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Posts Tagged ‘culture’

Obesity: a Disease?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 20, 2013| 6 Comments »

You know that part in the Officer Krupke song of West Side Story, when the character says, “Hey, I gotta social disease!”?

O God, why do I think of life as one long musical comedy? Well I guess it’s better than a Shakespearian tragedy. I was listening to all the talk yesterday about how the AMA has now classified obesity as a disease. Here is what they said at their annual meeting:

“RESOLVED, That our American Medical Association recognize obesity as a disease state with multiple pathophysiological aspects requiring a range of interventions to advance obesity treatment and prevention.”  http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/06/19/193440570/ama-says-its-time-to-call-obesity-a-disease

So, supposedly, if insurance company clerks agree with this assessment, they will pay more doctors for actually taking time to sit with patients and counsel them about the dangers of obesity, and how to fix and/or prevent it from happening. Sounds lovely in writing doesn’t it? So of course I had to ask my doctors what they thought…granted, this will apply to mostly family practice docs, but still.

“Probably just they’ll start covering more gastric bypass surgery,” the Bride said. She takes that global, public policy point of view, citing economic and social issues with our American widening of the collective belt.

“It’s good for the health of the country,” Bob says. More people will be able to access treatment and more insurance companies will have to pay for that treatment. One caveat he mentioned was similar to the Bride’s concern for an increase in gastric bypass surgery and lap bands – citing the fact that no surgery can be done without risk. He also wondered aloud if more drug companies will now push their efforts into finding the wonder drug for weight loss; you know, instead of curing cancer or AIDS.

Semantics – it’s all in a word and how we phrase something. Addiction was always thought of as a social disease. Alcoholics and drug addicts just needed to stop, just put the glass or the needle down for good, cold turkey. In this interview with Russell Brand, we get the sense of its (drugs and alcohol) complete and total mind/body control. http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8857821/fixing-a-hole/

“I cannot accurately convey the efficiency of heroin in neutralising pain. It transforms a tight white fist into a gentle brown wave, and from my first inhalation 15 years ago it fumigated my private hell. A bathroom floor in Hackney embraced me like a womb, and now whenever I am dislodged from comfort my focus falls there.”

The problem with food is that we need it, we can’t just put it down and stop eating. We can join a 12 step group and leave our bar-hopping days behind, but we still need to sit down at a dinner table. In Mika Brzezinski’s new book, she talks about her struggle with anorexia and her friend’s struggle with obesity as if they are 2 sides of the same coin. https://mountainmornings.net/2013/05/07/and-all-that/ So then it makes sense, if anorexia is considered a disease worth treating, why not treat obesity?

On a lighter note, the Love Bug is absolutely perfect! At her latest pediatric appointment (9 and 1/2 months), her  height/weight charting shows her to be at the 68th percentile for weight, and 84th for height. “Yeah, I’m tall, you got a problem with that?”IMG952245

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Tchin Tchin

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 30, 2013| 2 Comments »

Let’s raise our glasses, or our coffee cups, to the French! Today Marriage Equality is de rigeur in this predominantly Catholic country. Legalizing same-sex unions wasn’t easy, even though the mayor of Paris is openly gay. In fact it’s the biggest shift in policy since abolishing the death penalty in 1981…I wonder if SCOTUS is listening? I am ecstatic, and hoping for a complete overhaul of the wedding industry, which could use a touch of LGBT creativity.

But it’s not just the business of getting married that may be overhauled as state after state grants gays the right to marry. A recent article in The Atlantic posits that we heteros may learn a thing or two from gay marriage.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/06/the-gay-guide-to-wedded-bliss/309317/

“Same-sex spouses, who cannot divide their labor based on preexisting gender norms, must approach marriage differently than their heterosexual peers.”

Liza Mundy has gathered most of the data from around the world on the sociological complications of straight vs gay marriage. Who will pay the mortgage? Who will run the kids from school to tennis? Who cooks and who will do the laundry? There is even a study where researchers threw a bunch of toys out on the floor with a child and its parents to see how parents interact during play…sure enough, it was the hetero dads who played lincoln logs in the corner by themselves.

I was in a bank line that wasn’t moving the other day, so I struck up a conversation with the dad and a stroller directly in front of me. I told him about my Love Bug, and he told me all about the same age baby girl he was caring for, his daughter, who was happily smiling at me whenever I looked at her. By way of explanation he said she was getting fussy so he thought he’d venture out. Then he volunteered that his wife was finishing a fellowship at UVA and they were moving to Seattle in just a few weeks. I said that must be exciting, and told him about my son-in-law’s fellowship in Nashville. But he didn’t seem very excited about moving cross country, and then the line started to move and he was gone.

I didn’t ask him “What do you do,” as I know some others might have done to try and pigeonhole his motives for staying at home to care for his daughter. I could see very well what he did, he had a clean, smiling, happy baby with him. I love to see young men caring for their children, during the week, when it is obvious this is their role for now, while the wife earns the money. Religious zealots, who fear gay marriage for whatever reasons, should take heart to learn that gay men are just as likely to denote one partner to stay-at-home (“specialize”) in their marriage as heterosexual partners. According to the latest Census:

“32 percent of married heterosexual couples with children have only one parent in the labor force, compared with 33 percent of gay-male couples with children. (Lesbians also specialize, but not at such high rates, perhaps because they are so devoted to equality, or perhaps because their earnings are lower—women’s median wage is 81 percent that of men—and not working is an unaffordable luxury.)”

Maybe this fact alone should put an end to the “mommy wars?” My friend Lee was an assistant DA in MA, a high powered attorney. She found a wonderful nanny, from France in fact, and had a very supportive husband with more reasonable working hours. It never occurred to us, both feminists, that we might be at war because I chose to stay at home!

So look out all you newly married heterosexual couples. Gay marriage just may have a profound effect on our culture, in a very good way. The old playing field is getting some brand new sod, and everything you may have once thought was traditionally your duty in marriage, is up for debate. Now, Bob, about that cooking class in Italy…

First French gay couple wed

Meet the first French couple – Vincent Autin, left, and his partner Bruno Boileau sign a document during their marriage in Montpellier, southern France, on May 29, 2013

Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/05/29/meet-frances-first-married-gay-couple/#ixzz2UmudbzoC

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When the Spirit Leaves You

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on April 27, 2013| 4 Comments »

The first night in Nashville I left my book club book in the car. Not wanting to go downstairs and back outside in my nightgown, I picked up a little paperback I found on the bedside table, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman. Little did I know how much I would enjoy reading about the Hmong people of Laos…currently living in California.http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/19/reviews/971019.19konnert.html

It’s a story about seizure disorder, and about the many ways modern medicine can fail a refugee population. Cultural dissonance is bound to happen when doctors want to order invasive tests for a baby who’s only problem is that her older sister slammed the door coming in and so an evil spirit invaded her body. For the Hmong, animal sacrifices, amulets, and strings around the wrist should cure her, but instead her parents, who speak no English, are supposed to dose her with a varied cocktail of drugs many times a day. You can see where we’re going.

But it’s not all medicine. I’m almost done with the book and I’ve had quite a history lesson on Southeast Asia. I was talking about the book to one of the Bride and Groom’s friends, an academic internist at Vanderbilt. She said it was required reading in her medical school. “Which medical school did you go to,” I asked. “Yale,” she said.

This morning, after working all night, my ER doctor asked me to read this article.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/05/how-not-to-die/309277/

Have no fear, yes, it is about dying. Let’s face it, the spirit eventually does leave us and we all have to think about this stuff, unless of course denial works for you. It’s about a doctor who becomes an educational/documentary film maker. He makes short films that actually show people what advanced dementia (among other maladies) looks like, and he tells us to have “The Conversation” with our doctors:

“In the health-care debate, we’ve heard a lot about useless care, wasteful care, futile care. What we”—Volandes indicates himself and Davis—“have been struggling with is unwanted care. That’s far more concerning. That’s not avoidable care. That’s wrongful care. I think that’s the most urgent issue facing America today, is people getting medical interventions that, if they were more informed, they would not want. It happens all the time.”

Which made me think. Sometimes, even when you speak the same language, you still can’t communicate.
black_hmong

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Leaning Out

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on March 12, 2013| 4 Comments »

Let’s be clear. We’ve had this debate before, and it just leaves us with bad feelings. What is the future of feminism? Why do we women always want to be so darn likable?

The latest slant to this round of “Pin the blame on the woman,” comes from Sheryl Sandberg in her new book, Lean In. Granted she is speaking to a certain class of women; those on their way up the business school food chain, graduates of the Ivy League with plenty of support and mentorship. She wants little girls who were previously called “bossy” in preschool, to be acclaimed for leadership skills instead. I get that. The Bride’s preschool teacher pulled me aside one day and gently asked me to talk with her about her tendency to “lean over” to her seatmate’s art work and offer help and criticism. She was supposed to adhere to the rules, only care about her own work. Harumph.

What was i supposed to do when her Grandma Ada offered her money whenever the elementary teacher checked the box that read something like, “Always raising her hand, too talkative.” Don’t you know children were to be seen and not heard, that being quiet and still was the goal? Things hadn’t changed much from my Sacred Heart days of carefully folded hands on the desk in fear of a smack to the knuckles. Sandberg stresses the importance of choosing the right life partner, and wants you to ask, “What would I do if I weren’t afraid?”
http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/many-working-class-women-are-already-leaning-in/273948/

I was talking to Grandma Ada about this and she said “Oy.” The day before she had attended a lecture with a man talking about his philanthropic work and his travels around the world. Ada was sitting next to his wife, and asked her the loaded, mind-boogling question of the century – “Do you work?” Now my MIL received her PhD at age 65 and is still counseling patients at age 88. Softening the question she added “outside the home” and the young woman (who was my age) turned to her and said. “No.” She took care of the children and the home so that Mr Wonderful could do what he did…well she didn’t phrase it that way exactly.

Let’s be clear. I graduated high school 3 years after Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique. She too was criticized for speaking to the well-educated, suburban woman. Men had returned from WWII and women went back into their homes and felt something was missing. This growing discontent sparked the second wave of feminism, after all we had the vote, what more could we want? Young women today are surprised to learn that we couldn’t wear pants on the streets of Boston, that we had to get a credit card in our husband’s name, that we were asked how fast we could type at every job interview. That we couldn’t even get a prescription for the new wonder drug…the birth control pill, unless we were married. We wanted our daughters to have it all, and now that they can, some are just saying, “No Thanks!”

Along with the increase in pay, they may not want to sacrifice time with their families. Many of the Bride’s Duke alums have opted to stay-at-home with their children, for now. Lucky for them, they can afford to do this. When my daughter was considering her medical specialty, the ability to have more time at home for her future family was a factor. I wonder how many men consider this when they choose a speciality? And just why is this a crime, leaning out for awhile? These women with a full-time 24/7 staff at home (nanny,cook,maid), a loving husband who does laundry, should not be saying to our daughters, “Look at me, I went back to the office 2 weeks after my baby was born.” Well la dee (expletive) da!

It’s about time for feminism’s third wave. Equal pay for equal work, it’s not really too much to ask. If working women, from the cleaning staff, to hospital corridors, from teachers to the board room keep pushing the envelope, if they learn how to negotiate for family leave along with pay hikes, if they keep raising their hands that glass ceiling will be shattering all over this country.
IMG_3706

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A Rape is a Rape

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on January 4, 2013| 1 Comment »

My news sabbatical is over. While nursing this cold I’ve taken to watching CNN in the morning with my oatmeal, tylenol and Vicks scented tissues. And somehow I thought that maybe everything on a Facebook news feed wasn’t necessarily true. Yet there it was, a story I’d merely glanced at online because it made my stomache churn, was now being reported as fact on morning TV: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/04/justice/ohio-rape-online-video/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

This story hits all the wrong notes – the high school football team of Steubenville, Ohio is somehow implicated in a gang rape of an unconscious 16 year old girl. Two 16 year old football players are identified and charged with rape, but the real question is was the town and its police force trying to cover this up since it happened in August? And what sets this rape apart from any other is the evidence; it’s not just he said, she said. A hacking activist group called Anonymous has posted video of a drunken boy boasting about the crime, along with pictures of the girl…which is why I saw it online before national media picked it up.

Now juxtapose these two images: CNN reporters interviewing Steubenville shopkeepers about how we mustn’t judge the whole town by the actions of a few, with the protests from India. A 23 year old medical student died after being brutally gang raped on a bus in New Delhi on December 16th. There have been daily protests in the streets since that day calling for justice and the men to be hanged. Five, possibly six men have been charged with “… murder, kidnapping and rape… voluntarily causing harm during a robbery, armed robbery with murder, and destruction of evidence.” http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/03/world/asia/india-rape-case/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

I know our legislators have much to do after their first day back on the Hill. They must keep kicking the can down the road of fiscal temerity; they must agree with some form of realistic gun control; they have to pass a budget, and oh BTW, thanks for that last minute Super Storm Sandy pass…on the heels of your humiliating first vote. And it saddens me that Congress could not reauthorize the 2012 version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). It seems the GOP balked when language was added to include “…expanded provisions to protect victims even if they’re gay, illegal immigrants or Native Americans living in tribal jurisdictions.” Rumor has it that R-VA Eric Cantor balked at the LGBT provisions, but a rape is a rape is a rape, no matter who you are or where you live. I am hopeful that the increasing number of women in the new 113th Congress can make this happen.
SCENE-articleLarge

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