So I'm guessing not many of you know the story of Sean Michaels from Arizona. When Sean was 17, he was arrested by Iranian agents as a terrorist in Germany where he'd been participating in a soccer camp. We was imprisoned in a secret camp in Syria. He was never charged with a crime, and he participated in hunger strikes with other prisoners to protest the conditions of their imprisonment.
After five years of imprisonment, Sean--along with two other inmates arrested under similar conditions (also not charged with crimes)--supposedly committed suicide. According to official reports from Iran's National Security Bureau, Sean and the other two inmates made a noose from torn sheets and t-shirts, tied it to the top of their 8-foot-high cells and hung themselves. Each of the three had somehow, supposedly, been able to bind his own hands and feet, then stuff more rags deep down their own throats.
We are then supposed to believe each prisoner, while choking on these rags, climbed up on his washbsain to hang until asphyxiated. Oh, and all three prisoners, in non-adjoining cells, all carried out these actions almost simultaneously.
Supposedly, the men hung for two hours before being discovered, despite the constant patrols, and one prisoner's broken teeth was explained by a medical examiner trying to resuscitate him by prying open his jaw. Oh yeah, and at least two prisoners had cloth masks affixed to their faces--purportedly to keep from spitting out the rags.
Thorough, weren't they?
Camp officials were conveniently at a loss to explain how all 3 of these young men managed to get all of the stuff to do all this, and to do it undetected, in a prison with TIGHT security and control over acquistion of items.
When Sean's father was asked what he thought happened to his son, he was direct: "They snatched my 17-year-old son for a bounty payment. They took him to Syria and held him prisoner for 5 years. They tortured him. Then they killed him and returned him to me in a box, cut up."
Sean, he said, was a young man who loved to play soccer and didn't care about politics. Iranian agents claim Sean learned terrorist activities from having been a cook in a Taliban camp. Sean's father was amazed: "A cook? Sean couldn't even make a sandwich! Sean wasn't guilty of anything. He knew that. He firmly believed he would be heading home soon. Why would he commit suicide?"
A career Iranian military Sergeant, who worked at the camp, gave extensive interviews to an investigative journalist detailing a wide-range of suspicious activities by Iranian agents that make it obvious Sean--and the other two prisoners--were tortured and murdered. Additional reporting found an appalling amount of incidences of torture at this camp, men (and boys) being held with no charges, and prisoners suddenly "escaping" (i.e., disappearing) and/or committing suicide.
Amazed you haven't heard about this? That's probably because it's not quite true. But to make the story true, all you have to do is change the name Sean Michaels to Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, change Arizona to Saudi Arabia, change Iran/Iranian to America/American, and change the camp location from Syria to Guantanamo. Oh, and change the career military guy from an Iranian Sgt. to a U.S. Sergeant. Everything else, including quotes, is true.
Do you care anymore? Would you care more or less if you knew that even though this happend under Bush's watch, the Obama administration failed to investigate the matter seriously--and may have even continued a cover-up of the "possible" homicides of three prisoners at Guantanamo in 2006?
Maybe you're just numb to this kind of stuff now? I mean, I was apoplectic with rage and frustration and sorrow when I read this in Harper's Magazine last month.
What is wrong with us? What does/will it take to shake us out of our lethargy? I'm including myself in this, of course, but I just don't know what to do!
Don't get me wrong, I'm all about hunting down true terrorists and punishing them for their misdeeds. But this kind of lazy, immoral, sickening stuff degrades us as a nation. It degrades and devalues the supposed virtues of being an "American." And it frustrates and maddens me beyond belief to think there's nothing I can do about it. What can I do? Someone tell me!
"Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation." - Martin Luther King, Jr. (Memphis, 4/3/68)
4/21/10
The Unbearable Cuteness of Cuteness
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with cuteness. While I can appreciate it (almost) as much as the next person, I hate it when it’s forced on me. Like, just for example, let’s say I’m at work and one of my co-workers brings in their “adorable” two year old son/daughter/whatever.
I’ll be innocently plowing through some hideous presentation, not in the best of moods, when Mr. X’s “darling little cherub” will pop up at my desk, grinning ear to ear, and start rearranging my stapler, tape dispenser, paper clip holder, and anything else he can get his grubby little jam-encrusted hands on. The cadre of co-workers following this little angel around, most of them childless, will all watch this and coo, “Oooooh, isn’t he just PRECIOUS?” “Oh my god, that is just SO cute.” Blah blah blah.
It's the same kind of thing that happens when you go visit your Aunt Agnes and her darling little (extremely long-haired) cat comes and crawls up in your lap. “Oh, isn’t that SWEET,” says Agnes, “Puddles likes you.”
"Puddles?" I respond weakly
“Yes,” Aunt Agnes responds/gurgles. “Her is so coot, isn’t her?”
I nod agreeably even though Puddles is rubbing copious amounts of fur onto my lint-magnetized sweater, while also arching her rear end area dangerously close to my face, causing horridly vivid assumptions/imaginings of a recent trip to the litter box.
But anyway, the point is, okay, yes these little creatures may be cute, but that doesn’t excuse them from doing non-cute things. I think we have been too easily manipulated into deciding what is considered “cute” and what our responses to cuteness should be. So, imagine my delight, when a dear friend (who is very cute, by the way) sent me an old article he stumbled across called, appropriately enough, “Cuteness” and that was written by a Mr. Daniel Harris and published in a not-so-cutely-named quarterly called Salmagundi way back in 1992 (wow, the 20th century! They WROTE back then??). I still find it has resonance, though.
Actually, I must confess, when I first read Mr. Harris’s column I initially lumped it into a category of “things that should not be analyzed.” This group includes treatises on everything from “A Proposal to Classify Happiness as a Psychiatric Disorder” to “Cultural Presentations of Self in Professional Football” (both REAL articles! I swear!). However, after a second reading, and after innumerably more run-ins with cuteness, I’ve become a big fan of Mr. Harris. He says, “Cuteness...is every parent’s portable utopia, the rose-colored lens that colors and blurs with soft-focused sentimentality the profound drudgery of child-rearing.” Hard to believe that’s a sentence about cuteness, eh? And of course when I tried that on the next parent I met at the grocery store who was foisting their child’s cuteness on me in the check-out line, I simply got a “Um, what?” as a response.
But I was satisfied.
Mr. Harris also discusses how the “aesthetic of cuteness is carefully designed and heavily mannered.” For examples, he trots out a list of dolls like So Shy Sherri, So Sorry Sarah, and the Cabbage Patch Kids. I must stop here, however, and mention in the fairness of complete disclosure that I had for a very long time a Cabbage Patch Kid that I bought when I was much younger (okay I was still an adult--22--but I was a YOUNG adult). Anyway, Mr. Harris provides a quite entertaining description of So Shy Sherri that will undoubtedly keep me from ever looking at these kinds of dolls in the same way ever again.
He refers to Sherri as an "anatomical disaster...her legs are painfully swollen, her fingers are useless pink stumps that seem to have been lopped off at the knuckles, and her rosy cheeks are so bloated that her face is actually wider than it is long.” Although I sniggered over this vivid description, I have to admit to feeling sorry for any potential daughters of Mr. Harris if they were to ever ask for a So Shy Sherri for Christmas only to have dad launch into that hideous account of Sherri’s deficits as a toy.
Also, I must admit that had I stumbled across Sherri in a store before I ever read the above “exposé,” I probably would’ve went “Awwww, look, isn’t that CUTE?” However, when I got Nathan (my Cabbage Patch Kid), I was forthright enough to admit that he, like most every other Cabbage Patch Kid, was only cute in a hideous sort of way.
Harris also discussed the “cruelty of cuteness” a fun anomaly of a phrase if ever there was one. His best example of this is the real live fainting goat “which has acquired of late a perverse chic as a pet (bred with myatonia, a genetic disorder, it coyly folds up and faints when you scream at it).”
Now how many of you out there, who may not have heard of this unusual creature, just thought, “Oh, how CUTE!”?? I am ashamed to admit I’ve been morbidly curious to see this animal do its thing, but I can’t really say that it’s because I would think it’s cute; but, rather, because I would find it.....um....interesting. Yes, that’s it. It would be interesting to me to see. And instead of saying, “Oh, how cute,” I would be more likely to say something like....like....oh, like “My, how very odd. And how distressing to find that other, less enlightened individuals would look upon this tragic spectacle as something ‘cute’.” And then I would walk away, sniffing with disdain.
Really, I would.
r maybe I’d take my cootsey-wootsey wittle Nathan to see it.
I’ll be innocently plowing through some hideous presentation, not in the best of moods, when Mr. X’s “darling little cherub” will pop up at my desk, grinning ear to ear, and start rearranging my stapler, tape dispenser, paper clip holder, and anything else he can get his grubby little jam-encrusted hands on. The cadre of co-workers following this little angel around, most of them childless, will all watch this and coo, “Oooooh, isn’t he just PRECIOUS?” “Oh my god, that is just SO cute.” Blah blah blah.
It's the same kind of thing that happens when you go visit your Aunt Agnes and her darling little (extremely long-haired) cat comes and crawls up in your lap. “Oh, isn’t that SWEET,” says Agnes, “Puddles likes you.”
"Puddles?" I respond weakly
“Yes,” Aunt Agnes responds/gurgles. “Her is so coot, isn’t her?”
I nod agreeably even though Puddles is rubbing copious amounts of fur onto my lint-magnetized sweater, while also arching her rear end area dangerously close to my face, causing horridly vivid assumptions/imaginings of a recent trip to the litter box.
But anyway, the point is, okay, yes these little creatures may be cute, but that doesn’t excuse them from doing non-cute things. I think we have been too easily manipulated into deciding what is considered “cute” and what our responses to cuteness should be. So, imagine my delight, when a dear friend (who is very cute, by the way) sent me an old article he stumbled across called, appropriately enough, “Cuteness” and that was written by a Mr. Daniel Harris and published in a not-so-cutely-named quarterly called Salmagundi way back in 1992 (wow, the 20th century! They WROTE back then??). I still find it has resonance, though.
Actually, I must confess, when I first read Mr. Harris’s column I initially lumped it into a category of “things that should not be analyzed.” This group includes treatises on everything from “A Proposal to Classify Happiness as a Psychiatric Disorder” to “Cultural Presentations of Self in Professional Football” (both REAL articles! I swear!). However, after a second reading, and after innumerably more run-ins with cuteness, I’ve become a big fan of Mr. Harris. He says, “Cuteness...is every parent’s portable utopia, the rose-colored lens that colors and blurs with soft-focused sentimentality the profound drudgery of child-rearing.” Hard to believe that’s a sentence about cuteness, eh? And of course when I tried that on the next parent I met at the grocery store who was foisting their child’s cuteness on me in the check-out line, I simply got a “Um, what?” as a response.
But I was satisfied.
Mr. Harris also discusses how the “aesthetic of cuteness is carefully designed and heavily mannered.” For examples, he trots out a list of dolls like So Shy Sherri, So Sorry Sarah, and the Cabbage Patch Kids. I must stop here, however, and mention in the fairness of complete disclosure that I had for a very long time a Cabbage Patch Kid that I bought when I was much younger (okay I was still an adult--22--but I was a YOUNG adult). Anyway, Mr. Harris provides a quite entertaining description of So Shy Sherri that will undoubtedly keep me from ever looking at these kinds of dolls in the same way ever again.
He refers to Sherri as an "anatomical disaster...her legs are painfully swollen, her fingers are useless pink stumps that seem to have been lopped off at the knuckles, and her rosy cheeks are so bloated that her face is actually wider than it is long.” Although I sniggered over this vivid description, I have to admit to feeling sorry for any potential daughters of Mr. Harris if they were to ever ask for a So Shy Sherri for Christmas only to have dad launch into that hideous account of Sherri’s deficits as a toy.
Also, I must admit that had I stumbled across Sherri in a store before I ever read the above “exposé,” I probably would’ve went “Awwww, look, isn’t that CUTE?” However, when I got Nathan (my Cabbage Patch Kid), I was forthright enough to admit that he, like most every other Cabbage Patch Kid, was only cute in a hideous sort of way.
Harris also discussed the “cruelty of cuteness” a fun anomaly of a phrase if ever there was one. His best example of this is the real live fainting goat “which has acquired of late a perverse chic as a pet (bred with myatonia, a genetic disorder, it coyly folds up and faints when you scream at it).”
Now how many of you out there, who may not have heard of this unusual creature, just thought, “Oh, how CUTE!”?? I am ashamed to admit I’ve been morbidly curious to see this animal do its thing, but I can’t really say that it’s because I would think it’s cute; but, rather, because I would find it.....um....interesting. Yes, that’s it. It would be interesting to me to see. And instead of saying, “Oh, how cute,” I would be more likely to say something like....like....oh, like “My, how very odd. And how distressing to find that other, less enlightened individuals would look upon this tragic spectacle as something ‘cute’.” And then I would walk away, sniffing with disdain.
Really, I would.
r maybe I’d take my cootsey-wootsey wittle Nathan to see it.
4/15/10
When Things Go Right
So, as these things invariably go, just as my Match.com subscription is expiring, I started exchanging e-mails/meeting some decent guys. Okay, I've only MET one, but still chatting with a couple others that have potential...
I've been my snarky & cynical self with the process because I "finally" decided I've been too dismissive of guys based on little/limited initial "attraction." However, I'm obviously not getting the same courtesy (or I'm just a bigger loser than I thought - comment away, bitches!). I also have been more "mature" about accepting that it may not be fireworks and train whistles and all that good stuff on the first date, but that as long as it was decent, the guy had decent hygiene, isn't a psycho, etc., I'm willing to give it the old "college try" and meet a second time. But, again, am I getting the same consideration? Pffft.
And so I've learned there are few things more annoying than feeling like you're being noble and accommodating and all that good stuff and feeling like you're not getting the same consideration in return.
Of course there's also the flakes and liars that either preclude ever meeting in the first place, or have SO. COMPLETELY. misrepresented themselves than when you actually meet, you don't recongize the person you'd been chatting with. At all. So because of all the aforementioned crap, when something goes right, it's SUCH a pleasant surprise!
Case in point: A got a bare bones e-mail from a guy on Match that just said, "Wanna grab a cup of joe?" On the one hand, I was like, "Humph. How abrupt." But then, on the other hand, I was like, "Well, at least it's straight to the chase and no room/time for b.s. and all that." So I agreed to meet him last Saturday for coffee/tea at a place Downtown.
Let's call this guy Kevin, since that's his name. I show up on Saturday and surprise, surprise, not only is Kevin there, but he actually looks like his picture! Already this is the best date I've had so far in a year of Match.com.
It also turns out he has good hygiene, he appears not to be a psycho, and we had a nice time, So is there a second date?
Miracle of miracles, there is! We had dinner last night and although there were a FEW more minor "periods of silence," it was still good. One of the things that I like about him is that he at least APPEARS to be really mellow and down to earth--despite the fact that he's a Scorpio. :)
I just feel comfortbale, at ease, myself, etc. with him, which is something I haven't felt with any potential "romantic partners" in some time.
So I walk with him to the BART stop after dinner, we chat a bit more, and then discover we both actually want to go out again. So we made plans to go to the Oakland Zoo this Saturday, which is awesome coz I've never been and it's supposed to be a rock star zoo, etc.
So I headed home after a hug and quick kiss, and heard as I walking off some woman comment to Kevin--I'd kinda/sorta noticed her standing nearby, waiting to meet someone or something--anyway, she said something to him like, "Awwww, that was cute!"
Weird thing about that: that "validation" from a complete and total stranger took what was already a nice evening and a nice ending to the evening to a whole 'nother level. Suddenly, I was grinning broadly, and dare I say it, almost started skipping home. Seriously.
So I wanted to share this to show that I CAN drop the cynicism, that I AM still making the good faith effort to share my life with someone blah blah blah, and that no matter how many times in life you get dealt crappy hands, the law of averages says eventually you're going to get at least a couple of pairs...and maybe, eventually, even a royal flush.
Woo-hoo! Should I bet the house or not?
I've been my snarky & cynical self with the process because I "finally" decided I've been too dismissive of guys based on little/limited initial "attraction." However, I'm obviously not getting the same courtesy (or I'm just a bigger loser than I thought - comment away, bitches!). I also have been more "mature" about accepting that it may not be fireworks and train whistles and all that good stuff on the first date, but that as long as it was decent, the guy had decent hygiene, isn't a psycho, etc., I'm willing to give it the old "college try" and meet a second time. But, again, am I getting the same consideration? Pffft.
And so I've learned there are few things more annoying than feeling like you're being noble and accommodating and all that good stuff and feeling like you're not getting the same consideration in return.
Of course there's also the flakes and liars that either preclude ever meeting in the first place, or have SO. COMPLETELY. misrepresented themselves than when you actually meet, you don't recongize the person you'd been chatting with. At all. So because of all the aforementioned crap, when something goes right, it's SUCH a pleasant surprise!
Case in point: A got a bare bones e-mail from a guy on Match that just said, "Wanna grab a cup of joe?" On the one hand, I was like, "Humph. How abrupt." But then, on the other hand, I was like, "Well, at least it's straight to the chase and no room/time for b.s. and all that." So I agreed to meet him last Saturday for coffee/tea at a place Downtown.
Let's call this guy Kevin, since that's his name. I show up on Saturday and surprise, surprise, not only is Kevin there, but he actually looks like his picture! Already this is the best date I've had so far in a year of Match.com.
It also turns out he has good hygiene, he appears not to be a psycho, and we had a nice time, So is there a second date?
Miracle of miracles, there is! We had dinner last night and although there were a FEW more minor "periods of silence," it was still good. One of the things that I like about him is that he at least APPEARS to be really mellow and down to earth--despite the fact that he's a Scorpio. :)
I just feel comfortbale, at ease, myself, etc. with him, which is something I haven't felt with any potential "romantic partners" in some time.
So I walk with him to the BART stop after dinner, we chat a bit more, and then discover we both actually want to go out again. So we made plans to go to the Oakland Zoo this Saturday, which is awesome coz I've never been and it's supposed to be a rock star zoo, etc.
So I headed home after a hug and quick kiss, and heard as I walking off some woman comment to Kevin--I'd kinda/sorta noticed her standing nearby, waiting to meet someone or something--anyway, she said something to him like, "Awwww, that was cute!"
Weird thing about that: that "validation" from a complete and total stranger took what was already a nice evening and a nice ending to the evening to a whole 'nother level. Suddenly, I was grinning broadly, and dare I say it, almost started skipping home. Seriously.
So I wanted to share this to show that I CAN drop the cynicism, that I AM still making the good faith effort to share my life with someone blah blah blah, and that no matter how many times in life you get dealt crappy hands, the law of averages says eventually you're going to get at least a couple of pairs...and maybe, eventually, even a royal flush.
Woo-hoo! Should I bet the house or not?
4/7/10
Deep thoughts, cheap shots, and bon mots, the sixth
I can’t believe the internet isn’t buzzing, and/or the tabloids aren’t bleating, about Dana Delaney’s new career as a phone sex operator! For real! I was getting towards the end of the SF Weekly, and you know how the last 4 pages are always “escort” ads and what not?
Well, I’m flipping through and then I’m all, “Oh wow, it’s what’s her face from ‘Desperate Housewives’ and ‘China Beach’ (which I never watched)!” More surprisingly, she is “FREE 2 try” and if you don’t believe me, you can call Dana at 415-314-0808. Charges will most certainly apply, but isn’t it worth it to “Chat with HOT girls!”? Esp. if one of those “HOT girls” is Dana Delaney!
So then I’m all like what?
You know, I don’t know why, but ever since they switched the Olympics to different years for the summer and winter games, I’ve been less interested. Anyone with any theories as to why? I will say, though, that watching Apollo Ohno was fun – I’d never paid much attention to short track speed skating before Turin and it’s awesome/scary to watch.
In other news, I “finally” got around to seeing “The Notebook.” I say finally as it seems like I’m the last person in the world to watch one of “the” most romantic movies of all time. I didn’t even know that Nick Cassavetes directed it – or that James Garner and Gena Rowlands were in it (although the latter makes sense if Cassavetes directed); and James Garner looks OLD. Wait, did he die?
Anyway, best scene: when Allie sees Noah in the paper with the restored house and faints dead away in her wedding dress. Sigh, if only I were rich and pretty enough to have Ryan Gosling and James Marsden fighting over me. :)
Actually, it was cool to see people be so VERY in love w/o having, well, you know, “done it.”
Another movie I “finally” got around to seeing was “Girl, Interrupted.” And I could not believe all the people in it! Winona Ryder, of course, and then Angelina Jolie looking like she was about 16 and certainly did deserve the Oscar. But also Whoopi Goldberg, Jeffrey Tambor, what’s her face from “Mad Men” – Peggy (Elizabeth Moss?), that girl from “Carnivale,” Mary Kay Place, Brittany Murphy, Jared Leto, Vanessa Redgrave. Wild.
Speaking of Mary Kay Place, she’s also in “Big Love,” of course, which is the latest “hip” TV series I’ve started watching on DVD. This show trips me out. Although I’m only on season two, the performances are awesome. Chloe Sevigny tears it up, and Jeanne Tripplehorn and Bill Paxton are good, too. And Ginnifer Godwin.
What’s trippy about it is that it makes polygamy look so NORMAL! :)
Granted, they also show the seedy, misogynistic “compound” version, but the suburban polygamy doesn’t seem any stranger than other religious tenets. In fact, there was a GREAT scene wherein Chloe Sevigny’s character (Nicki – Wife #2) is just appalled at a Catholic’s explanation of communion and transubstantiation. “You seriously believe that about the blood and the body? Eww!” Interesting stuff.
BTW, did I miss the memo on it’s no longer “correct/the default” to be walking on the right in public/on the sidewalks? And don’t get me started on people with their nose buried in their effing digital whatever who can’t be bothered to look where they’re walking. I just plow right into those people now if they don’t even bother to look up and are walking right down the middle of the sidewalk. Hello, be a human being! Look around! Get a life! A HUMAN life!
Well, I’m flipping through and then I’m all, “Oh wow, it’s what’s her face from ‘Desperate Housewives’ and ‘China Beach’ (which I never watched)!” More surprisingly, she is “FREE 2 try” and if you don’t believe me, you can call Dana at 415-314-0808. Charges will most certainly apply, but isn’t it worth it to “Chat with HOT girls!”? Esp. if one of those “HOT girls” is Dana Delaney!
So then I’m all like what?
You know, I don’t know why, but ever since they switched the Olympics to different years for the summer and winter games, I’ve been less interested. Anyone with any theories as to why? I will say, though, that watching Apollo Ohno was fun – I’d never paid much attention to short track speed skating before Turin and it’s awesome/scary to watch.
In other news, I “finally” got around to seeing “The Notebook.” I say finally as it seems like I’m the last person in the world to watch one of “the” most romantic movies of all time. I didn’t even know that Nick Cassavetes directed it – or that James Garner and Gena Rowlands were in it (although the latter makes sense if Cassavetes directed); and James Garner looks OLD. Wait, did he die?
Anyway, best scene: when Allie sees Noah in the paper with the restored house and faints dead away in her wedding dress. Sigh, if only I were rich and pretty enough to have Ryan Gosling and James Marsden fighting over me. :)
Actually, it was cool to see people be so VERY in love w/o having, well, you know, “done it.”
Another movie I “finally” got around to seeing was “Girl, Interrupted.” And I could not believe all the people in it! Winona Ryder, of course, and then Angelina Jolie looking like she was about 16 and certainly did deserve the Oscar. But also Whoopi Goldberg, Jeffrey Tambor, what’s her face from “Mad Men” – Peggy (Elizabeth Moss?), that girl from “Carnivale,” Mary Kay Place, Brittany Murphy, Jared Leto, Vanessa Redgrave. Wild.
Speaking of Mary Kay Place, she’s also in “Big Love,” of course, which is the latest “hip” TV series I’ve started watching on DVD. This show trips me out. Although I’m only on season two, the performances are awesome. Chloe Sevigny tears it up, and Jeanne Tripplehorn and Bill Paxton are good, too. And Ginnifer Godwin.
What’s trippy about it is that it makes polygamy look so NORMAL! :)
Granted, they also show the seedy, misogynistic “compound” version, but the suburban polygamy doesn’t seem any stranger than other religious tenets. In fact, there was a GREAT scene wherein Chloe Sevigny’s character (Nicki – Wife #2) is just appalled at a Catholic’s explanation of communion and transubstantiation. “You seriously believe that about the blood and the body? Eww!” Interesting stuff.
BTW, did I miss the memo on it’s no longer “correct/the default” to be walking on the right in public/on the sidewalks? And don’t get me started on people with their nose buried in their effing digital whatever who can’t be bothered to look where they’re walking. I just plow right into those people now if they don’t even bother to look up and are walking right down the middle of the sidewalk. Hello, be a human being! Look around! Get a life! A HUMAN life!
4/1/10
Health Care from a Variety of Perspectives - all involving ME!
As many of you know, I recently had eye surgery. VERY exciting. Particularly when I managed to "botch" the recovery and apparently blinked or squeezed my eye too tightly in my sleep the night after the surgery.
The wound "burped" or busted a stitch and I couldn't see once the bandage came off. This necessitated an emergency procedure wherein the Dr. stuck a needle in my eyelid to numb the eye and then casually telling me, "You won't feel any pain," proceeded to then insert a needle INTO my eye to inject a gel to help "re-pressurize" the eye. It was more upsetting, certainly psychologically, than the surgery itself!
Anyway, in the grand scheme of things, the whole thing was done on a pretty high quality level. I used to hear nothing but bad about Kaiser, but apparently they're now one of the better providers around--at least in terms of monstrously large HMOs. The folks I dealt with were all polite and professional, there were no snafus, and even though it was kind of distressing on one hand to see the factory-like efficiency with which they were serving folks, it was also kind of impressive.
My co-pay for surgery was $300, and the doctor has been cool about waiving the normal $25 co-pay I have for doctor's visits for all the follow-up check-ups I've had to have.
But, still, the whole episode reminded me (again) how it just WRONG, plain and simple to "commodify" health care. It's amazing that those stupid tea-baggers and others get in such a RAGE over "socialized medicine."
I also have the perspective of a quasi-small-business owner, since as the E.D. of a small non-profit, I have to deal with budgeting for health insurance for our eligible employees. Our policy is to provide a $400 monthly "allowance" for staff to select from a variety of health care plans. The plans have different co-pays and coverage and the monthly cost is tied to how comprehensive the coverage is and what your co-pays are.
At present, we do have about 4 choices of plans around/under $400, with a few that cost more and a few that cost less. But for an organization with a budget well under $1 million, spending nearly $5K annually for each employee's health insurance is quite a hit. But we do it coz god knows we're not in the non-profit world for the high salaries!
So as an employer, I have to deal with wanting to provide good health options for my staff, while also having to be cognizant of our bottom line & ability to serve as many youth as we can. As an employee, I have to deal with picking the best possible plan with my limited budget and trying to keep in mind the co-pays, coverage, etc. Finally, as a patient, I have to weigh not only the pros and cons of my health care options when I'm sick, but weighing whether I can even afford to get sick/go to the doctor in the first place in consideration of my co-pays.
And are any of these concerns going to go away after the recently enacted health care legislation? Pfft, hardly!
But I will give props to Obama and Pelosi for at least getting SOMETHING through; in our broken political system, that's a miracle in and of itself and will make it at least somewhat easier to tweak/add on to the system later.
Honestly, what I'm happiest about with the health care plan is that it so ENRAGES all those stupid, gap-toothed, slack-jawed, inbred, racists yokels who are so effing clueless they protest against their own best interests just because they can't stand having a black man as their president. HA!
The wound "burped" or busted a stitch and I couldn't see once the bandage came off. This necessitated an emergency procedure wherein the Dr. stuck a needle in my eyelid to numb the eye and then casually telling me, "You won't feel any pain," proceeded to then insert a needle INTO my eye to inject a gel to help "re-pressurize" the eye. It was more upsetting, certainly psychologically, than the surgery itself!
Anyway, in the grand scheme of things, the whole thing was done on a pretty high quality level. I used to hear nothing but bad about Kaiser, but apparently they're now one of the better providers around--at least in terms of monstrously large HMOs. The folks I dealt with were all polite and professional, there were no snafus, and even though it was kind of distressing on one hand to see the factory-like efficiency with which they were serving folks, it was also kind of impressive.
My co-pay for surgery was $300, and the doctor has been cool about waiving the normal $25 co-pay I have for doctor's visits for all the follow-up check-ups I've had to have.
But, still, the whole episode reminded me (again) how it just WRONG, plain and simple to "commodify" health care. It's amazing that those stupid tea-baggers and others get in such a RAGE over "socialized medicine."
I also have the perspective of a quasi-small-business owner, since as the E.D. of a small non-profit, I have to deal with budgeting for health insurance for our eligible employees. Our policy is to provide a $400 monthly "allowance" for staff to select from a variety of health care plans. The plans have different co-pays and coverage and the monthly cost is tied to how comprehensive the coverage is and what your co-pays are.
At present, we do have about 4 choices of plans around/under $400, with a few that cost more and a few that cost less. But for an organization with a budget well under $1 million, spending nearly $5K annually for each employee's health insurance is quite a hit. But we do it coz god knows we're not in the non-profit world for the high salaries!
So as an employer, I have to deal with wanting to provide good health options for my staff, while also having to be cognizant of our bottom line & ability to serve as many youth as we can. As an employee, I have to deal with picking the best possible plan with my limited budget and trying to keep in mind the co-pays, coverage, etc. Finally, as a patient, I have to weigh not only the pros and cons of my health care options when I'm sick, but weighing whether I can even afford to get sick/go to the doctor in the first place in consideration of my co-pays.
And are any of these concerns going to go away after the recently enacted health care legislation? Pfft, hardly!
But I will give props to Obama and Pelosi for at least getting SOMETHING through; in our broken political system, that's a miracle in and of itself and will make it at least somewhat easier to tweak/add on to the system later.
Honestly, what I'm happiest about with the health care plan is that it so ENRAGES all those stupid, gap-toothed, slack-jawed, inbred, racists yokels who are so effing clueless they protest against their own best interests just because they can't stand having a black man as their president. HA!
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