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Stigmata

November 12, 2013 by mountainmornings

Something happened this week in Atlanta that will affect 50% of American households, over 11 million adults and 2 million teens in this country. Just think about it, a woman who had recently been chastised by a congressional hearing, turned around to announce “…the largest expansion of behavioral health coverage in a generation.” HHS Kathleen Sebelius told a crowd on Friday she was happy to be out of Washington while speaking at the Carter Center in Georgia. As you can imagine, this got a polite laugh from the audience. src.adapt.960.high.1383940058477

From now on, insurers will have to cover mental health and substance abuse services in order to comply with standards of the Affordable Care Act. In the past, nearly 60% of Americans have reported not seeking mental health services either because of a lingering stigma or an inability to pay for help. The latest round of mass killings has highlighted the need for improved mental health care, although adding this “parity rule” without concomitant gun control legislation seems illogical imho. Still this is BIG news.

Coverage for mental health problems should be the same as for physical problems, but the public needs to speak up,” Rosalynn Carter, speaking with her husband, last year told several hundred members of the Association of Health Care Journalists. “What is holding up equal coverage? I think it’s the political consequences of an election year. Excuse me for being so blunt.       ww.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2013/11/09/carter-bush-backed-mental-health-equality-now-bipartisan-part-of-obamacare/

Maybe you’ve seen the homeless veteran get a makeover on vimeo, and then join AA ? Or maybe you’ve seen Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), a double amputee, dress down a contractor for scamming the system to get government contracts related to his “disability?” http://www.upworthy.com/whats-the-worst-thing-you-could-say-to-a-congresswoman-who-lost-her-legs-in-battle-found-it?c=ufb2

Our veterans have been suffering long enough, waiting to get treatment for PTSD and head injuries. Homelessness and suicides in this population have been rising . Many seek help outside of the VA, because of the stigma, as well as the red tape. http://www.apa.org/about/gr/issues/military/critical-need.aspx

Let’s talk about mental health, like any other illness. My parent’s generation never mentioned the word “cancer.” We didn’t talk about lots of things related to lady parts, now we all wear pink ribbons. Reagan didn’t want to say, “AIDS.” But if we can’t talk about something as a nation, how can we cure it?

“Comfort Food”  is a fascinating essay about a Mother who was diagnosed with breast cancer, and later her daughter was hospitalized with bipolar disorder complicated by substance abuse. Her friends didn’t bring casseroles or even try to talk with her about her daughter. “Friends talk about cancer and other physical maladies more easily than about psychological afflictions. Breasts might draw blushes, but brains are unmentionable. These questions are rarely heard: ‘How’s your depression these days?'” http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2013/11/families_dealing_with_mental_illness_need_support_too.html

Now if we could only get that darn website to work…

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Brothers in Arms

November 11, 2013 by mountainmornings

On this Veteran’s Day, I’d like to pay tribute to my four brothers.

Michael Edward Lynn passed away last year, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/sports/mike-lynn-former-vikings-general-manager-dies-at-76.html?_r=0 but I remember when our younger brother Jim received his First Lieutenant Bar and  Mike had to salute him! He was 22 by the time I moved back with my family of birth., and was already out in the world seeking his fortune. But Mike served the Army proudly in Korea.

James Joseph Lynn was an Intelligence Officer in Vietnam. My psychologist brother had just graduated from Columbia University when he enlisted in the Army and was sent to Monterey Language School. He met his wife in California and only told me one story about the war. He was at the bar on the top floor of the officer’s club in Saigon when an air raid siren rang out in the night. Only one guy did what he was supposed to do, go back to his bunker. That was the soldier who was shot by a stray bullet.

It made a big impression on teenage me, that subtle message of karma, bravery, and fate all rolled into one little anecdote.

Eric Berla (step-brother) was an original beatnik. He introduced me to Pete Seeger and rebellion. We were both against the war.  Not wanting to kill anyone, but still having to face the draft, he enlisted as a pilot and flew Med Evac helicopters all over Vietnam. I imagined it was like being in a continuous replay of MASH, but in fact most of his fellow pilots never made it home. The red cross on his Huey was like a target.

John (Brian) Cerullo (half-brother) was career Air Force. He was stationed in Germany and later married a German woman. The Flapper’s second child never went to college but rose through the ranks and wrote books about radar, finally becoming a teacher. Though I didn’t know him well, I think we share a certain dry sense of humor.

Here we are at the wedding: Jim is seated in the red tie, and Eric is behind him to the right. Mike’s wife Jorja is in red, but he and Brian were not able to travel. I’m so proud of my brothers, but somehow just saying thank you for your service doesn’t seem like enough.

J&M 0984

 

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Feminista

November 10, 2013 by mountainmornings

Something a journalist said on Twitter caught my attention a few days ago. I even had the pleasure of this person “favoriting” my response to the situation – while everyone else in the BIG media company the journalist worked for  received 10 weeks of parental leave after the birth of a baby, this particular parent was eligible for only 2 weeks. Why?

Because he is the biological father!                                                                   http://joshlevs.tumblr.com/post/65567442495/why-ive-filed-an-eeoc-charge-against-time-warner

It’s strange that the parental leave policy at Time Warner does not discriminate against same-sex couples having a baby, they get 10 weeks of paid leave, each person.  Adoption, surrogacy, no problem. The 10 week policy applies to any new adoptive or surrogate parent, man or woman. But this is their third child, and Josh just couldn’t get the company to budge. So he had to sue, because sometimes a challenge in court is what it takes to right an obvious wrong. Here is what one of his lawyer’s said:

Time Warner’s excuse for treating biological fathers differently than mothers is that women experience a period of medical disability associated with child birth.  While this sounds reasonable at first blush, the rationale does not square with the 10 weeks given to adoptive parents who require no medical recovery time.  Moreover, biological mothers receive the 10 weeks of maternity leave IN ADDITION to their full short-term disability benefits.

Then I just happened to bump into this guy, Joss Whedon, who starts ranting about feminists and comparing the word to the word taliban. Oh you know I was interested. “I hate feminists,” he says, and he begins dissecting the word; a wordsmith who actually made me rethink my relationship with Gloria Steinem and NOW. http://www.upworthy.com/a-room-full-of-feminists-just-applauded-a-guy-who-attacked-feminists-wait-for-it-re2-7a?c=ucfb1  Thank you Rebecca Eisenberg for bringing this discussion to light!

It seems that even rich, white guys can be discriminated against. In this post-feminist, “genderist” world I hope that Josh Levs rallies men and women and transgenders to his cause equally. Because our newborn babies deserve as much time and love as our corporations can deliver under the law. Because we old “feminists” taught our sons well; now it’s high time Madame Justice took off her blindfold.

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The Flip Side

November 7, 2013 by mountainmornings

Something psychedelic has been happening lately on Facebook. A friend from my high school’s Class of ’66 issued a challenge to her classmates to change our profile picture to our teenage self, preferably sporting that iconic hairstyle, the flip. Our generation bridged the gap between the long, straight hair type and the teased within an inch of your life Peggy Sue Got Married type. And nestled right there inbetween the greatest social changes imaginable, lots of us wore the flip with impunity.   CLR High School Web 20131107

Once your virtual self looks sixteen again, memories start floating back. I entered a public high school fresh out of Catholic school. My hair was the least of my worries. I had a severe case of poison ivy on my face Freshman year, and I only knew a few people. The bulk of Sacred Heart grads went on to a Catholic high school; I put my foot down. I was tired of memorizing Catechism. A girl named Margie introduced me to a boy named Bob and from that moment on my fate was sealed.

We sat together at the ‘nerd’ lunch table, which at that prehistoric, precomputer time meant the outliers. Those kids who didn’t play a sport, didn’t wear black leather, didn’t fit in. What we did like to do was drama club, so we would try out for all the plays and look dramatic over tuna fish sandwiches. Our town was salt of the earth blue collar, but most of this lunch table was headed for college. My counselor put me on track for secretarial school, so even though I wasn’t in many of their classes, they accepted me. We were brothers and sisters in Terpsichore.

Some of us became the Big Chill Thanksgiving troupe, gathering again year after year over turkey and cranberry sauce. Too bad my eyes are closed.12156_101119189911809_6561742_n

And it may be hard to believe, but we had a student at our school who suffered from polio. Before the ADA, this girl had to be home-schooled because she was in a wheelchair. I knew she lived in Victory Gardens, and that was all I knew about her. I remembered being lined up at Sacred Heart in the hallway, having to swallow some pink liquid. This was the first polio vaccine, and so I guess our generation bridged that gap as well.

Bob was just telling me how polio is making a comeback mostly because of war-torn Syria. How health officials can’t cross borders to get the vaccine to millions of children. He said it was nearly eradicated world-wide, a gem in the WHO world, and now this creeping viral outbreak.

Following reports of a cluster of 22 acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) cases on 17 October 2013 in the Syrian Arab Republic, wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) – See more at: http://www.polioeradication.org/Dataandmonitoring/Poliothisweek.aspx#sthash.FoP4dKlo.dpuf

Polio doesn’t need a mosquito as a vector, it is passed from person to person which makes it imminently treatable, and even more deadly. On this #ThrowbackThursday, let’s flip this disease around. Consider giving a charitable gift to Unicef this holiday season to help refugee children, to help contain this epidemic. http://www.unicef.org.au/charity-gifts/polio-preventers.aspx

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I Want My Downton

November 6, 2013 by mountainmornings

“That’s the way you do it.” OK enough Dire Straits,

I mentioned awhile back how I’ve been learning about iPhoto at this new place in town, and what I forgot to say is that I went ahead and splurged on Apple TV. Why? Well, our TV is old enough not to have the ability to connect with the internet for live streaming, and we’re old enough not to have any game cartridges lying around like Nintendo to accomplish the same thing. In other words, in order to get Netflix, we had to buy Apple.

Bob looked at me suspiciously and asked if I was ready to pledge not to abuse this privilege, this ability to watch new movies and old TV series along with new content in the blink of an eye. He was nervous. And I get it, because I would always stay in my office painstakingly watching Downton Abbey for free (with a few commercial interruptions) on my computer whenever I missed a Sunday night episode.

And I missed the last episode of the last season, the one with the car crash! Why buy the whole boxed set of old tech DVDs when I could just pull it up on my TV with ease? I remember watching the second series with the Bride while she was nursing her new baby in Nashville on Netflix. Three generations bonding over Edwardian intrigue. So I started the search on my new Apple TV…

“Does anyone know when @Suburgatory season 2 comes out on DVD? I can’t find any news about it and it’s not even avail on Amazon Instant. wtf”

This just appeared on my Twitter feed from a young, bright, feminist writer. Which makes me feel a little better about being duped. It seems that Downton Abbey is nowhere to be found on Netflix. And so I did what any red-blooded American girl would do, I googled “Why is Downton…” and immediately “..not on Netflix anymore” popped up! AHA!!

The producers of the the Abbey, the reason I bought the Apple, have signed an exclusive contract this past summer with Amazon Prime!

Amazon just signed a deal for exclusive streaming rights to the PBS hit series“Downton Abbey” for the third, fourth and fifth seasons of the show (if they’re produced). In a press release, Amazon announced that “later this year, no digital subscription service other than Prime Instant Video will offer any seasons of ‘Downton Abbey.'” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/01/downton-abbey-amazon_n_2600007.html

If you’re still with me, this means I must download Amazon Prime for $79 per year in order to watch my beloved Downton Abbey. OR, I could buy each episode I missed for about $3 on iTunes. Which makes me feel like Maggie Smith walking into a room with those new-fangled electric lights, shielding her eyes and scowling. The unmitigated nerve!

Amazon scares me a little, It’s like their mission is world domination right? Don’t tell Bob that while he worked the last few night shifts, I binge watched “Orange is the New Black.”

Take that Amazon, she said, holding a screwdriver. This is how Ms Bean feels when forced to get into a car, my sentiments exactly girl.  IMG_0387

Oh and thank you Virginia for voting for a reasonable and rational ticket yesterday, you really delivered.

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Blue Mountains = Blue State?

November 3, 2013 by mountainmornings

We lost an hour on the clock this morning, and if the polls prove to be true, the whole country will be watching VA turn blue on Tuesday. I don’t know about your state, but we’ve been flooded with phone calls and TV ads to get out the vote in this off-year election for Governor, and it’s become apparent that Democrat Terry McAuliffe holds a double digit lead among women against his anti-choice, pro-gun, climate change denier Tea Party opponent, Ken Cuccinelli. 130508_ken_cuccinelli_terry_mcauliffe_ap_605

While McAuliffe is ahead in all the public opinion polls and while he and his allies have greatly outraised and outspent Cuccinelli and the outside groups backing the GOP candidate, this is expected to be a low-turnout, off-year election which tends to trend older and slightly more conservative.http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/30/how-close-is-the-race-for-governor-of-virginia/

But in addition to voting for Governor, we also have a few down-ballot boxes to tick; on Tuesday Virginia elects two other statewide officers, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General. In addition, some other delegates to the state house are busy trying to defend their majority. With over a two to one margin, it’s unlikely the Republicans will lose the house.

Still, we Dems just might win the top trifecta of seats in VA, thanks to women voters. Which would mean we’d never have to suffer another humiliating vaginal probe ultrasound bill, or personhood bill, or a bill that adds exorbitant regulations and building requirements for reproductive health care clinics, or a bill that will try to tell doctors where they can practice….thereby changing our purple mountain’s majesty deep blue. Or maybe orange?

November Sunrise

November Sunrise

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Skullduggery

October 31, 2013 by mountainmornings

When the news first broke that we’d been spying on some of our closest allies, Grandpa Hudson immediately nailed our collective indignation with this remark, “Skullduggery!” Don’t you just love obtuse and ancient words? I knew immediately I’d have to dig into this Halloween-themed noun which according to the Slang Dictionary comes from an earlier Scottish term, “skullduddery” and means: “deceitful doings; dirty work. :  Without skullduggery, politics wouldn’t be interesting.”

So if the NSA was involved in “tricky behavior” of the “hanky-panky” variety, and we now learn that well, really, everybody’s doing it, spying on each other that is, we can all rest assured that the Bourne  or for that matter, Bond movie machine will live on in perpetuity. I’m just not so sure I can recover from my binge watching yesterday morning of CNN and the public spectacle aka witch’s hunt we now call a “congressional hearing.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius held up rather well under her grueling three+ hours of testimony. Here are some of the low-lights I gleaned from yesterday’s “monkey business.”

A Texas Representative, R- Joe Barton, likened the roll out of the Affordable Care Act to a scene in another classic movie, The Wizard of Oz. Maybe he thought of this because Sebelius had served as the Governor of Kansas or maybe he just likes “hanky-panky.”

“Dorothy at some point in the movie turns to her little dog Toto and says, ‘Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.’ Well, Madam Secretary, while you’re from Kansas, we’re not in Kansas anymore. Some might say that we are actually in the ‘Wizard of Oz’ land given the parallel universes we appear to be habitating.”

Another GOP gambit was trying to get Madame Secretary to tell us which health policies covered abortion. A hot mic caught another congresswoman say in a plaintive voice, “Oh, here we go again.” While a NC woman of the right got into a bit of “kerfluffle” over whether single young men should have to buy insurance with maternity coverage saying, “To the best of your knowledge, has a man ever delivered a baby?”

There was more posturing, and posters of college boys doing a keg stand, I’m not sure why; oh yes this “chicanery” lasted well into the lunch hour. Which got me thinking about Niccolo Machiavelli.

“It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.”

Happy Halloween from one parallel universe to another. I’ll close with a bit of “funny business” from my little trick or treater who adores going to puppet shows in her pachyderm costume! ps the nose is on the hood in back but don’t you just love the Pebbles pony?

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The Safest Home

October 29, 2013 by mountainmornings

A twelve year old boy was killed on Saturday in our neighboring county. He liked playing roller hockey, video games and being outside in the woods in the fort he and his friends had built, His father was working, and his son was supposed to have been with a relative. Instead he was in the fort with a friend and a gun. http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/year-old-boy-dies-in-apparent-accidental-shooting-in-madison/article_f1e95c7c-3f63-11e3-aaf6-0019bb30f31a.html

The American Academy of Pediatrics writes in its policy statement on guns, “The safest home for a child or adolescent is one without firearms.”  I think this bears repeating:

“The safest home for a child or adolescent is one without firearms.” 

In a country where at least six states have put forward legislation that would actually prevent a doctor from asking his/her patient, or the patient’s parents, if there are guns in the home, this is the kind of local news that flies under our national media radar.

We childproof our homes when a baby is born. We buy gates, and locks for drawers and electrical outlet covers. We strap them into padded car seats. And yet, what the gun lobby does not want us to know, is that nearly 800 children under 14 were killed in gun “accidents” from 1999 to 2010 – and any research on recent gun violence, thanks to lobbying efforts by the NRA, is almost impossible to find.

We hear about mass shootings in schools, and we mourn as a nation. But what we don’t always hear about are the incremental, single, child by inquisitive child deaths that are happening every day in this country. Millions of children live in homes with guns, yet half of their parents or guardians do not keep them locked and unloaded.

According to the CDC, the rate of firearm deaths among children under age 15 is almost 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized countries combined. American children are 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun, 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun, and nine times more likely to die in a firearm accident than children in these other countries.

Of, course these statistics include suicides, homicides, and “accidental” deaths. But it turns out that children living in the South, in rural areas have a much higher incidence of unintentional gun injuries. And surprise surprise, boys are more likely to be the victim. Proponents of guns would like us to believe that gun safety is the panacea, that if they teach their children to respect guns, nothing will happen.

Bob said the latest study on gun violence shows “..that if there is a gun in the home, the chances of that gun killing or injuring a member of the household is 25 times the likelihood that it will protect a household member.”   

My heart goes out to that family in Madison County. And to the young boy who accidentally shot his friend, and his family, I cannot imagine their pain. Grief counselors have been on duty at their middle school.  Children will be children, and they are not bulletproof.

Wetsel school pic

 

 

 

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From a Mighty Oak

October 26, 2013 by mountainmornings

Every single place you go there is an opportunity to learn something new. Last night, we were picking up some comfort Mexican food at our newest neighborhood restaurant, when we overheard this guy waiting for his to-go order say that the deer would be starving this winter. He wasn’t exactly a mountain man, but he did look like he knew a thing or two about hunting. So I interrupted his conversation about how many deer had been spotted and/or hit by a car on his way over here, a common subject in this neck of the woods, to ask him why the deer would starve this winter. I was expecting to hear about another snowmageddon.

Instead, he told us that their main food source, acorns, had been decimated by those tasty little critters Ms Bean loved to crunch. IMG_0595In this year of the cicada – where numbers reached one million per acre and sometimes more – not only did the insects hatch their eggs in the branches of oak trees, they managed to feed on and kill off those portions of the tree. I had noticed splotches of dead, brown leaves at the ends of many of our oaks, and I knew the cicadas were responsible. Even though this was the 17 year plague of the cacophonous insect, I was told our trees would survive the onslaught. I didn’t think about the loss of acorns.

Don’t look away Ms Bean, you know you loved them!

 An acorn on an oak tree grew,
The wind around him gently blew,
It whispered to him quite softly
‘Some day from your mother
You will be free
To grow and be a mighty tree’
‘Who’? ‘Me’? A mighty oak’?
The little acorn thought this a joke.

Acorns have been the subject of poetry, like the above poem by Joseph Enright, and have been used in heraldry designs for centuries. In fact, I believe they gave bonny Prince George’s mum, Kate, a crest with an acorn when she married into the Royal Family. Here it is on the right, joined with Prince Wills. There are three acorn sprigs that represent the three children in the Middleton family. And the leaves represent Berkshire, where she grew up.  I like the unicorn!article-2434825-1850314F00000578-643_634x505

Yesterday morning I looked out my kitchen window to see a mama deer with two young fawns nursing underneath her. She stood straight and tall and we just stared at each other. We’ve posted our property so that hunters are forbidden, still I don’t want these beautiful animals to starve. This weekend I’ll be going to a farm supply store, to see what deer would like to eat. They’ve finished off my roses, and the new growth of a few tender shrubs. One even managed to find and trample the fence around a new fig tree, but he only ate half of it. Considerate don’t you think?

Kensington Palace released this photo of the new conjugal coat of arms for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2434825/Kate-Middleton-Prince-Williams-new-Conjungal-Coat-Arms-revealed.html#ixzz2iqKSH400
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Fat, Sugar, or What?

October 24, 2013 by mountainmornings

Who can resist a Snickers shaped like a pumpkin masquerading as a Reese’s peanut butter cup?

It’s funny really, I’ve never had a sweet tooth. Never stored bars of candy in a drawer in the kitchen. Maybe that’s why Halloween was so sacred to my kids, and they milked it for as many years as they could. They knew which houses had the full-size candy bars and which gave out bags of raisins. 

The first time I said “No” to my baby Bride was in a check-out line at the grocery store. I was trying to be all “natural mom” back in the 80s. with real diapers and pureeing my own baby food in a Mouli grater. We even joined a food co-op from Vermont! I didn’t think I’d ever have to say the word “No” about anything, after all couldn’t distraction and/or avoidance solve most discipline problems? Turns out, there’s no avoiding that stack of candy within arm’s reach of a toddler determined to get her hands on some gummy bears.

Now put a bag of chips in front of me, and it’s a different story. I’m just a pushover for salt.

Which is fine, since it turns out that Americans ingest about 138 pounds of sugar a year, and that only serves to increase our risk of heart disease. Because a new study in the British Medical Journal suggests that sugar could be worse for us than fat – raising our cholesterol etc. It’s certainly always been good news for dentists,  Sorry Eric. Now we know something I’ve always known intuitively – grass-fed Irish cow butter is better for us than cookies! There, I said it. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/top-heart-doctor-unprocessed-fatty-foods-may-actually-be-good-for-you-8897707.html

Don’t get me wrong. I’d much rather put a little real sugar in my coffee than an artificial sweetener. Sticking with real food can never lead us down that scary grocery aisle with processed homogenized cheese spread. I recently modernized the Flapper’s version of Depression mac and cheese when my Bug was visiting.

Mac and cheese please

Mac and cheese please

Since butter was scarce in the 30s, my Mom used bacon to start her scrumptious recipe and inserted slices of Swiss cheese from the deli. I found some Gruyere and shredded it instead. I can still remember her saying that she made this mac and cheese for my brother Michael, because it was his favorite dish. It turned out he was her favorite child.

And no matter how many times I said it was my favorite dish too, it didn’t matter. So when you watch this video poetry slam by Lily Myers about “The Shrinking Woman,”  “I have been taught accommodation, I have been taught to grow in…to create space around myself.” Think about how we too are entitled to calories, about how we women are worthy of filling that space. And pass the bread and butter please. 

You may have to click over to the wordpress site to watch the video, but believe me, it’s worth it.

 

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