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Posts Tagged ‘Public Policy’

Chance Encounters

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on May 27, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Hope everyone had a fun-filled holiday weekend and took some time to remember our fallen warriors. Our President went to Afghanistan and the Pope went to Jerusalem, conflict zones still. My silent prayer yesterday was for peace, like some aged pageant finalist, I knew I didn’t have much of a chance.

Bob was saving lives all weekend. No, really he saved a young man’s life, in his 30s, first heart attack, coded right in front of him like they only do on TV. An emergency department can be like a war zone, especially on Memorial Day (or insert any summer holiday). Grills are being fired up and gas tanks malfunction, lawn mowers throw crap into people’s eyes, fish hooks get stuck in the most unlikely places; and that’s just a sample of a country hospital. Throw in too much alcohol and/or drugs, then change your scenario to a city, and all hell will break loose.

Because guns are so prolific in this country. Because guns can be bought in a parking lot, online or down the street at the newest Gander Mountain store where guns line the walls like 3D wallpaper. Because no politician has the nerve to stand up to the NRA, to challenge the 2nd Amendment. We successfully challenged that bit about African Americans and slavery. But heaven help us if we want to keep guns well regulated, have background checks or challenge laws like “stand your ground.” We the people are not even allowed to track gun violence, or sue a gun manufacturer if a gun misfires! In some states, the NRA tells our pediatricians they cannot even ask if there are guns in the home.

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

I didn’t start to cry until I saw a father, Richard Martinez, ask how this was possible in Santa Barbara, California. How could his 20 year old son go out to a deli only to be gunned down for no reason. How could this happen after Sandy Hook, CT? http://news.msn.com/crime-justice/father-blames-government-idiots-as-california-town-mourns-killings

“Martinez said his son died because Congress had failed to act after a mentally ill gunman killed 26 people in December 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. “These people are getting rich sitting in Congress. And what do they do? They don’t take care of our kids,” he said.

Because let’s get real. It’s not about mental health laws and how long people can be held in a hospital or be committed against their will. This latest mass murderer was not only a misogynist, whose parents cared enough to call the police about his homicidal tendencies, he was a cunning, borderline psychopath. He had the money and the ability to purchase as many guns as he wanted, legally, and to fool the officers who interviewed him for what, ten minutes?

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE GUNS

Maybe, just maybe there is something we can do. And if enough of us act, if enough of us gather signatures, gather our nerve, we might make a dent and get politicians to listen to parents who have had enough of this senseless gun violence – in schools, in movie theaters, in delis. Because a “well-regulated militia” means the National Guard to me. It takes one nation to end gun violence. Consider joining “Everytown for our Safety.” I did.

http://everytown.org

I was going to write today about a chance encounter I had with a dad helping out his son in a new business, they own a local food truck. But sometimes my fingers just type what they feel, and another dad’s feelings took over.  Why not join Everytown with me, let’s give peace a chance.     IMG_0612

 

 

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What’s Your Hobby?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 28, 2014| 1 Comment »

Functioning mostly this week as a caretaker/nurse has a few disadvantages. For one, we’re missing out on a TEDx day in Richmond today, sorry Anita. For another, I’m eating more ice cream because doesn’t that soothe a sore throat? I’m making more soup which maybe makes up for all the ice cream. And instead of pulling out the yarn to work on one of my favorite knitting projects, I’ve been watching mindless TV with my sick couch mate; old shows like Castle and Bones. And in between all the coughing and detective drama, I caught sight of the latest Supreme Court case.

First of all, I’m troubled that the Supremes even took up the Hobby Lobby case. But OK, let’s not argue over spilled milk. Are they trying to steer our country back to the 1950s, when women knew their place? And that place was barefoot and pregnant! Let’s look at the big picture, which is what anyone who’s ever dealt with policy-making decisions before would naturally do – it’s like chess. What could be the permutations and consequences of saying that any employer, not just a Christian employer, could discriminate in its contract with employees.

So the owners of an Advance Auto Parts store will supply health benefits thru the Affordable Care Act because they have to, but they are practicing Christian Scientists so they won’t pay for immunizations. After all, they believe that prayer can heal anything.

The owners of a Michael’s are devout orthodox Jews, so they won’t pay for certain organ transplants coming from cadavers. They will only pay for a living transplant, like a kidney.

We have to decide as citizens of this fair country if every religious belief that resides within our borders gets to trump our first attempt at universal health insurance reform.  So now the insurance company we choose cannot deny life-saving treatment for our child who had been previously diagnosed with cancer, but wait. Our boss can? Because that’s the very definition of a slippery slope. And it started when the Supremes thought Citizens United was a good thing. And according to this article in Salon, it really is a religious right-wing conspiracy! http://www.salon.com/2014/03/27/hobby_lobbys_secret_agenda_how_its_secretly_funding_a_vast_right_wing_movement/

The owners of Hobby Lobby are one of the biggest contributors to the National Christian Charitable foundation which is funding challenges in Arizona against marriage equality among other things: “…its legislative agenda ranges from requiring intrusive ultrasounds for women seeking abortions to HB 2281, a bill that, if passed by the Arizona Senate, would exempt religious institutions from paying property taxes on leased or rented property.)…The document shows that Hobby Lobby‑related contributions were the single largest source of tax-deductible donations to National Christian Charitable’s approximately $383.785 million in 2009 grant revenue.”

Outside of the Supreme Court case, little has been reported about Hobby Lobby’s political ties. The company is owned privately by the Green family and generates more than $3 billion per year in revenue from its 602 stores. The family proudly promotes its philanthropy to churches, ministries and Christian community centers, dedicating half of the company’s pretax earnings to Christian ministries. In 2007, Hobby Lobby’s founder and CEO, billionaire David Green, pledged $70 million to Oral Roberts University, bailing out the debt-ridden evangelical university. In 2012, Forbes reported, “Hobby Lobby’s cash spigot currently makes [Green] the largest individual donor to evangelical causes in America.”

Last year they didn’t carry any Hanukka decorations because hey, it’s a Christian store. It’s OK with me since moving to the South I’ve made my peace with the elusive box of matzah, and Hanukka gelt sold at Easter. But fundamental to our very democracy is not favoring one religion over another, remember King George and all those Puritans who wanted to escape the Anglican Church. Remember good ole Tom Jefferson who built his library in the middle of our university, and specifically NOT a chapel.

Contrary to Hobby Lobby’s argument, it’s not all about Plan B and who gets to decide when life starts, and feminism either. Well maybe it’s a little bit of women’s rights since they are targeting women of a certain reproductive age…I just hope the justices take the long view. Religious freedom is a misnomer, we need to be free of religious policy makers.

When I went to Walgreens to pick up a nebulizer for my sick honey, I saw this display front and center at the pharmacy. And I remembered when I was in college and felt so cheated when I learned you had to be married to even request an Rx from a doctor for the pill. And I remembered friends flying to Puerto Rico for abortions. We’ve come a long way baby, Plan B is OTC, but the fight wages on. Maybe I should pick up my knitting needles again.

IMG_20140327_170845_368

 

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Double Standards

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on January 5, 2014| 2 Comments »

Fair warning. I’m going to talk about marijuana, simply because it’s in the news this week. Recreational sales of weed will be increasing the tax revenue of the state of Colorado by many millions of dollars. The prohibition is over; the plant grown as hemp by Jefferson and enjoyed in colonial days has finally come out of the college closet with a grow light. And it’s high time too!

Here we are, in 2014, beginning to realize that non-violent, drug offenders are clogging up our prisons and it’s time we treated addiction like the public health issue that it is. Let’s regulate and tax our fellow citizens, like we’ve done with alcohol and tobacco. And finally, everyone is confessing to a dalliance with pot in their past. After all, even our President wrote a book about his youthful indiscretions.

But most notably, the semi-conservative NYTimes columnist, David Brooks, copped to his high school experience with weed, where he felt like a loser in English class in his article, “Been There, Done That.”

He was forthrightly mocked: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/03/david-brooks-pot-column_n_4537463.html

Well I don’t know about you dear reader, but virtually everyone I know has tried pot. Yes, they inhaled it and proceeded to empty out their parent’s pantry. But then again I’m one of those Baby Boomers, our mantra was “Why not?” May I remind you that the Big Chill went to Woodstock… 6020_1115890693726_5811966_nThen again, we were older. In high school we were clueless.

My friends in the next generation, a decade younger, were introduced to weed earlier, and I have to admit, I think it’s tantamount to child abuse. The still developing adolescent brain can be damaged by all that dopamine, and IQ just may be affected. Who wants their kids living in their basement forever? Pot is not supposed to be physically addictive, but it can be psychologically addicting. It can develop into an expensive habit. Albeit, one that leaves you feeling very zen most of the time.

What if someone started smoking daily in high school and didn’t stop until they had a baby? That’s more than 20 years! I asked my Pulmonology Fellow SIL about the risks of cancer and heart disease for long-term pot smokers. He said since weed has been illegal, there haven’t been many studies addressing these problems, but I found one out of California, naturally. http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2012/01/11282/marijuana-shown-be-less-damaging-lungs-tobacco

So my advice – brownies! Now that all those Rocky Mountain High dwellers can just go down to their local dispensary and order up some King Tut Kush for $45, http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sfl-colorado-marijuana-20140102,0,4217222.story why not make some ghee butter and bake some brownies? Thereby avoiding any possibility of future respiratory disease.

You’ve all seen the ACLU graph about African American kids being three times as likely (I repeat 3x) to be arrested for possession of marijuana with or without the intent to distribute than White kids…which amounts to a type of apartheid in this country. ACLU_5_0Even Chris Hayes fesses up to carrying some weed into a Republican convention in his eyeglass case, and realizing he was not arrested because of the cop’s perception of his privilege.

http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/chris-hayes-i-was-nearly-arrested-for-weed-106355779668

I believe that about 10% of the population may develop a problem with weed. Because that’s about the same number of recreational drinkers that may become alcoholic. In other words, they go from having a couple at parties, to binge drinking in college with an occasional blackout, to hiding a bottle in the garage and drinking every day. They lose their jobs and their families, and end up in court over a DUI. Their life goes downhill slowly, over many years. They change jobs, they move, they repent; but they never blame the bottle, they keep drinking.

What will a marijuana addict look like? That 1 person out of 10 people lighting up legally for recreational use. Well, he’ll probably not drive fast, in fact he may be picked up for driving too slow. He or she will most likely be similar to the alcoholic. They will suffer years of recrimination, rejection, and reprimands for a life that somehow was derailed. But he or she won’t be thrown into jail and become a caricature on Orange is the New Black, they will avoid that path. The double standard inherent in our justice system will cease to exist in Colorado.

Now let’s share our recipes for double fudge brownies with our Denver friends. Rocky Mountains, the Blue Ridge salutes you!

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A Sigh is Just a Sigh

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 17, 2013| 7 Comments »

It’s still the same old story 
A fight for love and glory 
A case of do or die

Guess what? The world does NOT always welcome lovers, as Louis Armstrong so gallantly sang in Casablanca. Remember the 1st Grade boy who was charged with sexual harassment for kissing a girl? Thankfully that judgement was overturned http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/12/us/six-year-old-kissing-girl-suspension/

Well, in a week when we really should be looking critically at yet another school shooting, we have the case of an admitted “hugger” being suspended from his high school for a year for hugging his teacher. Yessir, in Georgia, a 17 year old boy who was 5 months away from graduating and going on to college with an athletic scholarship, has been forced to put his life on hold for a year.

Of course there are two sides to this story, and while I was sitting on a high school board back in NJ I heard all of them. I know that some hugs can hurt, I’ve actually had a rib crack from a friendly bear hug. And some hugs can be dismissive, as in one person is ready to forgive but you’re not quite there yet. Now we have the “inappropriate hug” which is open to interpretation.

But imho, the world can be divided into two camps – like Beatles or Stones? dogs or cats? –  huggers and non-huggers. Will the Love Bug escape her destiny? I’m afraid hugging will be inevitable in her case. IMG_2192

I sign many an email with the term, “Hugs!” I go in for a hug instead of a handshake most days. My kids are huggers, it’s almost genetic. We all know the stance of a non-hugger. Hands hang limp, body bends at the waist warily, head turns away. It’s like a sweaty palm in a perfunctory handshake, you wish you’d known they were non-huggers from the get go, but now it’s too late. You’re locked in an embrace with an automaton.

Sometimes a hug is all it takes. Like the time my next door neighbor’s house was burning down right around Christmas and I walked out into the night and found her, both of us shivering in our robes, and hugged her. She told me later how much she appreciated it and yet it wasn’t even pre-meditated, it was a reflexive reaction on my part. As that senior boy said about his teacher,

“She looked like she needed it.”

One of my earliest memories is of being kissed by a boy named Lloyd on the Kindergarten bus. It was a bit scary and thrilling all at the same time, which is why I remember it. What about you? Any early memories of that first kiss? Any inappropriate hug stories? Has zero tolerance become limitless ignorance? SIGH

And if you’d like to sign the petition to have the GA school board revisit such a calamitous disciplinary action for giving a hug to a teacher, here it is: http://www.change.org/petitions/gwinnett-county-public-schools-overturn-and-revisit-sam-mcnair-s-yearlong-suspension-for-hugging-a-teacher?share_id=RHbqsAXavU&utm_campaign=share_button_action_box&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition

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My Wheelhouse

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on November 21, 2013| 2 Comments »

Continuing in the Throwback Thursday vein, I’ve come up with a “selfie” from 1975. CLR Hippie Chick 20131120 WebOf course I didn’t take the photo, and don’t remember who did. Except that it was a photographer who stopped me on Madison Avenue near my sister’s NYC apartment with that age-old ruse about making me a star.  I told him he could take my picture, but gave him the Flapper’s address because I didn’t buy into his nonsense. Not wanting to be the next Ms Goodbar, I forgot about it until the picture appeared in my Mother’s inbox mailbox.

At the time I was putting my Psychology degree to good use.                                                                                            http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/05/willowbrook_survivors_recollec_1.html

Because of my future employer’s investigative reporting, most of the psychiatric hospitals, previously known as “State Lunatic Asylums” were closing down. The overcrowded, inhuman conditions, coupled with advances in drugs like Thorazine marked the 70s trend toward de-institutionalization. The question remained, what should we do with these patients who were returning to society, sometimes after decades of neglect? The answer was a different type of warehousing, “day treatment facilities.”

I was hired to drive a bus and pick up patients from their group homes, delivering them to a bevy of activities in the state of NJ. I also got to run a few of the group therapy sessions, and since I enjoyed gardening, my supervisor encouraged me to plant a garden of vegetables around the back patio with like-minded patients. Passivity was a continuing problem, either due to the psychotropic drugs they were taking or the years spent behind hospital bars, or both. So actually digging in the dirt was considered a milestone.

Today, many people with severe disabilities are able to live a normal life. Modern pharmaceuticals allow them to work, to drive, to love, and to make a home for themselves. But sometimes psychotic patients stop taking their meds, for various reasons and when that happens, when they become a threat, “to themselves or others,” it’s time for a reboot which includes a short hospital stay. And when those psych beds, which may be on a floor of any hospital in your neighborhood, are full, when a doctor can’t find one bed for his or her patient, well then sometimes that patient falls through a crack. Over the years, Bob has had to discharge too many severely ill psych patients because there were no beds available.

964831-creigh-deeds-and-familyMy prayers go out to VA Sen Creigh Deeds who was stabbed by his own son, Gus, on Tuesday after being released from a hospital in Bath County on Monday. Gus Deeds later turned a gun on himself in a continuation of this Shakespearian tragedy now called a “murder suicide.” And we can’t blame the lack of will to pass gun control legislation after VA Tech, or the shortage of mental health beds in the state alone, because blame can be shared by a tightening of budgets over the past few years that was reported by the  National Alliance on Mental Illness: “Virginia’s overall state mental-health budget decreased $37.7 million dollars from $424.3 million to $386.6 million between fiscal years 2009 and 2012.”  The wheels on this bus cannot continue going round and round. If a state senator’s son could not access help, what does that mean for the rest of us?

 In 2011, Virginia inspector general G. Douglas Bevelacqua released a report chastising the state for turning away in a month an estimated 200 patients determined to be a threat to themselves or others who met the criteria for a temporary detention, only because state facilities lacked the room to hold them. Twenty-three of Virginia’s 40 community-services boards acknowledged that “streeting” occurred at their facilities.

Read more: Virginia State Senator Creigh Deeds’ Son Evaluated and Released Before Stabbing | TIME.com http://nation.time.com/2013/11/19/before-senators-stabbing-a-shortage-of-psychiatric-beds/#ixzz2lI6Mmsqu

 

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An Arch of Sanity

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on October 15, 2013| 1 Comment »

This morning I devoured my first cup of coffee with the Love Bug on my iPhone. Oh Facetime, how wonderful you are! She kissed me and carried me around with her while she cruised the living room, demonstrating her superior walking technique. I wish they could return to the Blue Ridge this weekend for our next wedding, but the Groom is on call every other night in the MICU. Great Grandma Ada and Great Grandpa Hudson are coming South to see a Big Chill daughter tie the knot in Richmond. Her fiancee was is a Marine, “…once a Marine always a Marine. There are no former Marines”

Who doesn’t love men in white gloves and dress uniforms holding an arch of swords? Unfortunately, we’re not sure if that arch will be there due to the government shutdown. We also had planned to take Hudson, who is a woodcarver and an ex-Baptist minister who officiated in 2010 at the Bride’s wedding, J&M 0622to the National WWII Monument in DC after the wedding. Gpa Hudson is an 86 year old WWII vet and has wanted to see the memorial since it first opened. We may have to storm the barricades next week if the Park Police are still guarding the gate. Listen for my Tweets people, if I’m arrested with Ada and Hudson get us a wheelchair and a lawyer!

It’s bad enough that Ted Cruz and his ideologic idiots have been holding our government hostage over their ever-moving concerns about affordable health care and debt ceilings, but it becomes meteorically worse when they try to claim this memorial as their own and blame our President for its closure…it almost made me sick in fact. It’s not only sightseeing that has been curtailed for 14 days, this shutdown has left “…vital drug trials on hold, which is a matter of life and death for some patients.”

Yes, life and death, real people who cannot participate in life-saving treatments because the NIH has stopped accepting new patients. 75% of their staff are sitting at home while 15% of their patients who cannot start a treatment protocol are children. The GOP can make up fictional scenarios like “death panels,” but they are so much better at creating real tragedies for the 99% of us.

Under normal circumstances, 200 patients at NIH enroll in clinical trials each week, 30 of whom are children. While 12 exceptions have been made for the most critical cases, this still leaves hundreds of sick patients and families stuck waiting until Congress can settle its differences. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24525913

So that comes out to about 400 people so far, who may not have a month or two to wait…two weeks after giving birth a young mother diagnosed with stage 4 sarcoma had her application for a clinical trial delayed. Michelle Langbehn has started an online petition on Change.org in order to pressure Congress and has over 140,000 signatures:  “I speak for everyone battling cancer when I say we don’t have time to wait.”  http://www.change.org/petitions/help-me-fight-cancer-and-stop-the-shutdown

Crossed swords it seems are the least of our problems. We need to vote the old guard out, get money out of politics and organize policy makers who will speak to the wide breadth of our country, with common sense and dignity for all. I can’t wait to see the new documentary “Inequality for All.” http://inequalityforall.com I’m usually pretty optimistic about life, I like to think we can take our country back, from the fringe GOP. Fingers crossed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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You Say I Do

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 19, 2013| 4 Comments »

And I say “Hell no!” My indignation this morning has nothing to do with the five, count ’em, 5 weddings we’ve been invited to this year. I’m actually glad our friend’s children and our children’s friends have decided to tie the knot. I’m equally ecstatic that my niece in MN is finally allowed to marry her partner.

What gets my Irish up is our Republican candidate for Governor – Ken Cuccinelli. If you think our current ultrasound Governor, who will hopefully be indicted soon for accepting boatloads of gifts from a political donor who presumably expected payback https://mountainmornings.net/2013/08/04/a-gift-horse/, was bad, you won’t believe what kind of religious zealot Cuccinelli is; he would like to take us back to the past, long before “irreconcilable differences” became grounds for a divorce .

His record as AG and Senator is indicative of his extreme ideology; he would like to regulate ” who you marry, what kind of contraception you use, and when you can end a bad marriage.”                email20130918.jpg

Luckily, most polls show that his opponent, Terry McAuliffe, is ahead. Not surprisingly, we women really like Terry; “Cuccinelli has a 7-point lead among men, while McAuliffe has a 14-point lead among women in the poll.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/ken-cuccinelli-terry-mcauliffe-virginia-governor-2013-poll-96976.html#ixzz2fLhhOlAS So get out there ladies, we’ve got just a few weeks left, October will be here and gone before you know it!

Besides the GOP stand or “war on women,” as adjuncts to men, you know made out of a piece of rib or something, my dander is severely raised when they try to deny science. Because this too is personal. Over the past year, three cousins and a friend have been diagnosed with cancer. They are fighting the good fight, with surgery, chemo and radiation, and I’d like to believe that our legislators will continue to fund evidence-based research at our esteemed public universities. My love and a casserole or a prayer shawl are with them all.  And my vote, for Terry.

I’d like to believe that every marriage will last forever, that every child will have two loving parents of any gender that can afford the time and money to raise them, http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/09/can-smart-economics-turn-us-into-better-parents/279695/ and that cancer will be eradicated in my lifetime. I’d like to believe that love is all you need.

 

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Shock

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 17, 2013| 2 Comments »

This morning it’s overcast and calm. Only the first ridge of mountain is poking up between the clouds. Not like yesterday, when we woke to a clear day and another mass shooting, this time closer to home at the DC Naval Yard.  And if you happened to miss the physician, Janis Orlowski, who treated some of the survivors make her heartfelt plea to end gun violence, here it is:

“There’s something evil in our society that we as Americans have to work to try and eradicate,” she said, adding that “I would like you to put my trauma center out of business. I really would. I would like to not be an expert on gunshots.” She added: “Let’s get rid of this. This is not America.” http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/09/watch-dr-janis-orlowskis-moving-plea-against-gun-violence-after-navy-yard-shootings/69471/

If you don’t work in  a trauma center, if you’re not an ER doctor or nurse, you may have watched or listened to the incident unfold with a cynical eye. It’s just another crazy person; didn’t they have to go through a metal detector?; how did the shooter obtain clearance to enter a secure DOD facility? But if you’ve actually seen what a bullet can do to a body, if you’ve had to race against time to save a life, if you’ve had the heartbreaking job of telling someone’s family that your patient, their loved one, has died, well then you understand the problem.

And the problem is GUNS. The epidemic is gun violence. Because that is what’s evil in our society, it isn’t the mentally ill person who believes that a voice is telling him to shoot up a school or a movie theatre. Mental illness affects many of our families and friends, that is inevitable, it’s been around since time began, or Cain and Abel if you prefer. People who suffer from mood disorders through those with paranoid schizophrenia can seek treatment, they can live a normal life. We are the Prozac nation after all.

What we cannot escape is guns – they are sold in parking lots, and online, as if they are candy. They are glorified in film and on TV. I’ve said this before, I don’t need to know why some one entered a Naval facility with a rifle and picked off his victims from an upper landing in a beautiful atrium – the motive really does not matter. Let’s ask ourselves why our legislators could not get a simple background check law passed. Because as we saw yesterday, having more guns inside a facility isn’t the answer.

Yesterday we were a nation in shock again. When I walked out to my car I saw this. photoHow could this happen? Was it another angry bird that flew into my car’s window, a hunter’s gun shot, a deer antler? I live in the woods, nothing was taken, so Bob and I picked up thousands of pieces of shattered green glass. And I thought about the survivors of the Naval Yard shooting, the people who saw the carnage up close and personal.

Today I’ll have my window replaced, but I wonder how long it will take the survivors to put the pieces of their lives back together. And when our nation will stop electing puppets of the gun lobby. Or are we immune now to this, even after small children are massacred in their classrooms, have we become habituated to shock?

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Perspective

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »

In all this talk about Syria, we Americans may be forgetting that the biggest public policy shift in our lifetime is about to take place. The Affordable Care Act is rolling out on October 1st, whether Kerry manages to corral Syria’s chemical arsenal or not. Even though employers of 50 or more get a one year delay to implement a health insurance plan for their companies, and smokers get a one year reprieve from being charged more than non-smokers, Obamacare is scheduled to debut on time with:

“…health exchanges (marketplaces), community-rated health plans, tax credit subsidies, individual insurance requirements, prohibiting annual and lifetime limits on coverage, requiring insurers to accept all applicants without regard to their health status (pre-existing conditions) and limiting how much more they can charge them…” http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2013/08/delays-pose-big-problem-obamacare.html

What a monumental effort, making health insurance available for all just when we qualify for Medicare! Then I heard about thousands of hospital workers being laid off in TN, and naturally asked Bob what’s up. After all, we Boomers are just the beginning of a tsunami of health-related consumers to wash ashore; how could our country possibly be laying off medical personnel? Of course the easy answer is to blame the government, Obama and all his caring, that’s what the GOP would like us to believe.

Actually, hospitals across the country are massively laying off workers for a few reasons. One big one is the sequester – you remember that courtesy of the Tea Party. Our budget was cut by 1.2 Trillion, that’s trillion with a “T.”  Since nobody on The Hill could find a way to stop The Sequester, Moody had this to say: “…sequestration is expected to lower the revenues of hospitals, physicians, and other health care providers by $11 billion in 2013.” That’s Billion with a “B.”

Medicare under from budget sequestration could “exacerbate an already challenging operating environment for not-for-profit hospitals” that are facing “low revenue growth” from government and private insurers, Moody’s Investors Service said this week. The sequester involves about $1 trillion in across-the-board spending cuts, including a 2% reduction to all Medicare reimbursement rates, that took effect on April 1. http://www.advisory.com/Daily-Briefing/2013/04/10/Moody-Sequester-Medicare-cuts-threaten-hospitals

And the funny thing is, well it’s not really funny, but if you happen to live in a red state, with a governor who said thanks but no thanks to the Affordable Care Act, well the chances are that your favorite nurse, or physical therapist, or doctor may not be there is undeniable. http://www.wkrn.com/story/22942014/laid-off-workers-rally-outside-vanderbilt

You decide, is this job loss due to a bill that gives all Americans access to health care? Or is it due to an intractable Congress?DB_medicaid_map

 http://www.advisory.com/Daily-Briefing/2013/08/27/In-states-that-say-no-to-Medicaid-hospitals-worry-of-death-by-1000-cuts

 

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To Market

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 8, 2013| 1 Comment »

When it’s a glorious Fall weekend, with nights in the 50s and the high for the day is maybe 80, we will always meander our way off the mountain and down into the city, to mix and mingle at the Farmer’s Market, aka Cville City Market. College kids are back in town, and because it’s a big football weekend there are Ducks everywhere (Oregon), so it’s shoulder to shoulder energy.

Breakfast included a locally sourced bacon and egg sandwich with organic iced green tea. This is however a recipe for disaster with my visual field deficit courtesy of a West Nile mosquito. Because the sun was merciless, and live bluegrass music was everywhere, I wore my sun hat and therefore couldn’t see (or hear) anything to the right of me. Needless to say, I bumped into lots of friends and strangers!

What got to me this time was the abundance of heirloom tomatoes. I don’t think I could ever eat another supermarket tomato again. I moved here determined to stay true to the famous Garden State tomato. That and pizza. But it’s time to admit defeat, one out of two ain’t bad. The many-colored and zebra striped heirloom tomatoes in VA are simply divine.

Which leads me to a little riff on loyalty. I’m about as loyal as they come, like James Carville is to Bill Clinton. I still buy Tide and Dove soap. Which is why I’m keeping my options open about Syria. Yes, I’m a pacifist and I detest this run-up to war. You can’t bring about peace by surgically striking Damascus. If I were that opthalmologist-turned-dictator Assad, I’d get pretty darned pissed. But the mere fact that our President has changed his mind, and is asking the Congress to step up to the plate, gives me a measure of hope. This President who stood tall against the Iraq war. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt on Tuesday night.

Because when Virginia’s own President Woodrow Wilson tried to prevent another world war with his League of Nations, he was on to something. And so the world waits for the UN Security Council to vote and for our elected officials to say Yea or Nay. Because Syrian violence is about loyalty – the succession of leadership by bloodline from Mohammed (Alawite a type of Shiite interpretation – 12% minority but ruling class of Muslims) vs a belief in succession by Mohammed’s most able and pious companions (Sunni – 70% of Syrian Muslims).

And btw, 90% of Muslims worldwide are Sunni! Imagine if Jesus had children, and so Christians split into 2 sects; the apostles and saints vs his progeny…instead of say how many? Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, Congregational, Lutheran, Baptist….

According to Shiite Islam, Mohammed’s only true heir, imam, was his son-in-law Ali bin Abu Talib. But Alawites take a step further in the veneration of Imam Ali, allegedly investing him with divine attributes. Other specific elements such as the belief in divine incarnation, permissibility of alcohol, celebration of Christmas and Zoroastrian new year. http://middleeast.about.com/od/syria/tp/The-Difference-Between-Alawites-And-Sunnis-In-Syria.htm

Making the world safe for democracy, doesn’t seem to fit in this scenario…at least not without more bloodshed. And unlike my heirloom tomato tart recipe, I can’t envision the end game.

photo

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