Bourgeoisie and Feeble Minds

So, the "no one in Congress should get paid until this is over" and "cut the deficit, don't pay Congress" wave of not-particularly-deep-thinking?

I get it.  I do, I absolutely understand not wanting to pay them while they refuse to work, while they devastate others with their corporate-interest politicking.  But not paying them is neither going to reduce our debt in any meaningful way NOR hurt them in any real fashion.  They don't make enough for their paychecks to put a dent in the deficit.  Plus, they're rich, the money they make from their Congressional salary?  Chump change for most of them.  The obstructionist, "bend over for the baggers" conservatives?

Most certainly have other, more lucrative income streams.

If we really wanted to make it sting, we'd need to shut down ANY income for them, including corporate sweets and off-shore income.  No investment dividends, no family cash, nothing.  Of course, that's not even a little bit practical (or legal), so it's just dreaming.  The sad reality is that NOTHING we do can stop these maniacs.

Except voting, that is.  Not just in the general elections, but in the PRIMARIES.  Because THAT'S where the insane tea party faction wins.  At the primary level, where they know nobody else is active.  At the primaries, they get to decide WHO is on the ballot come November.  They make sure the most extremist, radical, idiotic bagger takes the republican primary, knowing that most republicans vote straight party line.

If you want sanity back in our politics, if you want our government to stop acting like spoiled terrorists, you need to vote in THE PRIMARIES as well as the general election.

Otherwise?  Get used to this bullshit.

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I'm going to flip back to the ACA/"Obamacare" thing once again.  Just a reminder for the folks out there who never saw "School House Rock."



The Affordable Care Act was passed by our representatives.  It was signed into law by our President.  It survived a Constitutional Challenge by our viciously right-leaning Supreme Court.  

It's the LAW.  Now shut up your "I hate the black guy/I'm afraid the tea baggers will nuke me at the primary level" whinging and do your damned jobs.  

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I was thinking the other day about religion.  Or, rather, about religions.  About how many are so sure that theirs is the right, the real, the true faith.  About how your faith is determined by where you're born, which means that, if the one true faith is Reformed Latter-Day Saint and you were born in, say, Mumbai, you're pretty much screwed.  So, whichever religion is the "true" one, that's a crappy deity who'd deny most of the world whatever jolly afterlife because they were born in the wrong place.

Think about it.  THINK about it!  You know why so many faiths cram themselves down the throats of children?  Because children are, by default, non-believers.  They are atheists in the truest sense.  But they're also GULLIBLE, they believe in flying horses and talking pigs and unicorns.  They believe what the adults they depend upon tell them.  And so they're filled up like cheap Styrofoam cups with all the hot, steaming dogma their folks can slam in EARLY, while they're still innocent enough to believe it.  And by the time they're old enough to think critically?

Most times, it's too late--that lump of fiction has already slid in before the wall of logic could be constructed, and has taken up residency in the "unquestionable" portion of the brain.  You know what happens when you DON'T fill a kid's mind with mythology?  When you let a kid be a kid and don't bury him under an avalanche of doctrine and woo?

He laughs himself silly the first time he's exposed to the Bible.  Says things like, "God's a BUSH? A TALKING bush?  And he's on FIRE?" followed by peals of laughter.  

Anyway, back to where I was going with this--religions.  So many religions, and yet only one "true" faith.  

And I came up with this:

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Dreamed I have cancer.  MRI's on Monday.  Hope I can get some answers soon.  Hope they're happy answers.

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I was thinking about learning and when it stops for so many people.  I am in touch with so many folks from high school.  And so many of them seemed so smart back then, and seem so . . . dull now.  It's like they just hit 18 years old and stopped.  Like learning is a job you do until you're done with high school, and then you don't ever have to learn again.  Their grammar is atrocious, their spelling and written communication childish--it's shocking.  I was reading a piece the other day about the number of people who never read another book after high school.  I dug around for a source of the statistics, and found a number of different sources, some from a study conducted in 2003, others cited as more recent (2013).  I couldn't narrow it down further, so I can't say these numbers are dead on.  What I can say?

They dovetail nicely with my personal experiences with folks in my world.

^That's a live link to the source page^

And it's not just reading.  I've known people--family members, even--who've made it quite clear that the opinions they'd formed by the age of 18 were set in stone, unassailable.  And they defend this, like it's a point of pride.  Think about it.  That's like proudly proclaiming "I HAVEN'T LEARNED A DAMNED THING IN 20 YEARS AND I'M PROUD OF IT!"  

Ew.

New information comes in, new theories are tested, new things are discovered, new ways of doing things invented, and it happens EVERY DAY!  How can you just close up and decide you're done growing?

In psych, we used to call that "premature foreclosure" (thank you, Erikson).  And it's not a good thing.

I learn every day.  And my opinions and feelings are not the same as they were when I was in my 20s.  So long as my brain is working, I want to keep it nimble.  I love to learn.  And I'm torn between pity and horror at those who've decided learning isn't important.  

I don't think there's anything that makes us more human than our capacity to learn.

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And here's this--just my way of wishing y'all a happy Columbus day.

Or something.

That's referring to an Oatmeal post (as indicated by the credit there--"The Oatmeal").  You should read it.  It's right HERE.  It's not anything we didn't already know, but it's a snappy way of putting it together.  

Sorry is Sorry except when it's NOT

Just a little note about apologies.  Anything qualified, anything that contains the words (or similar sentiment) "but YOU?" Not an apology.  Anything that goes on to defend whatever's being apologized for?

Not an apology.

So do me a favor, wouldja?  Next time the words "Hey, I'm really sorry, it's just that you . . . " start to come out of your mouth?

Just hush, okay?  Because you're not apologizing, and you're not improving my mood even a little.

Thanks!

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A little lesson in reality for the wanker-baggers out there who seem to think that shutting down the government will "undo" the Affordable Care Act:

It's LAW, you guys. Remember the whole School House Rock gig, with "I am a Bill?"  Remember how that works?  Congress enacts, the President signs, and WOW, it's the law?  Yeah, that's what happened, it is how our country works, it's exactly the process it was founded on.  And you remember what happens when a LAW's constitutionality is challenged?  It goes before the Supreme Court.  You remember them, right?  With their bagger victories like Citizens United and the garroting of the Voting Rights Act?  Yeah, those right-leaning freaks!  They examined the Affordable Care Act and found it . . .

NOT IN VIOLATION OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION!

That's RIGHT, boys and girls, the ACA (often known as "Obamacare") is the LAW, and it's CONSTITUTIONAL.  And you know what else it is?

FULLY FUNDED REGARDLESS OF GOVERNMENT SHUT DOWN.  What, no one told you that?  Your histrionic, fundamentally unstable, utterly dishonest bagger representatives didn't tell you that?  Oh, no!

Yeah, they shut down the government in protest of a law that shutting down the government won't interfere with.  But really, it goes deeper than that.  They shut down the government because they want a Presidential do-over. They're still butt-hurt because they lost.

They LOST!  Probably THE defining issue this past election was Affordable Health Care, and they LOST.

I find it deeply embarrassing that there are so-called Americans who have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, toward health care.  That there are some who view the INTERNATIONAL STANDARD of care as something evil, something to be avoided at all costs.  

Shameful!

The rich, who have gotten so much richer in the past few decades, and who contribute so much LESS to our society, be it through wages or taxes, have actually managed to hoodwink us, to turn us against our weakest members, so that we point fingers at the poor and bemoan their need, begrudge them a buck-twenty a day in food assistance, all the while not noticing that we're being buggered senseless by the right and their "corporate-people" masters.  

It's always worked that way.  Always.  If you can turn a people against those weaker than themselves, you can manipulate them all sorts of ways while they're distracted by their hate.  Immigrants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, the poor, Blacks, Hispanics--it's what the "upper class" does--it distracts us, lets us feel superior to some other group, and takes advantage of our inattention.  

I think it's worse this time around because they managed to tie it all up with "patriotism."  And raging nationalism combined with vicious xenophobia?  Stirred up in a pot of falling educational standards?

Disaster.

We lag behind the rest of the industrial world in . .  . well, pretty much everything but military spending and the percentage of people in prison.  

Think about that.  Educational attainment?  Nope.  Life expectancy?  Nope.  Literacy?  Nuh-uh.  Infant mortality?  Nopers.  Maternal deaths?  Nope.  Health care?  Not even close.  

Oooh, I know!  Guns!  We have more guns per capita AND more murders!  So our proud country can boast top honors in violence, weaponry, military spending, and incarcerated citizens.

And the right has us waving those flags and shouting "America, love it or leave it!"

Which is THE most UN-American thing to say.

We are AMERICANS, when we see something wrong, we're supposed to FIX it, not DEFEND it! I get that our educational standards have fallen, I get that people just aren't as smart as they used to be.  But are we really THIS stupid?

Really?

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Speaking of stupid, I made the mistake of checking the profile of a Facebook friend's friend.  On it was a rather racist/anti-Arab cartoon.  Enough to make me wince just a little, but not enough to really make me upset.  It was the dull-wit comment left by another friend of a friend that got me going.  She says (and this is copied and pasted) "I wish they would all do it once out in the desert..All mussies." 

I.  I don't.  

Oh, gosh.

Her  name isn't Olga (but it's close) and she lives in Wisconsin or Minnesota or Michigan or some such northern clime.  Lovely places.  But one of them has Olga, and that makes it a bit less lovely. Olga's wall is crowded with painful stupidity--so much so, you'd think . . . well, I was going to say "you'd think it would be spilling over," but considering her idiot post on someone else's wall, I'd say it HAS spilled over.  Her wall offers up such gems as Reverent-posted/Olga Shared Photoshopped images of dead babies with comparisons to Hitler.  With her pithy comment "Yep.  Sad."  Memes squealing about "defund Obamacare!" and "Send him back to Kenya!"

And guns, of course.  

And Jesus.  Vertiable butloads of Jesus.  

Because nothing says "Jesus" like hate, bigotry, stupidity, and guns, right Olga?

Olga?

Her friends list is crowded with folks who have guns for profile shots.  A few have bagger takes on Confederate flags.  A bunch of Jesus-y stuff.  A lot of Obama-hating.

She's a stereotype.  Heck, Olga may not actually be real.  Isn't that a reassuring thought?

Here, a collection of meme's from Olga's wall:

I think you get the point.  Olga's an idiot.  But the crowning glory, the one that really drives home just what kind of ugly creature she is?

That's right--our First Lady as a flying MONKEY.  Yeah, racist point made, Olga.  I'm sure your "Tea Party Patriots" will reward you for your slack-jawed adoration.  No, really, I'm sure they will. They'll probably even give you health care that almost begins to approach the industrialized world's standard. 

Or at least easy access to a gun so you can end it when the health problems progress beyond your ability to pay.  Which, considering the breathtaking sums our medical complex demands for even the simplest of treatments, shouldn't be long.

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And that's that.  I'm all politicked out for the day.  Haven't run across any really awful baby names, though I did come across a bit from a guy who won't hire people with crappy names, with a specific stiffy against "black" names.  And I think that sucks--you can't help what your parents named you.  Bad names should result in parental slapping, not prejudice against the victims.

Niiiiiice.

Stones, Stones, Who Took His Stones?

"Well, I think the election changes that. It's pretty clear that the President was reelected. Obamacare is the law of the land." 

-- Speaker John Boehner, in an ABC News interview on November 8, 2012, on whether he would still try to repeal the health care law.

Congressional Battering and a Lesson in Fear

Today, I had the talk with our son.  You know, the "honey, because of those cruel, petty asshats in DC playing politics with our lives, your daddy may be out of work next week" talk.  The talk that details the things that will immediately fall by the wayside.  Like cable TV.  Like the paintball Zombie-fest he's been looking forward to since March.  Like the strings for his electric guitar and the new cord to stop that crazy buzzing.

Like his beloved Hapkido classes that represent the only real "in person" interaction he gets with other kids his age. It's three nights a week he gets to hang out and learn and grow with other kids.

And it is OUTTA HERE if those mean, politicking monsters in Congress keep it up.

Explaining to him that, unlike the last time this happened, these bastards almost certainly won't reimburse the families they're devastating.

And make no mistake--they are threatening to devastate us.  It's his first lesson in what happens when bills don't get paid.  How they don't just scoot forward a month, but they become overdue, compounded with fees and fines and penalty interest rates, then lumped into the next month's bill, which is still due.  Things don't get pushed back, they get piled up.  And then the vicious tide of endless calls from creditors starts.  The three, four, five calls a day per creditor.  And each time they pretend they don't know you've already called, already explained.

Already begged.

We are working so hard to drag ourselves up and out of debt.  This will be the end of us, financially.  There will be no recovering from this.

Add that that my looming medical appointments for the large, growing mass in my forearm.  Oh, the copays.  Not just the 35 bucks a pop for doctor's visits, but the fifty+ for the MRI, the 100+ per hospital, etc.  Like having a possible sarcoma growing in my arm wasn't enough, the Republican Party has to trap us under their boot and gleefully threaten to twist that heel.

And it is gleeful.  Don't you DARE tell me otherwise, I read their words, I see their satisfied little smirks.  What happened to public service?  They're not serving anyone but themselves and their corporate masters.

And here's the truly bitter part: any one of them could fix our financial woes in a second. They have that kind of money.  They could just say, "Oh, shoot, 15 grand is all you need to be solvent? Here you go."  But that would be welfare.  That would be wrong.  Bootstraps and all that crap.  Except they're looking to slash those bootstraps and then, once again, castigate us for not being able to save ourselves when they've taken away our only means of salvation.  We are trying, we are paying things down and paying things off, but it's going take about two years to get it all done.  Unless they shut down the government.

Then it won't ever happen.

And all of this over a program the American People have already weighed in on.  They did--they VOTED FOR BARACK OBAMA!  Seriously, what do these bastards think that meant?   They ran their boy Mitt on a platform of killing Affordable Care, and they LOST.  They LOST, and yet they keep terrorizing Americans in attempt after attempt to  . . . unlose?

I know what they're trying to do.  They hope that, if they can make things as painful and miserable and bloody as possible for folks like us, we'll throw our sad, terrified hands in the air and say "Fine! Defund Obamacare, just please, please don't sink my family!"  They know that, given enough fear and hurt, we'll eventually buckle under and throw our fellow Americans under the bus to save our own families.

According to one nutty windbag down in Texas, if the American people get a taste of affordable care, they'll be "hooked."

"Hooked" on affordable health care for everyone.  Oh, the horror!

The stress kills.  They say that it shortens your life and opens you up to all sorts of awful ailments. From obesity to cancer, there's a stress link.  So it's not much of a stretch to say that the Republicans in Congress are attempting to murder me.

This is terrorism.  There's no other word for it.  Every few months, they come at us with threats of shutdowns and furloughs and slashing of services, using us and our lives as game pieces, bargaining chips.  And each time, the constant, thrumming adrenaline, the panic, the insomnia, the tears.  It's terrorism, plain and simple.

Congressional Republicans are terrorists.  They're why Guantanamo Bay needs to stay open for business.

Obamacare Junkies and Life Eternal

So, I've been thinking more on the whole "Obamacare defunding" debacle, and the miserable, cheat-y "throw the dice over and over until we get the result we want" approach the right has taken with this matter.  What, is this the 42nd time they've tried to kill affordable health care?  43rd?

Please, doesn't that tell you something about who they're representing?  Because if you make less than half a mil a year, it's not YOU!

I was thinking about that ridiculous, rotten creature from here in NOVA--what's her name?  Comstock?  The wingnut who actually said that folks who make $250,000 really have to struggle to make ends meet?

Sure, Barb, if they're shooting for the Hamptons or a 7,000 square foot McMansion in Mclean.  But out here in the REAL Virginia?  250 grand would have us out of debt and a house bought.  After that?  It's European vacations every summer and a new car every year.  Seriously.  Fifty grand a year would pay every bill we have, including groceries and rent.  The other two hundred grand?

WOWSER icing.  But it's telling, isn't it?  That this woman could stand up and say something that outrageous, that aloof and out-of-touch with America and not be castigated?  Not be tossed out the door as a spoiled, utterly alien creature who has no understanding of real life in America?  While you and I are blinking, goggling at her breathtaking classism, the Republican party embraced her and her words.

Because that is who they are, and if you believe different, it's because you're either operating under the mistaken idea that your Daddy's Republican party still exists, or you've fallen for the billions in slick advertising, corporate-funded and intended to do that very thing--fool you.

Here's THE thing, really--the right doesn't want us to have affordable health care because they know we'll like it.  If it's fully implemented, we'll be so happy with it they'll never be able to undo it.  Think I'm full of it?  Think I'm making that up?

Read THIS.  Yes, Cruz actually said that.  He made it clear that, if Americans actually get a taste of "Obamacare" in full swing, they'll be "hooked" like addicts.

Addicted to affordable, quality health care.  The mind stinking boggles.  That the right would even view being "hooked" on good health care as a PROBLEM is . . . well, is the PROBLEM.  How twisted do you have to be to have the amazing health care our politicians have while viewing programs to extend good health care to everyone as evil and wrong?

As twisted as the right in America these days, apparently.

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Anyway, I lost track of where I was going--I've been thinking a lot about the right's dastardly approach to healthcare, and I realized what it is they're trying to do.  You see, if they can make this process as miserable, as trying and frightening and noxious as possible, folks like me might just throw our hands in the air and say, "Oh, fine, defund it, just stop with the threatened shutdowns every few months, stop with the furloughs and the absolute torturing of military and federal families!"

Because I'm close.

You see, I don't actually benefit from "Obamacare."  I have better-than-average insurance through my husband's employer, and that's not going to change with or without "Obamacare."  We're not affected in any real way (other than our son will be covered until he's 26 under our policy).  So if those bastards manage to kill affordable health care, it doesn't affect me.

Except in my heart.  My brain.  Except when it comes to having empathy for other Americans, wanting to see OUR PEOPLE have a better life.  Then it affects me.

Hugely.

But the right is hoping to wear me down.  Me, and the millions like me who are troubled by the fact that poor areas with lower educational attainment and low rates of insurance have markedly reduced LIFE EXPECTANCY.  Yes, they can say it's about race (and ignore the poor white women so often affected), but dig deeper--it's about poverty, and one of the hallmarks of poverty is difficulty in accessing quality health care.

That horrifies me, and it should horrify everyone.  Two Americas--one for those who can afford education, medicine, and a "good" life, and another for those who can't.  And that second America?  Has people dying.  Dying of things the rest of us don't have to worry about.

Shame!

But the right doesn't care.  They do not care.  And so they do everything in their power to cut medical coverage, cut housing assistance, cut food assistance, slash educational budgets and access to student aid.  And at the end of the day, if they get everything they want?

We have a permanent lower class that cannot hope to reach beyond or rise above.  A class that doesn't live as long, doesn't live as well, and is denied what the rest of us consider a given.  A class that may, if some nutty gits in places like Utah have their way, not even have compulsory education to help haul them up.  A class that will be relegated to minimum wage work and forelock-tugging.

Or armed robbery, home invasions, and drug addiction.  Because poverty in the richest society in the world?  Lends itself to violence.

I don't want any of this.  I want my country back!  The country that cared about science and education and the welfare of its people!  I want everyone to have access to basic health care--you know, like they do in the civilized world where all those countries have folks who live longer than we do.  Who have fewer moms and babies dying.  Who have better educational systems and a higher standard of living across the board.

I want sanity back in our government, and dull-wits being whipped up by corporate cash, waving flags and calling our President a "Kenyan?"

That's not sanity.  That's well-planned, ingeniously executed, precisely aimed stupidity.  It's stupid people allowing themselves to be manipulated by those who benefit from their stupidity.  It's not American.

It sick.  It's sick, and the right knows that, to protect ourselves, we'll throw our brothers and sisters under the wingnut train.  To keep my husband working and our rent paid, they're counting on me to give up on my poorer fellows.

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On a mostly unrelated note (I guess the common theme is wishful thinking?), I was challenged the other day by a theist friend who couldn't grasp my lack of belief.  She asked how I could possibly find any joy in life if I think this is our only go-round.  She said that she found it sad that I didn't believe in an afterlife.  Asked how I couldn't WANT that.

And that last?  Well, there's where she's wrong.

I get wishing that there was an afterlife.  I get seeing the obituary for the developmentally delayed boy and thinking how cool it would be if now, in some alternate "heavenly" place, he was clear of thought and brilliant, even.  I get wishing that the girl rooted to her wheelchair in this life could be dancing in some next world.  I get that, I understand how amazing and appealing the idea is.  You think I don't want to spend forever with my boy?  That I don't GET how cool and wonderful and reassuring that would be?

Of course I GET that.  I also get that it's not true. It's make-believe, it's mythology, it's stuff made up to make people not panic over the total suckiness of not being anymore.

I think all Atheists get it.  Sure, it would be super-wonderful-cool to go on forever as ourselves.  It would be amazing to spend eternity happy with the people and things we love.  It's not realistic, it's not reasonable, and it's not REAL, but, as fantasies go, yes, it's a great one.

Some Atheists will give you the "stardust" speech--you know, everything returns to stardust, energy never disappears, when we die we go back to the cosmos that created us?

Yeah, that one doesn't work for me, either.  Because that's not ME, that's just parts of me.  That's like cutting off my pinkie fingernail and sending it to France, then claiming I'd traveled the world. No, I didn't.  And going back to the cosmos (or the ground) in parts and pieces is not the same as living forever.

Fact is, we don't live forever.  We live this short time, and then we die.  And the best we can hope for is to make enough of a difference that the world is better for our having been.  If we luck out and manage to find a positive way of being remembered?

All the better.  But this is it.  There's no practice run, and there's no rewind.  And there's no encore.

Bad Business, Bad Science, and Bad, Bad Teachers

Got a medical doohickey in the mail yesterday, from my insurance company.

That would be Carefirst, if anyone's wondering.

The practical upshot?  They say that NONE of the bill for my gynecology appointment last week is covered because my doctor is "not a plan provider."

Oh, for hell's sake.

Yes, she is.  She is, because I FOUND her through Carefirst's "Find a Provider" link.  She is because they've covered her in the past, her office says they take my insurance, AND I checked the "Find a Provider" page moments before I made the appointment, just to be sure she's still a "plan provider."

And when I got the bill?

I checked again.  Yeah, she's still there.  Yeah, I screen-shot it.

These people, I swear.  I can only assume that someone, somewhere mistyped something.  Or maybe, as hubby says, it's like throwing feces at the wall hoping some will stick--maybe the insurance company sends these letters out, knowing at least a few folks will crumple and cry and pay the bill themselves.

Speaking of paying the bill myself, almost EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS for a simple PAP SMEAR?  Are you SERIOUS?

Remember the "oncological gynecologist" who refused to see me because a letter from the Federal Government promising payment for my medical care wasn't enough for him?  The guy with the fancy car and the deep-sea fishing outfit and the pictures on his Facebook profile of him at the idiot Teabagger convergence in DC?  The first price he threw out for a consultation was 300 bucks.  When I balked, he said, "Well, insurance will only pay 150, so I'll settle for that."

It appears that's how medical professionals get around HMOs and PPOs reduced payments--they double-charge, knowing they'll only get half of it.

Goodness.

Anyway, so that's tomorrow's fun time--hassling with Carefirst.  The last time I had to hassle with them (over a follow-up mammogram), they screwed me hard.  See, the place that performed the initial mammogram was an "approved facility" and they covered it in full.  But the required follow-up at the SAME facility?  Sorry, "not a plan preferred provider."

And before anyone chimes in with something stupid like, "Welcome to 'Obamacare,'" know I've been dealing with crap like this for the past 16 years.  Insurance companies are money-grubbing vampires, period.  Never known one that wouldn't screw you at any opportunity.  If you ask me, insurance companies are predatory dinosaurs, and they need to go the way of the dodo.

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As you know, I run (inherited, really) a Facebook group dedicated to high school classmates who've died.  I scrounge around for obits and other snips and post them for everyone.  Occasionally, an obit for an old teacher or administrator comes across my desk (or an old teacher posts to the group).  It's always fascinating, seeing how certain teachers were revered by some, and despised by others.

Take Mr. Q, for instance.

Oh, talk about a guy who is held up as the epitome of science teaching!  A man revered for his wit, his humor (he was an amateur stand-up comic!), his deep caring for his students.  So many people absolutely adored this guy, had nothing but love and respect for him.

And then there were the kids like me.

Mr. Q despised me, and he made no secret of it.  Perhaps because he was a staunch Mormon who couldn't stand the stench of cigarettes on me.  Perhaps because he sensed in me another funny person--often, it's the clowns who can't stand the competition from fellow funny folk.  Whatever it was, this man was on me often and hard.  He never passed up an opportunity to poke at me, to hold me up as a point of ridicule, to corner me in front of the class and embarrass me with my lack of knowledge.

No, it's not me being hyper-sensitive.  Other kids in class used to ask me what I'd done to make him take after me like that.  I had no answer--as far as I knew, I'd done nothing.

It all came to a head one early morning in Anatomy.  Mr. Q had said something about hormones, and I leaned over and whispered a rather rank joke to my friend sitting next to me.  I was sixteen, what can I say?  Mr. Q was on me like stink on poop.  He demanded I come up before the class and share whatever it was I'd had to say.  Now, right off the bat, that's crappy teaching--teaching through bullying and ridicule and public shaming isn't teaching at all.  It's something meaner.  I very politely demurred;  Mr. Q became loudly and unpleasantly insistent.  I stood up and said, "Mr. Q, it was a vulgar joke and it's totally inappropriate.  I am sorry if I was disruptive."

Yes, at sixteen I already knew how to kiss behind.

He sneered, I swear--he bared his teeth and told me that, unless I wanted to rack up a suspension, I'd do as I was told and share with the class.  I again tried to sway him, even asked if I could just head to the office without "sharing."  He was adamant--I was to share with the class.

And so I did.  The class was impressed.  Mr. Q?

Not so much.

He took me by the arm and dragged me from the class, threw me into the hall, shouting about what a filthy animal I was and how I was never to set foot in his classroom again.

That's the Mr. Q *I* remember.

And Mr. A, our illustrious drama teacher/football coach?  His few star students remember him as being amazing, wonderful, an artiste!  The rest of us?  Remember a mean, self-aggrandizing bastard who would turn beet red when angry and hurl insults like candy from a parade float.  Make no mistake--yes, he engaged in a lot of scatter-shot generalizations (and chair throwing, yardstick tossing, and swearing) when enraged (which was pretty frequently), but the more deadly insults?  He was a crack shot.  For instance, he knew that crowing about my best friend's new braces would silence her (and it did--she spent the rest of the class period crying silently, and never came back).  He knew that referring to me as the "tubby, dense contingent" would get the desired effect, and it did--I walked out, and I never came back.

The little drama pets thought this abusiveness was indicative of a passionate soul, a man who cared so deeply for his "art" that he sometimes let his feelings get the best of him.

Hmmm.  Like a child abuser lets his fists get away from him, I suppose?  Whatever the "motivation," his tantruming and vicious pokes brought about the desired outcome--he had a dedicated flock of groupies, and everyone else was too afraid to cross him.  What a guy, huh?

And then our choir teacher, Mrs. Y.  I loved choir, I did.  And I had a lovely voice.  I couldn't read music, but I was a lethal quick study when it came to learning new songs, and I was GOOD.  My second year, Mrs. Y asked me to try out for Concert Choir--the "big kids" choir.  I said to her that I didn't think my grades were good enough.  She brushed that aside, said that this was about singing.  I was surprised, I admit--this woman had never made any real secret of her dislike for me (and any kid like me--the smokers, the back-parking lot dregs).  But she insisted I try out, and I admit, I was psyched.  I wanted to be in Concert Choir, I loved the idea.  I loved to sing.

I chose this as my piece (the soprano portion, that is):



Mrs. Y made me audition in front of the entire class.  She made me sing the entire piece.  And then she told me that, though my voice was lovely and I'd done a fine job with the piece, I wasn't really "Concert Choir material."  My grades, my personal proclivities--there was nothing about me that proclaimed "grade-A."  So sorry, but it's about more than just singing, you know!  Smile.

Again, she did this to me in front of an audience of forty other kids.  And she did this after I had tried to beg off because of my grades, because of her dislike for me.

There were a number of teachers like this.  Mr. Z, who was described in his obit as a wonderfully kind and upstanding church man who loved his family and always did right.  Hmm.  What the "girls like me" remember is a guy who touched too much and always had something a little dirty to say to us.  Miss F, who made kids like me feel stupid, small, and unworthy of her attention, who never smiled at us except when holding us up for ridicule.

It wasn't until recently, when discussing this with a friend who loved these teachers, that it became clear.  It was the non-Mormon kids.  The kids who weren't part of the predominant faith, the kids who weren't maybe the younger siblings of superstars or the children of fellow educators.  And don't think they didn't know--they'd ask, "What Ward are you in?"  It was blatant, and no one questioned it.

Not all the teachers were like this.  Mr. O and Coach D were terrific guys--Coach D was maybe not all that on the history teaching front, but he was actually open to learn things and would look things up if asked a question he didn't have an answer to.  And Mr. O?  Loved anyone and everyone who paid attention and took part, whether they shared his super-liberal ideas or not.  And Mr. CE?  Oh, what a superbly kind and funny  man, both on the driving range and in his history class.

Anyway, my point?  That sometimes it's hard to sit back quietly and watch people contorting themselves in their attempts to outdo each other on the praise front for these teachers who were not just careless with, they were actively mean to certain "types" of kids.  Like Mrs. U, who refused to let me into AP English because, as she put it, I just wasn't a good "fit."  She actually said that my test scores were "almost certainly a fluke."  Again, she said this TO MY FACE.  In front of people!

When she asked me to join AP English the following year, using my most recent test scores as the reason, I took the suspension.

What suspension?

The one that came down when I told her to shove her damnable AP course up her ass.

No, not the smartest way to handle it, but you know what?

It felt good.

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There's a chain of furniture stores in the Western United States.  Hubby and I have an account with them, even though we now live 2,300 or so miles away from the location we frequented.  Our living room furniture, our lovely Bombay chest, our little mini-fridge all came from them.

So did the giant armoire.

The bombay chest was amazing, of course, but the armoire was a WIN.  See, it was marked down from just shy of a grand to 299.  Discontinued item, you know.  It was touted as entirely hardwood.  Not veneers, not crappy wood-grain wallpaper, but hardwood.  So I SNAPPED it up, They delivered it, set it up (it was fully put together save the top half had to be placed on the bottom and secured.  It weighed a TON, and the bottom, which wasn't wrapped, was gorgeous.  

The top?

Well, I didn't get to see that until after they left (and they left at a run) because it was wrapped in that opaque foam stuff.  We unwrapped it, and it was a disaster.

A disaster.

The doors were the plantation-type slatted wood, and the slats were covered with this gawdawful woodgrain wallpaper stuff, which was horribly warped and bubbled.  Oh, I was SO upset!  Much like something you'd expect out of a box at Walmart.  We dashed outside, but the truck was already gone.  I had already screen-shot and printed the order forms and such, so I called the furniture store to complain.  I spent ten minutes on hold.  And when someone finally deigned to speak to me?

I was told that the armoire was sold "as is," with no returns or refunds.  I KNEW this wasn't true, because I had printed out all the pertinent paperwork and screenshots (just in case there was a problem with the order).  I said, "That's not anywhere on the website, nowhere on the product page or the order form."  I was told I was mistaken.  I should "check that again."

I did, and there it was, bright red--"THIS ITEM IS SOLD 'AS IS.'  NO RETURNS OR REFUNDS."

I said, "That was NOT THERE, I have the original screen shots."  I was told that it was there before the item was delivered, and that's all that matters.  I checked the stated delivery time on the website.

20 minutes later than it had actually been.  

In other words, they delivered, realized it was damaged, called headquarters, who jumped in, changed the product listing to include the "as is" admonition, and then fudged the delivery time.  

I know, it sounds complicated, but there's no other explanation.  I didn't miss the bright red type, my screen shots didn't magically miss just that information.  It was not there in the hours before delivery.  They delivered a damaged, discontinued item, then fudged the information to prevent me from returning it.

Someday, I'll have the cash to have new slats made for it.  Real hardwood slats without bubbly wallpaper.  Until then?  

I keep the doors open so you can't see the warped, bubbly slats.  Because the rest of it IS solid hardwood, and it's very nice.

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Speaking of bad business practices, let me harken back to my first utility company.  Now, it's quite possible you've never seen the above logo.  It's from a company once called "Mountain Fuel Supply Company."  They're someone else now, but back in the early 80s, they were the suppliers of natural gas in Northern Utah.  I was reminded of them yesterday when my boy told me a story of how someone kept getting letters telling them that packages couldn't be shipped because their address didn't exist.  

Something much like that happened to me in the fall/winter of 1983.  See, I tried to have my heat/natural gas turned on, only to receive letter after letter telling me that Mountain Fuel couldn't turn on my heat because my ADDRESS DIDN'T EXIST.  

Yes, that's right, they MAILED me letters to an address they told me DIDN'T EXIST.  And, magically, they ARRIVED!

When I headed down to their office (no small feat--I had no car, there was no reliable mass transit in my area, and it I was working full-time), they told me it was something I would have to work out . . . somehow.  I said, "But you KNOW the address exists!  You sent me MAIL at that address!"  The response?

"Ma'am, what mail gets where isn't up to us--that's a USPS issue."

It took SIX WEEKS for them to get my heat turned on.  This was in Northern Utah in November and December.  Ever have to wash your hair in ice cold water, leaving your scalp muscles so spasmed your head hurts for hours?  Ever have to boil pan after pan of water to take a bath?  Ever have to sit with your feet in the oven, trying to warm up enough to be able to sleep?

I have.  Thanks, Mountain Fuel!

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A quick note on people who vomit up new-age, "raw for beauty," woo trash online.  Don't spray your stupid garbage across people's walls and newsfeeds, then cry "Google it!"

No, here's an idea--YOU Google it BEFORE you spray it!  You're like the slob who tosses garbage out the car window, then, when someone says, "Whoa!  That's crap!" you say, "Pick it up, then!"  

NO!  It's YOUR trash, YOU PICK IT UP!  If you're going to throw out idiotic, utterly woo, incredibly misleading and inaccurate crap, YOU do the research BEFORE you do it!  Come on, be a force for smart for a change, huh?  If the claims are extraordinary (the average person has THIRTY POUNDS OF TOXINS IN THEIR BODIES and LEMONS can DETOXIFY), the EVIDENCE also needs to be extraordinary.  Come on, kids--it's called SCIENCE!  USE it!

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And that's it for today, I think.  The back yard is pulling together really nicely.  Not much cash to work with, but I did get a couple of pretty phlox plants (one pink, one bluish) to add a little color.  Plus my daffodils and tulips are up.  Sad that I'm not seeing any evidence of my iron crosses or crocosmia.  I'll be sad if they don't come back.  On the bright side, my azaleas all seem alive, and they're about to blossom.  And the stinky Callery Pear?  Not so stinky this year.  

And still no Cicadas.  Yay!

Nonnies and Art

I am a strong advocate for breastfeeding mothers and the babies who so need to be nursed.  I am a strong opponent of formula companies, who manipulate, throw money at doctors and hospitals, and all around do whatever they can to turn a buck, even though doing so is absolutely harmful to babies.  Formula was created for emergency situations when no real baby milk was available.  Formula companies then went on a rampage, a campaign to create as many "ohhh, baby can't nurse, let's make money" situations as possible.  Which is why such ridiculous things as "baby's allergic to mother's milk" (barring galactosemia, which is very rare, that's just not true), "baby isn't thriving" (formula companies create the growth charts that show the naturally slower growth of breastfed babies as "failure to thrive"), and "mom's just not making enough milk" (breastfeeding is supply and demand--give formula, and milk supply goes DOWN) have become common to our society.

To learn more about common breastfeeding myths, click below:

Before you think I'm downing women who don't breastfeed, think again.  I'm downing a medical establishment that gives women crappy information, a formula industry that absolutely misleads the public, and a society that has so sexualized and objectified women's breasts that using them to feed babies is considered nothing short of scandalous.  As someone who has both held a bottle and breastfed a baby, the difference is clear and deep.  I don't despise women who've missed out on that--my heart breaks for them.  I wish the doctors, the nurses, their families, their friends, and their community had risen up in support with accurate information and helped them to put those formula companies back where they belong--providing emergency sustenance for babies who have no other options (even donor milk).

No one I knew (hubby aside, of course) was particularly supportive when I decided to breastfeed.  I knew it was something I would do because it's the normal, healthy, natural way to feed a baby, and nothing else begins to compare.  I wanted to do what was right for my child.  Period.  It's not that "breast is best."  It's that "breast is normal, natural, and healthy."  Formula is none of those things.

When I first started nursing, it was tough.  I'd had an emergency c-section (after almost two days labor), and things went downhill from there.  We managed to take care of latch issues in the hospital, but then my incision ruptured, and then I wound up in the ER with a pulmonary embolism.  Practical upshot?  Pump and dump for a week because of the radioactive isotope used for the lung perfusion.  Getting back to nursing after a week of artificial nipples that early on?

That was tough.

Yes, I had pumped around the clock to keep my supply up, but I had a cheap, nipple-thrashing grocery store pump (these days, my insurance would cover a GOOD breast pump AND a lactation consultant, THANK YOU, PRESIDENT OBAMA!), and wound up pumping milk PINK with blood by the end of the week.  My nipples were cracked and miserable, and the pain when I finally was able to put my boy back to the breast was indescribable.  Think lemon juice and sandpaper.  On personal spots.

While this was going on?  My mother, who had steadfastly refused to lend me the 40 bucks for a good manual pump (an Advent Isis), piped up with an eager offer to pay for formula, telling me I'd tried so hard but it was okay, that I could stop trying.  I'm sure that my sister's failure to nurse had nothing at all to do with Ma's gleeful offers to supply us with formula.  

And my sister?  Lots of outward, "Oh, hey, cool, mmm-hmm" and a lot of snide, utterly unsupportive stuff around the edges (like spending every Sunday breakfast going on and on about how disgusting her mother-in-law was for nursing past one year).  But hey, she failed, she knew she'd failed, she failed for a crappy reason (not wanting to give up her caffeinated sodas), and she knew it.  That she even tried to act supportive is something.  I think she wanted to be supportive even if she didn't feel it.

My husband's family?

Mmmm.

Let's just say that the overwhelming opinion there was "ew."  Yes, "ew."  It's one thing to be ill-informed and make mistakes because of it--we all do that.  But to strenuously defend your ignorance in the face of overwhelming evidence?  Well, there's a word for that.  A bunch of them, in fact.  Like they say, when you KNOW better, you DO better.

Or you just pretend you don't know better.  You pretend better is gross.

One night, hubby went over to his sister's for some family thing or another.  I was still recovering from the blown c-section incision, so I was home.  My father-in-law was dawdling our boy on his knee, bouncing about, when up came a bit of blat.  Father-in-law laughed, said, "Oh, I've been spat up on by a whole lot of babies in my time--it's just formula!"  Hubby grinned and said, "That's breastmilk."

Father-in-law nearly dropped our boy in his disgusted rush to get it off him.

That was my support system.  People who didn't care, people who wanted me to fail for weird "family politics" reasons, and people who were disgusted by breastfeeding.

I did it anyway.

While we're on the subject of breastfeeding, if you ever find yourself, for any reason, feeling the need to throw out some insult that describes women who nurse (and shame on you for that)?  Don't make it "nipple Nazi," okay?  One, it's stupid, and two?

It's too soon.  I think it's always going to be too soon to compare a maniacal freak who oversaw the murder of millions to ANYONE who isn't also overseeing genocide.  Okay?

Thanks.

Talked to my Dad today.  I do enjoy talking to him, it's fun, and it's interesting.  We talked about a lot of things, our conversations always range over a broad array of topics.  Our politics sometimes merge, often don't, but we're good at staying out of the hairy stuff.  Not sure why that's so hard for some folks.  Today, we talked about my Mom's car accident and how my Dad, who was busy helping run a military base in Saudi Arabia, had to get himself smuggled out of the region because, same day my Mom was broadsided by a drunken teen, Israel and Egypt went at each other.  It took almost two weeks for him to get back to the States, and it involved him sometimes having to pretend to be things he wasn't.  Very cloak-and-dagger/action-adventure.

We also talked about playing guitar, and how the both of us had tried so hard at different times to learn, but just don't have it in us.  Then he said, "I've still got this damned electric acoustic here--I'm about to drag it to Goodwill."  Without even thinking, I said, "Whoa, are you serious?  Send it here for my boy!"

Bad form, I know.  It was out of my mouth before I knew it.  But my boy would LOVE to have an electric acoustic, and it's out of our range.  My Dad didn't say what kind this is, but he said it ran him around 400 bucks a few years ago, so it's probably a nice enough instrument. He says he's going to look into packing it up with UPS and shipping it.  Thank you, Dad.  Sorry I'm such a slob.

We also discussed a statue he just bought of the Capitoline Wolf suckling Remus and Romulus (speaking of breastfeeding, huh?).  Apparently, he had a version when he and my Mom were married, but has no idea what became of it.  I don't think I remember it.  I might, there's a tickle there, but nothing I can grab.  

This is exactly the piece my Dad purchased

We also discussed a pair of large-ish (maybe 3x2) paintings he and my Mom purchased in Europe back in the early 60s.  One of a hill beyond a swamp, with a fence post and some grasses, the other of a windmill on a hillside.  These painting are a big part of my childhood, I loved them even though I have no clue what they REALLY looked like--years of heavy smoking made them markedly darker and more morose-seeming than they likely really were.  Sadly, flood after flood in my Mom's basement left the swamp picture, ironically, water damaged and, eventually, molding.  We left the poor, molding swamp pic in Utah, but we brought the other with us.  The artist's name, my Dad says, was Wolfgang Stau.  He was the "company artist" when my Dad was stationed . . . somewhere in Europe, I've forgotten.

I have no doubt that, cleaned, the colors would be much more vibrant

Someday, I'll have the money to have this painting repaired and framed.  Until then, it hangs in my husband's office.  We love it.

And that's about it for today.  I really don't have much political or otherwise to say (well, there is Utah kicking around letting folks carry concealed WITHOUT a permit, but jeez, only so much I can type in one sitting).  So that's it--I hope y'all are having a wonderful day, and I hope tomorrow is even better.

Cross your fingers those fools on the hill get a budget going before they put my husband out of work with a shutdown, huh?  A budget that doesn't include the petty, pissy, childish "full repeal of OBAMACARE" BS.

And there.  There's the politics.  G'night!

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