I have received a “Call to Action.” In the midst of a historic heat wave (108 today), my bus riding feminist sisters would like me to ignore my physical ailments du jour, and ride on over to Richmond as counter-point to the Family Research Council’s “Values Bus Tour.” In the past I’ve marched for peace, rallied for Planned Parenthood, and yes, got on the bus for Richmond to protest the Republican-led War on Women. But I have never, ever been asked to serve as the opposing view at someone else’s rally. I must be moving up in the social hierarchy of activism!

“The “Values Bus Tour” is billed as ‘bringing Americans around the nation together to voice support for fiscal responsibility, religious liberty, life and marriage,’ according to an announcement from the Family Foundation of Virginia.” They are rolling into Richmond on Tuesday, July 10th for a Conservative Coalition Meeting with the Virginia Institute for Public Policy at 10 am, followed by a press conference on the Myth of the War on Women at 12:15. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/virginia-politics/post/values-bus-tour-rolls-into-virginia/2012/07/05/gJQA5Ud4PW_blog.html

If you would like to know just what the Family Research Council is about, you can read all about their misinformation and faux policy research on the LGBT community here: http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/family-research-council Thank you Southern Poverty Law Center. OK, I get that they view gays as a threat to their value system, not that I understand it at all but I get the hatred. Bigotry is alive and well, and in certain parts of our country its roots run deep. But the GOP is barking up the wrong tree if they think they can sell the War on Women as a myth. Holler!

According to the Chicago Tribune, “There were over 1100 antichoice provisions introduced in 2011 and 900 antichoice provisions introduced so far in 2012. Legislators in 13 states have introduced 22 bills seeking to mandate that a woman obtain an ultrasound procedure before having an abortion. Of these, seven states are pursuing the state-rape vaginal probe variety. In addition, legislators in 13 states have sponsored right-wing “Personhood” type bills, too extreme even for the electorate of Mississippi, that could make both abortion and reproductive choices highly restricted.” http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-04-11/news/sns-201204111215usnewsusnwr201204090410debate.women.baapr11_1_gop-war-ultrasound-bill-poor-women

I think they are scared, because many Republican women are not buying this myth business. And women are not a minority, like the LGBT community, or undocumented workers. We women vote, and will do so in unprecedented numbers this fall. We women know when a myth, disguised as religious freedom, works its way into the public discourse and starts chipping away at our human rights. We would like to call on that elephant with all those arms to get these ridiculous bills out of our state capitols. One person’s myth is another person’s caterpillar, or elephant.

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Hard Times

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on July 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“Lost on Long Island” is the documentary film that was the topic of discussion this morning. It will debut on HBO this Sunday night. It is the story of mostly baby boomers who have lost their jobs and are consequently losing their employer-based health insurance and sometimes their homes. It takes all the words and statistics that politicians like to throw around about our “economic recovery” and “income inequality” and puts a human face on it.

After my last post I got some interesting comments on Facebook. I think it’s important to distinguish between people who are homeless as a direct result of this economy, who have worked all their lives only to find themselves a decade short of medicare and still looking for work, not a hand out…and those who have taken to the streets to make a livelihood of sorts out of begging. Let’s not forget those people who grew up in poverty, and who might just be scraping by, living in a medicaid motel with children, maybe making a minimum wage. In our family’s Year of Living Dangerously only the Salvation Army appeared on the Flapper’s doorstep Christmas Eve. My brothers didn’t want their charity, but I’m sure my Mother appreciated it.

In the worst year of the Great Depression, in 1933, the US jobless rate reached 25%. We hit a recession peak in 2010 when our unemployment rate hit 10%. Today it is averaging at 8.2%; most economists think that under 5% is acceptable. But what does that mean when only 1 out 10 long-term unemployed will most likely find work? There are so many factors at play: http://www.economywatch.com/unemployment/causes.html?page=full It has been argued that either government spending or raising taxes will grow the economy, so I wonder why we are cutting government spending and so reluctant to raise taxes. Particularly on that 1% of “job creators.”

For those of you looking for a job with a sustainable future, you might like this list. http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2012/06/22/9-most-secure-jobs-in-america/
And for my lovely troubadours, play on! (ps the President they reference is our previous Republican)

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Loitering, a Protected Right?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on July 3, 2012| 2 Comments »

Last night our City Council heard from many business owners on the Historic Downtown Mall. Their issue is that the numbers of homeless people congregating on the mall is hurting their business. I remember Mimi walking into her yarn shop one day and complaining about some people who were yelling profanities and getting into a fight a few doors up. Right smack dab in the middle of the day! I have to admit, it’s hard to sit outside for a scrumptious meal at one of our fine dining establishments with homeless people carrying on in the background. Catholic guilt kicks in. Still, our city, the People’s Republic of Charlottesville, has gone overboard in protecting the rights of the homeless: http://www.homelessshelterdirectory.org/cgi-bin/id/city.cgi?city=Charlottesville&state=VA its churches offer shelters; lawyers defend them in court free of charge; and there are ordinances protecting their right to congregate while restricting where they can stand/sit. Since they are not allowed to approach you for money, they sit with their dogs and kids holding cardboard signs explaining why they need to beg. Because that is what it is, not loitering, but begging.

My Jersey comes out at times like these. I grew up walking the streets of NY pre-Guiliani, when every block was teeming with beggars and people were sleeping on cardboard boxes outside of Tiffany. I was taught to ignore them. I know that sounds cruel, but the reasoning was that it would put (young) me at risk if I stopped to talk with them, and it would encourage more begging. There were shelters available and most homeless, I was told, are alcoholic and/or drug users; so any money I gave them was just feeding their habit. That made sense to me. Now we know that many homeless are not just drunks but mentally ill, and since there are laws prohibiting the forced administration of medication to these patients, unless they are a danger to themselves or others, they are stuck in a Catch 22 of bureaucratic limbo. If they are treated with psychogenic drugs, they will often stop taking them because they forget or just don’t like the feeling. So a cycle of homelessness can seem hopeless.

Certainly today, there may also be a small percentage of homeless who have fallen into poverty due to divorce or bankruptcy, and find themselves living in a car. My question is do homeless people really have the right, are they protected by our First Amendment, to sit on our public sidewalks with their signs up and their hands open? To argue and party with abandon so long as they remain a certain number of feet away from the Paramount Theatre? And how much can we the people balance and regulate their rights with the rights of business owners to operate their stores in relative peace?

When temperatures rise into triple digits in June, and many in our county are still without power in July, our City Council may find it difficult to keep tempers down around town. Stay safe, stay cool be careful around those fireworks – did you know you can buy them right in the grocery store in VA?! Happy Fourth of July Y’All, from this transplanted Jersey Girl!

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Power to the People

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on July 1, 2012| 2 Comments »

We all know that scene in The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy looks at Toto and says “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Well, late Friday afternoon, when the temperature had peaked at 108, I had a feeling my house might just be blown off its foundation and end up in Kansas!

Gov McDonnell declared a state of emergency for VA after a series of violent “boundary” thunderstorms ripped through these parts leaving 6 people dead; 2 in our county were struck by trees. Bob was putting a foot in the hot tub when he looked up and decided to come inside. Usually, he likes to sit on the deck and watch a storm cross over the mountain range, so this was unusual. We lost power but our trusty generator switched right on, then we lost our Dish satellite and only had news via the Weather Channel on my iPhone. Oh, and we lost our land lines too. Then it got very, very dark and our windows, the shiny, beautiful clean windows I’d just washed for the party, were being pummeled by what, hail?

When you are married to an ER doctor, you get used to a certain laissez faire. Unless you are dying, nothing much can bother him. “HA, I was right, you have Zoster!” he might say smiling. Or, “It’s only a GI bug, you’ll feel better tomorrow.” When I ran in with a limp child after falling off a bike, and he said call the ambulance, I knew it was serious. So Friday night, when he put on his work boots, started gathering flashlights and opening windows, I have to admit, I started to panic just a little. First he’s not on the deck watching the storm, second he came in from his beloved hot tub, and third, he NEVER opens windows, but he said he wanted to equalize the pressure. That unbearable heat was being whipped up by a cold wind, a wind that hit straight-line gusts of over 80 MPH while the lightening played out over our Blue Ridge mountain range like some evil horror show.
http://www2.dailyprogress.com/news/2012/jun/30/thunderstorms-leave-2-dead-thousands-without-power-ar-2025298/

What do you do in a disaster? Some people were made for these things, ER docs, firefighters, pilots, medics. It’s in their DNA. They are the opposite of risk-averse, they are risk-in-love. I asked Bob what he would have done on that Italian cruise ship that went aground recently, would he have started climbing up? Of course, he would not have listened to the officers telling people to go back to their cabins. It made me think of one of the Flapper’s famous sayings, “Signs are for sheep.” Yesterday morning he was doing his chain saw buzzing best all over our driveway, we had 3 trees down.
Then when we went to Starbucks for a break, they had no milk. He went over to the only other open store in the whole shopping center, bought milk and half and half, and gave it to the baristas. People were wandering around like zombies, trying to find a cool shelter, trying to find relief from the massive power outages. “Do you know if they have any hamburger in there?” one nervous woman asked me while we walked to the car. I started to tell her they have milk, but no yogurt, and saw in her eyes she didn’t care. She was after meat.

I felt like I was in an episode of Doomsday Preppers! Later, on Bob’s 3 to 11 shift, the ER treated over 100 patients, many with heat exhaustion. We have 2.5 million people without power in the state. “This was the largest non-hurricane power outage in Virginia history,” McDonnell said. And the fifth highest ever in state history. Well people, it’s July 1st, please try and stay out of emergency rooms. You know why, right? All the new ER interns are starting fresh out of medical school. They just got their long white coats and are still learning how to write a prescription. But if you do find yourself on a gurney, give ’em a break and try to be a patient patient. Hum “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

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