Greetings, e-friends! This is the home of the writers and cyberspace entities known as Priscilla King, Saloli, Gena Greene, Grandma Bonnie, and possibly you. We will be inviting other writers, artists, and reporters to display their work here. The more readers and sponsors help this site grow, the more guest posts we will be able to display. We will pay a minimum of $5 per guest post. If we don't have $5, we will post a link to your blog or web site.
If the comments section isn't working, or the "contact" tab isn't showing, please feel free to e-mail salolianigodagewi@yahoo.com.
Unlike some other web'zines, this one is not being kickstarted with a big grant or loan. We are paying as we grow. So, in order to start buying guest posts, or even keep this site alive, we need reader support. If the Google "Support" button isn't working, click here to help fund the site. (Google suggests US$5, which is what most printed magazines cost.) Alternatively, you may use the e-mail link in this paragraph to buy any book you've seen reviewed here (total cost is usually US$10), buy an advertorial article or picture ($50-100 if I write it, less if you do), buy any handmade item you've seen photographed here (they start at a total cost of US$10), or buy data from the Names Maven database (US$1).
Here's a short list of topics that will appear on this blog:
1. Books. All Blogger blogs are or could be linked to Amazon, so whenever I (Priscilla King) write about a book, old or new, you should be able to follow a link to buy a copy. However, if you use the "Book You Can Buy From Me" option to buy an old (secondhand) book, you will be supporting my plan to provide a 10% royalty to living authors whose books I resell. I hope other online booksellers will start doing this; at the time of writing, so far as I know, I'm the only bookseller who is paying the authors when people buy secondhand books.
2. Nature and the environment. Wildlife, birds, animals, flowers, herbs, weather...content produced by us will be regional, but we will link to, and may eventually publish, nature news and pictures from the rest of the world.
3. Animals. Especially cats, but other domestic or friendly animals will appear here too.
4. Knitting and other crafts. We encourage everyone to buy local handmade products. We will display pictures of handmade products that can be purchased through this site.
5. Gluten-free recipes.
6. News items. This blog is not meant to be a substitute for a good national newspaper. From time to time this blog will feature news stories that your newspaper may have missed, such as local news, election news, or obscure "weird news."
This blog has no political affiliation. The frequency with which we link to left-wing, right-wing, or other political material reflects the amount and quality of political material supplied to us. We're looking for sincerity, practicality, and sustainability, not a party identity.
7. Philosophical musings. From time to time some of us, and some of the e-friends whose writing we hope to publish here, indulge in opinions, humorous essays, and philosophical reflections. We are Protestants...but as hostess/editor I reserve the right to publish or link to opinion pieces by non-Protestants if I think the quality of thought and writing is excellent.
WE WANT COMMENTS. We won't publish short comments that link to commercial web sites. We welcome sponsored links to commercial web sites that are set up through Blogger's legal channels. We won't publish poems or articles until we're able to pay for them, but we're always glad to read and/or link to them.
Please click here to support this blog:
Monday, November 15, 2021
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Mercy Chefs Go to Texas
Once again...on Thursday we got rain and other people, this time in Texas, got tornadoes. Here's an update on the Tea Party-affiliated charity known as Mercy Chefs:
"Wednesday night, Granbury, Texas became ground zero as over sixteen mega-powered tornadoes -- one packing winds in excess of 200 mph pulverized the town. One of the twisters was measured at a mile wide!
Reports are still coming in, but already six people are reported dead, over a hundred injured, thousands are without power and over 8,000 people have been affected by this string of destructive storms.
Miraculously, just thirty miles east of the storm-twisted town, Mercy Chef's Mobile Kitchen 1 sat idle in Cleburne, Texas, which was also in the path of the severe weather. Less than a month before, after serving thousands of hot meals in West, Texas, Mercy 1 was relocated to Cleburne where, thankfully, it was spared from any damage.
Unfortunately, parts of the city were not so fortunate...
Priscilla, as a result of being so close to the devastation, Mercy 1 is already serving meals in Granbury, the hardest hit city, where Mercy Chef volunteers will see a dramatic need to feed scores of victims, law enforcement officials, first responders, and volunteers in the days that follow.
While reaching out to these beleaguered communities, they will continue closely monitor the threat of additional severe storms that are being forecasted for the region over the weekend.
On behalf of Gary LeBlanc and our friends at Mercy Chefs, thank you for your ongoing support of their tremendous relief work!
Grassfire
P.S. The people of Granbury are already expressing thanks that Mercy Chefs was so quick to respond. Help Mercy Chefs disaster relief work by making a tax-deductible gift right now. Click here to make a special gift.
+ + + + +
(Note: Please do not "reply" directly to this e-mail message. This e-mail address is not designed to receive your personal messages. To contact Mercy Chefs with comments, questions or to change your status, see link at the end.)
"Wednesday night, Granbury, Texas became ground zero as over sixteen mega-powered tornadoes -- one packing winds in excess of 200 mph pulverized the town. One of the twisters was measured at a mile wide!
Reports are still coming in, but already six people are reported dead, over a hundred injured, thousands are without power and over 8,000 people have been affected by this string of destructive storms.
Miraculously, just thirty miles east of the storm-twisted town, Mercy Chef's Mobile Kitchen 1 sat idle in Cleburne, Texas, which was also in the path of the severe weather. Less than a month before, after serving thousands of hot meals in West, Texas, Mercy 1 was relocated to Cleburne where, thankfully, it was spared from any damage.
Unfortunately, parts of the city were not so fortunate...
Priscilla, as a result of being so close to the devastation, Mercy 1 is already serving meals in Granbury, the hardest hit city, where Mercy Chef volunteers will see a dramatic need to feed scores of victims, law enforcement officials, first responders, and volunteers in the days that follow.
While reaching out to these beleaguered communities, they will continue closely monitor the threat of additional severe storms that are being forecasted for the region over the weekend.
At this critical moment, would you consider making a special, one-time gift to help us feed the victims and first-responders in Granbury and the outlying communities? Every gift -- regardless of amount is deeply appreciated and sorely needed. Just ten-dollars will feed a family of four a chef-prepared hot meal!
Go here now to make your tax-deductible gift to help feed the people of Granbury and continue other vital efforts:On behalf of Gary LeBlanc and our friends at Mercy Chefs, thank you for your ongoing support of their tremendous relief work!
Grassfire
P.S. The people of Granbury are already expressing thanks that Mercy Chefs was so quick to respond. Help Mercy Chefs disaster relief work by making a tax-deductible gift right now. Click here to make a special gift.
+ + + + +
(Note: Please do not "reply" directly to this e-mail message. This e-mail address is not designed to receive your personal messages. To contact Mercy Chefs with comments, questions or to change your status, see link at the end.)
+ + + + + Mercy Chefs is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to providing hot meals to victims and volunteers in disaster and other desperate situations. Our simple mission to "just feed people" is only possible through the generous support of friends like you. Copyright 2012 Mercy Chefs
+ + Comments? Questions?
http://www.grassrootsaction.com/r.asp?U=259885&CID=99&RID=39233000"
Silence Will Be Punished?
Matt Barber reports on a memo notifying employees of our federal Department of Justice that just quietly ignoring those who want a week of celebration of gender-confusion, of all sorts, "will be interpreted as disapproval." And punished. In other words, it's not good enough for federal employees to leave their home lives at home, be professional, and say nothing about their disapproval of other people's lifestyle choices. Some, but not all, unpopular lifestyle choices must be actively celebrated. Or else.
http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/doj-on-gays-silence-will-be-interpreted-as-disapproval/
This web site actively celebrates anyone who's made the courageous decision to keep their private life private. Like, this web site often mentions that Grandma Bonnie Peters and I were once married to men and are now widows, but you'll notice we don't talk about anything currently going on in anybody's bedroom. This web site also keeps any mention of children very impersonal and anonymous, blurs the identities of anyone referred to by a term of kinship, assigns screen names to people who don't have screen names of their own, and even stays out of local disputes that aren't closely aligned with any general political philosophy (do we have more police officers than we need? what should county government do with a certain piece of land it's acquired? etc. etc.). That's a conscious decision, and I for one appreciate working with people who've made it.
Are you heterosexual, homosexual, or asexual (and why is the DOJ not using taxpayers' money to celebrate the two of those things)? Do you feel that your body shape accurately reflects your gender identity? More to the point, are you actively looking for a new bedmate, or satisfied with the one you have? Personally, I celebrate and sing the delights of not telling anyone your answers to these questions, whatever they may be. If you're not asking me for a date, you don't need to know whether I'm married or not. (If you are asking me for a date, you should already know the answer.) And I don't need, or really want, to know that kind of thing about you, either, unless I've known you for a good long time, know that you're discreet and respectful of privacy, and have eaten or slept in your house and invited you to eat or sleep in mine.
Are you radiating joy because the current object of your infatuation noticed you're alive, or oozing misery because a suspicious-looking card fell out of your mate's coat pocket? What about keeping those emotions to yourself and concentrating on getting some work done? I don't know about some people's private employers, but as a taxpayer I am our government employees' employer, and I do not want to pay them to sit around gossipping about their personal relationships. I want them to go to work, find clearly defined work assignments on their desks, do those tasks, and go home.
Heaven forbid and fend that any workplace should ever for a minute resemble a junior high school locker room.
And does anybody out there care about the feelings of people whose Significant Others or close relatives may be dead? Does anybody out there ever imagine that refusing to shut up about your sex lives may create an emotionally hurtful atmosphere for someone whose Partner for Life happens to be bedfast? Does anybody out there ever imagine that blathering on about your family life, for that matter, may also excoriate the emotions of someone who's lost a child? Well, here I stand to testify that talking about how much of a raise you got may make your co-workers envy you or even want to try to emulate what you did, or the opposite, but talking about your personal life may make your co-workers cry real tears. If none of your co-workers is currently grieving for anyone, now is still a good time to form a habit of reticence, before someone is.
Whatever employees' sexual issues or other personal issues may be, employers should encourage them to be decent human beings. Don't ask, and don't tell.
http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/doj-on-gays-silence-will-be-interpreted-as-disapproval/
This web site actively celebrates anyone who's made the courageous decision to keep their private life private. Like, this web site often mentions that Grandma Bonnie Peters and I were once married to men and are now widows, but you'll notice we don't talk about anything currently going on in anybody's bedroom. This web site also keeps any mention of children very impersonal and anonymous, blurs the identities of anyone referred to by a term of kinship, assigns screen names to people who don't have screen names of their own, and even stays out of local disputes that aren't closely aligned with any general political philosophy (do we have more police officers than we need? what should county government do with a certain piece of land it's acquired? etc. etc.). That's a conscious decision, and I for one appreciate working with people who've made it.
Are you heterosexual, homosexual, or asexual (and why is the DOJ not using taxpayers' money to celebrate the two of those things)? Do you feel that your body shape accurately reflects your gender identity? More to the point, are you actively looking for a new bedmate, or satisfied with the one you have? Personally, I celebrate and sing the delights of not telling anyone your answers to these questions, whatever they may be. If you're not asking me for a date, you don't need to know whether I'm married or not. (If you are asking me for a date, you should already know the answer.) And I don't need, or really want, to know that kind of thing about you, either, unless I've known you for a good long time, know that you're discreet and respectful of privacy, and have eaten or slept in your house and invited you to eat or sleep in mine.
Are you radiating joy because the current object of your infatuation noticed you're alive, or oozing misery because a suspicious-looking card fell out of your mate's coat pocket? What about keeping those emotions to yourself and concentrating on getting some work done? I don't know about some people's private employers, but as a taxpayer I am our government employees' employer, and I do not want to pay them to sit around gossipping about their personal relationships. I want them to go to work, find clearly defined work assignments on their desks, do those tasks, and go home.
Heaven forbid and fend that any workplace should ever for a minute resemble a junior high school locker room.
And does anybody out there care about the feelings of people whose Significant Others or close relatives may be dead? Does anybody out there ever imagine that refusing to shut up about your sex lives may create an emotionally hurtful atmosphere for someone whose Partner for Life happens to be bedfast? Does anybody out there ever imagine that blathering on about your family life, for that matter, may also excoriate the emotions of someone who's lost a child? Well, here I stand to testify that talking about how much of a raise you got may make your co-workers envy you or even want to try to emulate what you did, or the opposite, but talking about your personal life may make your co-workers cry real tears. If none of your co-workers is currently grieving for anyone, now is still a good time to form a habit of reticence, before someone is.
Whatever employees' sexual issues or other personal issues may be, employers should encourage them to be decent human beings. Don't ask, and don't tell.
Who's Been Supporting This Site?
This is something I've been meaning to post since reading Al Gore's libels on the Tea Party in The Future. If I don't have another steady source of income, and Blogspot isn't supplying paid corporate ads on this web site, who is funding this web site?
Big, rich petrochemical and tobacco companies? Hah. In theory there are things I might write that a petrochemical or tobacco company might like--e.g. a review of a book about the missionary work of Elisabeth Elliot (which was initially sponsored by Shell) or a funeral tribute to a local farmer (who used to raise tobacco)--but somehow I don't expect that a web site that consistently encourages people to drive less and not smoke at all is ever going to be among those companies' favorites.
I don't mean to suggest that $100 is the maximum amount you can donate to this web site, if you're wealthy, but $100 is the maximum amount we've received at a time, so far. All of it's come from individuals personally acquainted with members of this web site. None of them has yet requested an advertorial; some have suggested topics and titles, which have not included any specific business, organization, or political party.
Blogspot recommends a $5 Paypal donation from readers who enjoy a web site. We have yet to receive one. We have had to exchange money among ourselves just to keep our Paypal account active. Due to the support we have received from local lurkers, we interpret this lack of funds from other readers as indicating problems with Paypal rather than dissatisfaction with this web site. (If you are trying to express dissatisfaction with this web site, please explain.) We understand that this reflects a discriminatory policy: public access computers are set up to disable Paypal buttons, so whether you see buttons or not, they may not work for you. There are a few ways around this problem. E-mail salolianigodagewi@yahoo.com to find out which one will work for you.
Since more than one demographic description usually fits one person, a list of the demographics of people who've supported this web site may be longer than a list of names. Since all the names so far belong to private people (no actors, no elected officials, no CEO's of Fortune 500 companies), the names can't appear on the Internet. However, the demographic descriptions may be useful.
In order to protect the privacy of people who live in small towns, the list of demographic descriptions below combines lists of people who have contributed money and people who have made other material contributions (not including content).
This web site has been supported by:
And what are readers here for? The split continues. This week's most popular articles include four in the general category of law and politics, three about phenology, one about a book, one (updated from Yahoo) about local businesses that have not contributed money to this web site, and one about television. Each of these ten articles has received more attention than any of the topics that have brought readers here, which are, according to the computer: iris flowers, Amazon River dolphins, introversion, Bill O'Reilly's wheat-free diet, cheetahs, Ed Sharp and Mrs. Sharp's Traditions, the Clinchport Flood, and local elections in Pittsylvania County--and that's actually been a fairly consistent list, over the past two years, of what people have Googled in order to get here. In other weeks people have also got here by Googling for other plants and animals, gluten-free banana bread, Andrei Codrescu, (in bill reading season) various bills, and the book Enriquezca su personalidad.
We try to be nice to those who are nice to us, and supply more of what people are looking for. We regret that we have no further information about cheetahs.
Big, rich petrochemical and tobacco companies? Hah. In theory there are things I might write that a petrochemical or tobacco company might like--e.g. a review of a book about the missionary work of Elisabeth Elliot (which was initially sponsored by Shell) or a funeral tribute to a local farmer (who used to raise tobacco)--but somehow I don't expect that a web site that consistently encourages people to drive less and not smoke at all is ever going to be among those companies' favorites.
I don't mean to suggest that $100 is the maximum amount you can donate to this web site, if you're wealthy, but $100 is the maximum amount we've received at a time, so far. All of it's come from individuals personally acquainted with members of this web site. None of them has yet requested an advertorial; some have suggested topics and titles, which have not included any specific business, organization, or political party.
Blogspot recommends a $5 Paypal donation from readers who enjoy a web site. We have yet to receive one. We have had to exchange money among ourselves just to keep our Paypal account active. Due to the support we have received from local lurkers, we interpret this lack of funds from other readers as indicating problems with Paypal rather than dissatisfaction with this web site. (If you are trying to express dissatisfaction with this web site, please explain.) We understand that this reflects a discriminatory policy: public access computers are set up to disable Paypal buttons, so whether you see buttons or not, they may not work for you. There are a few ways around this problem. E-mail salolianigodagewi@yahoo.com to find out which one will work for you.
Since more than one demographic description usually fits one person, a list of the demographics of people who've supported this web site may be longer than a list of names. Since all the names so far belong to private people (no actors, no elected officials, no CEO's of Fortune 500 companies), the names can't appear on the Internet. However, the demographic descriptions may be useful.
In order to protect the privacy of people who live in small towns, the list of demographic descriptions below combines lists of people who have contributed money and people who have made other material contributions (not including content).
This web site has been supported by:
- more people over age 60 than people under age 30
- approximately equal numbers of males and females
- people who've requested printouts because they have difficulty seeing computer screens
- retired people
- full-time and part-time grandparents
- students
- artists and artisans
- teachers
- small business owners (here defined as fewer than 10 employees)
- storekeepers
- former and present-time coal miners (but not mine owners or operators)
- gas station employees (but not gas station owners)
- mail carriers
- police officers
- farmers
- construction workers
- active members of churches, including ministers, deacons, and frequent attenders
- an avowed atheist
- Republicans
- Democrats
- Greens
- veterans
- people with disabilities
And what are readers here for? The split continues. This week's most popular articles include four in the general category of law and politics, three about phenology, one about a book, one (updated from Yahoo) about local businesses that have not contributed money to this web site, and one about television. Each of these ten articles has received more attention than any of the topics that have brought readers here, which are, according to the computer: iris flowers, Amazon River dolphins, introversion, Bill O'Reilly's wheat-free diet, cheetahs, Ed Sharp and Mrs. Sharp's Traditions, the Clinchport Flood, and local elections in Pittsylvania County--and that's actually been a fairly consistent list, over the past two years, of what people have Googled in order to get here. In other weeks people have also got here by Googling for other plants and animals, gluten-free banana bread, Andrei Codrescu, (in bill reading season) various bills, and the book Enriquezca su personalidad.
We try to be nice to those who are nice to us, and supply more of what people are looking for. We regret that we have no further information about cheetahs.
Food Bullies at School
Liz Klimas reports on a school that's apparently trying to teach children they can't enjoy a meal with someone who eats something different from what they eat:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/17/teachers-aide-could-lose-job-over-her-homemade-lunches/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/17/teachers-aide-could-lose-job-over-her-homemade-lunches/
Donald Rumsfeld in the Tea Party?
Donald Rumsfeld in the Tea Party? ??? Goes to show...anybody can join or be a Tea Party.
I have mixed feelings about the former Secretary of Defense joining any Tea Party...not because I have any feelings or opinion about him, individually, but because I've recently been reading Al Gore's The Future, in which he claims that the Tea Party is an organization of wealthy, powerful, and selfish people and the Internet should be restructured in such a way as to keep us out of it. Donald Rumsfeld is exactly the sort of person he means.
Er-hem. I've never met Al Gore. I can tell him, though, that although Glenn Beck has done a lot to help non-wealthy people who consider ourselves Taxed Enough Already to connect in cyberspace, there is no right-wing godfather remotely comparable to George Soros. This web site has been funded, a maximum of $100 at a time, by private people who know one or more of us personally. We would like to have corporate advertising, but we don't.
Nevertheless, Tea Partiers who are surprised to find Rumsfeld among us will want to visit his web site, and may even want to buy his book...
http://rumsfeld.com/
I have mixed feelings about the former Secretary of Defense joining any Tea Party...not because I have any feelings or opinion about him, individually, but because I've recently been reading Al Gore's The Future, in which he claims that the Tea Party is an organization of wealthy, powerful, and selfish people and the Internet should be restructured in such a way as to keep us out of it. Donald Rumsfeld is exactly the sort of person he means.
Er-hem. I've never met Al Gore. I can tell him, though, that although Glenn Beck has done a lot to help non-wealthy people who consider ourselves Taxed Enough Already to connect in cyberspace, there is no right-wing godfather remotely comparable to George Soros. This web site has been funded, a maximum of $100 at a time, by private people who know one or more of us personally. We would like to have corporate advertising, but we don't.
Nevertheless, Tea Partiers who are surprised to find Rumsfeld among us will want to visit his web site, and may even want to buy his book...
http://rumsfeld.com/
Baby Anteater in Greenwich
Thanks to Liz Klimas for sharing the link to a whole gallery of anteater photos:
http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/A-special-delivery-in-northern-Greenwich-4523955.php
http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/A-special-delivery-in-northern-Greenwich-4523955.php
Least Competent Burglars Meet Gun Owner
The three burglars beat up the homeowner and stuffed him into a closet. Unfortunately for them, it was his gun closet...
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/17/violent-burglars-force-homeowner-into-closet-and-it-turns-out-to-be-a-very-very-bad-idea/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/17/violent-burglars-force-homeowner-into-closet-and-it-turns-out-to-be-a-very-very-bad-idea/
"Benefit Corporations" and Agenda 21, and a Word Study
From Karen Bracken, edited for typing/formatting only:
"
"
Another
victory against Agenda 21. North Carolina (again) tried to pass legislation to
allow Benefit Corporations. If you don't know what they are I will give a
brief overview. This law would have allowed companies to use profits for
sustainable development projects. It's the fascist concept of Public Private
Partnerships and would end up giving preferential treatment to businesses that
are Benefit Corporations. It's more complicated than that but you get the idea.
It is just another idea laced with mom and apple pie sentiments only to find out
later the pie was made with rotten apples. Wynne Coleman is an expert on the
subject. I have also done a ton of research on Benefit Corporations and B Labs.
So keep your ear to the ground if you hear of this happening in your state you
will want to stop it.
Karen
Bracken - I WILL NOT COMPLY
- WILL YOU?
Karen
Dear
North Carolina Friends:
Warm
congratulations on the defeat of HB 440
North Carolina Benefit Act. You took action and the legislators
responded.
We
were able to take a bill that was relatively unknown, expose the significant
nature of it, and then defeated it. This victory opens the door for further
success in exposing “sustainability” and its corrupting governmental
influences. As I went through the long process of opposing this legislation
(March 2011 to the present), I came to respect a number of North Carolina
Legislators I came in contact with. Once they were alerted to the dangers of HB
440, each used their individual talents and professional knowledge to prevent
the passage of this bill. I am sure that they would appreciate hearing from you.
If you want to thank them, here is link to a page that will tell you how each
Representative voted.
If
there is any more information to come out of this, I will certainly pass it on.
Appreciatively,
Wynne
Coleman
Somebody in Rio Linda may be confused by now. Haven't we said that plans for long-term projects, like a medical care fund, need to be sustainable? They do--although the use of "sustainable" in proposals related to the U.N. Agenda 21 is reminding me to substitute "workable" or "affordable" or "viable" when what I mean is, in fact, sustainable.
"Sustainable" ought to mean that there's a reasonable expectation that something that's workable, affordable, viable, salable, etc., this year, will be those things in future years too. For example, in Made in the U.S.A., when describing a competing department store chain that initially spread faster than Wal-Mart but frequently went out of business after a Wal-Mart moved into a town where the other store had been thriving, Sam Walton could have been paraphrased as asserting that his ways of doing business were more sustainable than the other guy's.
"Sustainable development," however, nearly always means plans for redesigning whole towns and neighborhoods to conform to Agenda 21, and/or preventing farmers from earning an honest living on their land. This is the definition of "sustainability" that presupposes corrupting governmental influences--Agenda 21 is an un-American proposal to counteract the benefits of American Democracy, by preventing Americans from doing what works for us so that we'll "share equally" in the misery of the totalitarian countries.
(Note, however, that this web site does not take the position that everything Americans do is or has been what worked for us. We have had boom-and-bust cycles caused by unsustainable business and agricultural practices, and we do need to learn from those, and avoid repeating them...we just don't need to substitute the unsustainable experiments that have failed whole other countries for the ones that have merely failed farmers and companies in the U.S.)
Contact Your Senators About Obamacare
Is Obamacare "a train wreck" for the U.S. economy? Absolutely. That's why the U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal it.
So why did otherwise decent people support it? Well, I don't know about your U.S. Senators, and only one of mine was in the Senate at the time...I think people like Mark Warner supported Obamacare because:
(1) Social Security, SSI, Medicare, Medicaid, etc., use money paid into a federal fund by working people to provide pensions and medical care payments to retired people. When the system was set up, it worked reasonably well for people in both categories. As the proportion of retired to working people in America has increased, the system has become unsustainable. We need additional funding to secure the material comfort of older people...and a lot of us are moving into that "older" category.
(2) Obamacare was what was proposed, and people all up and down the Democratic Party, like Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mitt Romney, Harry Reid, as well as Nancy Pelosi, were prodding other Democrats to support Obamacare even if they saw problems with it: "We've got to pass it in order to know what's in it!" When an occasional Democrat, like Rick Boucher of blessed memory, tried to act on principle and straighten out Obamacare before s/he supported it, these Democrats tended to fall between the two stools--as Boucher did--and lose the next election.
(3) Because some people really and truly do see Obamacare as a way of "caring about" their poor old grandparents who "have to" take $200 worth of pills every day to survive. And although these people may be clueless about real health care, they really and truly do care about their grandparents. Many Democrats are in this category. Some people who read this web site may not have many opportunities to observe the behavior of Democrats; I can assure those people that caring, though uninformed, Democrats were burning up the phone lines. "It's not decent for Americans to allow our grandparents to suffer and die for lack of medical treatment, we have to find a way to fund whatever sort of care will keep them with us a little longer," etc. etc. etc. "Don't argue about the perfect way to do it, just vote for a national 'health care' plan now and fix it later...'cos I'm due to retire soon, too!!!"
There may in some cases have been other, less honorable reasons why some of our Senators supported Obamacare. If you know for certain what those reasons are, then replacing your Senator may be a high priority. But I'd like (once again) to ask Tea Partiers to think about the most obvious reasons why anybody ever voted for Obamacare. They are reasonable reasons. We can work with these reasons and people. We can convince them that there are better ways to secure the comfort of our senior citizens, and our future selves.
If you've been thinking that we need to leave all health/medical care decisions to the individual, you should be aware by now that you're in a minority. Most of us do have some elders who aren't wealthy; most of us want those elders to be as comfortable, at age ninety, as the ones who are wealthy. Most of us are even willing to pay taxes to support some sort of federal medical care fund, if that fund is set up in such a way that there's any chance at all that it might work.
How do we make a national medical care plan workable? First we cut out the unnecessary expense of the insurance system. Our national plan has to work on a pay-as-we-go basis, rather than being a gamble. We can pay only the actual costs of medical care, which do not include the expense of maintaining any insurance companies any individuals may privately choose to support.
My own preference would be to require all existing insurance companies to refund all money they had received, and criminalize any future insurance schemes...but this is America and I have no constitutional right to impose my religious beliefs on other people. Nor have the people, like Mitt Romney, who sincerely believe that everybody ought to buy into an insurance scheme.
However, to keep the cost of a national medical care plan low, we allow funds to be used only to pay for treatments that have actually helped a patient, and only if the patient has produced evidence that s/he can't pay for those treatments.
Another consideration for many people is privacy. Medical researchers would have an easier job if everybody's complete medical history were on record in a central database, where they could count exactly how many people who received a certain treatment for, say, head lice complained of, say, hair loss fifty years later. Other people, even some people who do medical research, think about this issue a bit longer and realize that we don't necessarily want everyone to be able to find out whether we've ever had head lice.
Nor do we want busybodies telling us what to do about them if we have. I grew up hearing that eating lots of whole-wheat bread was the key to regular digestion. Around age thirty I discovered that for me, personally, eating whole-wheat bread was the primary cause of my chronic irregular digestion. Now we're all watching Mayor Bloomberg's mock war with Coca-Cola, the big pretext for inflating the price of soda pop, and being told that soda pop causes obesity and tooth decay. I drink soda pop; I've never been obese, and although I have tooth fillings I got most of them while I was a child whose parents didn't let me drink soda pop. Because nobody knows all the answers to anybody else's personal health questions, the mere prospect of a national health care plan is encouraging some busybodies to try to demand that whole cities, or states or countries, become guinea pigs for their own pet theories. This we don't need.
So, to keep a national medical care plan from turning into a scheme to enable people to harass one another, we need to build in some privacy. We need to ensure that people who seek medical treatment have the option of paying cash to maintain their medical records under the name "Cash Customer."
A third consideration is that we need to know that a system is workable. In the United States, we have a small-scale model for a workable medical care system in the Veterans Administration. Any veteran, even an able-bodied veteran who served only a few years in peacetime, has been able to obtain medical care. The process of applying for funds to cover medical expenses is long and tedious enough to motivate reasonably healthy veterans to pay cash. If and when their expenses exceed their ability to pay, veterans may apply for V.A. funds to cover unpaid expenses or even reimburse them for payments they have made, but these applications are reviewed in the year after treatment has been provided. This system has been working for many years. In fact, as I remember from my father's retirement years and as Glenn Beck has discussed in Broke, doctors have had an automatic incentive to bill these cash-paying veterans at a lower rate--not just because the cash-paying veterans tend to command respect, personally, but also because processing payment directly from the patient costs the doctors less than dealing with insurance companies and their nine hundred and ninety-nine ways to get out of paying what they might reasonably be asked to pay.
A national medical care plan does not need to emulate the V.A. system in allocating funds based on length and conditions of service and rank upon discharge. A national medical care plan would probably be better off to prioritize funding in the same way emergency medical personnel prioritize patients' admission to hospitals--the most life-threatening cases first. However, the general idea of encouraging patients to pay cash if they can, then assessing the amount of funds that need to be disbursed and budgeting to cover only what was really necessary and helpful, is something any national medical care plan needs.
(Bonus: By calling it a medical care plan, we'd be taking a long step toward reminding people that they're responsible for managing their own health care plans--caring for their personal health by eating sensibly, going to bed on time, saying no to drugs, and so on.)
Will party spirit cause the Senate to block the House vote to repeal Obamacare? Not necessarily. Awareness of how unworkable Obamacare would be caused Democrats in the House to vote to repeal Obamacare. Senators have access to the same facts and figures that those House Democrats had. If anybody in Congress is still clinging to Obamacare, the reason is likely to be that those people don't know of a better way to operate a national medical care plan. If they read this article, that will no longer be the case.
There is still hope for a national medical care plan that won't destroy our national economy. Please keep your Senators aware of this hope as legislation to repeal Obamacare comes before the U.S. Senate.
So why did otherwise decent people support it? Well, I don't know about your U.S. Senators, and only one of mine was in the Senate at the time...I think people like Mark Warner supported Obamacare because:
(1) Social Security, SSI, Medicare, Medicaid, etc., use money paid into a federal fund by working people to provide pensions and medical care payments to retired people. When the system was set up, it worked reasonably well for people in both categories. As the proportion of retired to working people in America has increased, the system has become unsustainable. We need additional funding to secure the material comfort of older people...and a lot of us are moving into that "older" category.
(2) Obamacare was what was proposed, and people all up and down the Democratic Party, like Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mitt Romney, Harry Reid, as well as Nancy Pelosi, were prodding other Democrats to support Obamacare even if they saw problems with it: "We've got to pass it in order to know what's in it!" When an occasional Democrat, like Rick Boucher of blessed memory, tried to act on principle and straighten out Obamacare before s/he supported it, these Democrats tended to fall between the two stools--as Boucher did--and lose the next election.
(3) Because some people really and truly do see Obamacare as a way of "caring about" their poor old grandparents who "have to" take $200 worth of pills every day to survive. And although these people may be clueless about real health care, they really and truly do care about their grandparents. Many Democrats are in this category. Some people who read this web site may not have many opportunities to observe the behavior of Democrats; I can assure those people that caring, though uninformed, Democrats were burning up the phone lines. "It's not decent for Americans to allow our grandparents to suffer and die for lack of medical treatment, we have to find a way to fund whatever sort of care will keep them with us a little longer," etc. etc. etc. "Don't argue about the perfect way to do it, just vote for a national 'health care' plan now and fix it later...'cos I'm due to retire soon, too!!!"
There may in some cases have been other, less honorable reasons why some of our Senators supported Obamacare. If you know for certain what those reasons are, then replacing your Senator may be a high priority. But I'd like (once again) to ask Tea Partiers to think about the most obvious reasons why anybody ever voted for Obamacare. They are reasonable reasons. We can work with these reasons and people. We can convince them that there are better ways to secure the comfort of our senior citizens, and our future selves.
If you've been thinking that we need to leave all health/medical care decisions to the individual, you should be aware by now that you're in a minority. Most of us do have some elders who aren't wealthy; most of us want those elders to be as comfortable, at age ninety, as the ones who are wealthy. Most of us are even willing to pay taxes to support some sort of federal medical care fund, if that fund is set up in such a way that there's any chance at all that it might work.
How do we make a national medical care plan workable? First we cut out the unnecessary expense of the insurance system. Our national plan has to work on a pay-as-we-go basis, rather than being a gamble. We can pay only the actual costs of medical care, which do not include the expense of maintaining any insurance companies any individuals may privately choose to support.
My own preference would be to require all existing insurance companies to refund all money they had received, and criminalize any future insurance schemes...but this is America and I have no constitutional right to impose my religious beliefs on other people. Nor have the people, like Mitt Romney, who sincerely believe that everybody ought to buy into an insurance scheme.
However, to keep the cost of a national medical care plan low, we allow funds to be used only to pay for treatments that have actually helped a patient, and only if the patient has produced evidence that s/he can't pay for those treatments.
Another consideration for many people is privacy. Medical researchers would have an easier job if everybody's complete medical history were on record in a central database, where they could count exactly how many people who received a certain treatment for, say, head lice complained of, say, hair loss fifty years later. Other people, even some people who do medical research, think about this issue a bit longer and realize that we don't necessarily want everyone to be able to find out whether we've ever had head lice.
Nor do we want busybodies telling us what to do about them if we have. I grew up hearing that eating lots of whole-wheat bread was the key to regular digestion. Around age thirty I discovered that for me, personally, eating whole-wheat bread was the primary cause of my chronic irregular digestion. Now we're all watching Mayor Bloomberg's mock war with Coca-Cola, the big pretext for inflating the price of soda pop, and being told that soda pop causes obesity and tooth decay. I drink soda pop; I've never been obese, and although I have tooth fillings I got most of them while I was a child whose parents didn't let me drink soda pop. Because nobody knows all the answers to anybody else's personal health questions, the mere prospect of a national health care plan is encouraging some busybodies to try to demand that whole cities, or states or countries, become guinea pigs for their own pet theories. This we don't need.
So, to keep a national medical care plan from turning into a scheme to enable people to harass one another, we need to build in some privacy. We need to ensure that people who seek medical treatment have the option of paying cash to maintain their medical records under the name "Cash Customer."
A third consideration is that we need to know that a system is workable. In the United States, we have a small-scale model for a workable medical care system in the Veterans Administration. Any veteran, even an able-bodied veteran who served only a few years in peacetime, has been able to obtain medical care. The process of applying for funds to cover medical expenses is long and tedious enough to motivate reasonably healthy veterans to pay cash. If and when their expenses exceed their ability to pay, veterans may apply for V.A. funds to cover unpaid expenses or even reimburse them for payments they have made, but these applications are reviewed in the year after treatment has been provided. This system has been working for many years. In fact, as I remember from my father's retirement years and as Glenn Beck has discussed in Broke, doctors have had an automatic incentive to bill these cash-paying veterans at a lower rate--not just because the cash-paying veterans tend to command respect, personally, but also because processing payment directly from the patient costs the doctors less than dealing with insurance companies and their nine hundred and ninety-nine ways to get out of paying what they might reasonably be asked to pay.
A national medical care plan does not need to emulate the V.A. system in allocating funds based on length and conditions of service and rank upon discharge. A national medical care plan would probably be better off to prioritize funding in the same way emergency medical personnel prioritize patients' admission to hospitals--the most life-threatening cases first. However, the general idea of encouraging patients to pay cash if they can, then assessing the amount of funds that need to be disbursed and budgeting to cover only what was really necessary and helpful, is something any national medical care plan needs.
(Bonus: By calling it a medical care plan, we'd be taking a long step toward reminding people that they're responsible for managing their own health care plans--caring for their personal health by eating sensibly, going to bed on time, saying no to drugs, and so on.)
Will party spirit cause the Senate to block the House vote to repeal Obamacare? Not necessarily. Awareness of how unworkable Obamacare would be caused Democrats in the House to vote to repeal Obamacare. Senators have access to the same facts and figures that those House Democrats had. If anybody in Congress is still clinging to Obamacare, the reason is likely to be that those people don't know of a better way to operate a national medical care plan. If they read this article, that will no longer be the case.
There is still hope for a national medical care plan that won't destroy our national economy. Please keep your Senators aware of this hope as legislation to repeal Obamacare comes before the U.S. Senate.
Friday, May 17, 2013
The World's Worst Tenants Illustrate Body Language
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, when "body language" was a hot topic, I sometimes felt that I was the only one who'd noticed: Not all bodies speak the same language.
On the principle of making a point easier for people to grasp by giving them a chuckle, I used to add that just mirroring the most obvious things you saw someone else's body doing, and assuming that the person meant by them what you thought you might mean by them, is like translating "Sic transit gloria mundi" as "Gloria was sick on the transit on Monday."
Over time I think enough people either recognized that different bodies have different languages, or were annoyed by other people's misinterpretations of their body language, that the whole topic of body language seems to have cooled off. Too bad. There are still useful things to be learned from observing body language, provided that we recognize the immensity and complexity of the subject.
My main body language problem used to go like this: Someone would shove something too close to my face. I'd back away so my astigmatic eyes could see what that thing was (if you move fast, it's possible to shove something into my hands before I can see whether it's a map or a book or, for all I know, a dinner plate). The other person would interpret my body language as some sort of rejection or withholding of attention, and would then start flapping and squawking and yelling and emoting in a frantic demand for immediate attention. By the time the person started flapping his or her hands and/or grabbing at me and/or yelling, I'd be able to see the object the person was trying to call to my attention, and even read what was printed on it...but by that time I would be more concerned with discouraging the person, since s/he was behaving in such an obnoxious way.
So many of the problems children have in this world come from the way we as a society treat children. Children outgrow many of their behavior problems as soon as they reach an age where no normal person does the things to which their undesirable behavior was a reaction. As an adult I need even more time to be able to read a piece of paper that's been thrust into my hands, but society now expects and allows me to stall politely for as much time as I need...
Fast-forward: Although I don't own a set, sometimes at friends' houses I watch television. A show that some people I know find entertaining is the Spike reality series about the "World's Worst Tenants." In some episodes the team who deliver complaints and eviction notices have seemed reasonably respectful of tenants and have even taken the tenants' side, but in one recent show I wondered whether there was a conscious intention of showing how those hired to deliver bad news can make their job more unpleasant than it should be.
In one hour, we watched the team confront (1) an ordinary eviction of a squatter who presented blatantly bogus cheques as evidence that he'd been paying rent, (2) what seemed to be an ordinary eviction until the renter got mad and destroyed the owner's car, (3) the foreign family participating in an unauthorized home exchange, (4) a Santeria group, (5) a taxi service that had sublet their building to an adult service, and (6) what were reported as illegal dogs but turned out to be human renters playing werewolves.
In each encounter, the tough-guy character, Todd, got louder and more belligerent. Maybe the idea was that thinking about the renter who'd destroyed the owner's car made him angry, and his week just went downhill from there. He spoke first to the next four groups of tenants, and in each house someone threatened him; someone pulled a knife, and one of the "werewolves" physically attacked him.
Of course this show is being reenacted for Spike, so each scene is supposed to be stripped down and speeded up, but I found myself disliking Tough Guy Todd as this informative (about landlord-tenant laws in California) and often funny show played on. Noticeably taller and heavier than anyone else on the show, Todd barged into houses and yards too fast, talked too fast and too loud, got too close and literally loomed up over people, interrupted, tried to hurry people through confrontations that seemed to be completely unexpected by them, and generally seemed to be turning a stressful job into a way to look for fights.
By the scene where the team realized that the tenant who wasn't making it easy for the landlord to display the property was operating an adult service in the building, I found myself rooting for the madam...now that's how you know you're watching the character with the legitimate job doing his job really badly.
Barking orders while people are trying to process what you've said may fit into some people's dominance fantasies. It does work well with dogs. It may even work with some humans; humans with extroversion have always reminded me of dogs. It does not work with humans who don't enjoy being bullied. It generates resistance, sometimes even violence.
When Todd approached the house where the exchange was taking place, a young man came to the door and summoned his parents. Todd barged inside while the older people came to meet him. As the young man tried to translate what he understood Todd to say for his parents' benefit, Todd seemed to fall into the really stupid mistake of imagining that everyone in the world can understand your version of English if you shout loudly enough. Instead of politely straightening out a misunderstanding, everyone was yelling and screaming.
Somebody really ought to tell guys like Todd: Don't open your mouth until the other person has finished speaking. Listening provides information you need.
When Todd approached one of the other houses (the team visited both the werewolves and the Santeria group twice), nobody answered the front door, so Todd barged on into the back yard. Not too surprisingly, somebody waved a serious-looking knife and yelled at him to get off the property.
Somebody really ought to tell guys like Todd: Back off. If you're trying to communicate with people in a situation that could become hostile, be extremely respectful. Never get even close enough to shake hands until you've made sure that the other person is willing to shake hands with you.
And I'm not sure about the law in California, but in any place where I've lived as an adult, if you're (a) on someone's property, (b) unexpectedly, (c) yelling and acting angry, you're likely to be shot. In real life, even police officers aren't supposed to act the way Todd was acting.
No, the surprise was that, even in view of Todd's manners, several of the tenants seemed to hear him say "I'm working for the owner" and give him a chance to produce evidence that he was. In real life, people often fail to hear words that are spoken in a loud, aggressive manner. When people feel threatened, their attention shifts from listening to words to defending themselves. If Todd popped up in my yard, having some sort of legitimate business there--e.g. hand-delivering a message--but acting the way he was acting on TV, would I hear him explain his business? Of course not. I wouldn't even bother to tell him I was calling the police. I'd lock myself into the office and do it.
Somebody really ought to tell guys like Todd: If you can't be calm and peaceable when approaching someone you don't know well, fade back and let someone else talk. Even if you're notifying people that some distant acquaintance died without an heir and left them a fortune, they don't hear the words when you're yelling.
When people really understand even one other person's body language, the "psychic bond" between them will seem conspicuous and even supernatural. Most of us are doing well to identify a few of the common elements between our body language and those of other people. However, demographic factors can sometimes help us decode other people's body language.
One thing that was well portrayed on this TV show was that panicky body language doesn't indicate guilt so much as it indicates surprise. The house swappers, who weren't doing anything immoral and had no reason to think they were even doing something objectionable, panicked because they were suddenly confronted by a large angry man screaming in a foreign language. Who wouldn't? The madam, who had obviously researched local laws to find a place where what she was doing wouldn't get her straight into jail, didn't panic because she expected hostility and was prepared to deal with it.
One thing that's unlikely to be portrayed on this particular TV show was how the expectations people have, based on their social status, shape their body language. Even the werewolves were much more tolerant of Todd's bad manners, because they were renters, than anyone could reasonably expect property owners to be.
On the other hand children, who have no rights to speak of, would also be likely to react to a loud, bullying manner in a completely different way than the renters did. I remember, as a child, being told "Just ignore the pests and they will stop pestering you." For years I couldn't seem to convince pests that I was ignoring them, and then, it seems to me now, I suddenly got the hang of it and was able to lock down almost any reaction at all, becoming so motionless and expressionless that I could even intimidate a few timid people who hadn't been pestering me. I wonder whether that's what's going on when children who may have had learning or personal problems, but have seemed normal up to age ten or twelve, are suddenly mislabelled autistic. Whether these children see and hear as much as they ever did, but are really focussing on their success in not cooperating in what they perceive as bullying in any way. ("But these are adults..." Children feel bullied by adults too.)
Why do people use the counterproductive body language Todd was using? Because, in the first scene, it worked. The squatter, who had no rights and knew it, used the human equivalent of underdog body language in response to Todd's top-dog body language. Unfortunately, for the rest of the hour we watched the body language that had worked with the squatter failing to work with other people. Even more unfortunately, when we don't take time to think through our behavior choices, we behave like pigeons in a cage: If something works for us only one time out of ten, we'll wear ourselves out repeating the behavior in the hope that the next time will be one of the times when it works.
In real life, domineering over someone else may feel good; for some people it even seems to be addictive. The only trouble is that, for those who become addicted to loud, angry, aggressive communication, maintaining relationships where that kind of behavior is tolerated tends to demand a lot of violence and cruelty. On the TV show Todd and his wife seem to be satisfied with their relationship, but in real life men like Todd often feel that they can only enjoy the relationships they have with their wives or children...because those relationships are abusive. They have to act civil at work, so they compensate by falsely accusing and beating up some family member at home.
If I sent this complaint to Spike headquarters, no doubt the response would be, "It's supposed to appeal to young men only, so what are old aunts and grandparents like youall doing, even watching this show? You're supposed to hate it." Well, too bad...nobody who was watching this show hated it. Everyone who was watching it agreed that it was funny. But it was funny because it was unrealistic; in real life guys who act like Todd don't live to be as old as Todd looks. An addiction to angry, stressful communication and bullying relationships is part of a deadly physical disease.
In real life, guys who act like Todd--or want to--may appreciate the support of other men in learning more effective ways to communicate. Real police officers and FBI agents get this kind of training at work. If you don't want a career in law enforcement but do want to be able to maintain real control of a situation by not appearing to be a bully, here are two web sites maintained by mature men who may be able to help:
http://adrr.com/
http://www.angerbusters.com/
On the principle of making a point easier for people to grasp by giving them a chuckle, I used to add that just mirroring the most obvious things you saw someone else's body doing, and assuming that the person meant by them what you thought you might mean by them, is like translating "Sic transit gloria mundi" as "Gloria was sick on the transit on Monday."
Over time I think enough people either recognized that different bodies have different languages, or were annoyed by other people's misinterpretations of their body language, that the whole topic of body language seems to have cooled off. Too bad. There are still useful things to be learned from observing body language, provided that we recognize the immensity and complexity of the subject.
My main body language problem used to go like this: Someone would shove something too close to my face. I'd back away so my astigmatic eyes could see what that thing was (if you move fast, it's possible to shove something into my hands before I can see whether it's a map or a book or, for all I know, a dinner plate). The other person would interpret my body language as some sort of rejection or withholding of attention, and would then start flapping and squawking and yelling and emoting in a frantic demand for immediate attention. By the time the person started flapping his or her hands and/or grabbing at me and/or yelling, I'd be able to see the object the person was trying to call to my attention, and even read what was printed on it...but by that time I would be more concerned with discouraging the person, since s/he was behaving in such an obnoxious way.
So many of the problems children have in this world come from the way we as a society treat children. Children outgrow many of their behavior problems as soon as they reach an age where no normal person does the things to which their undesirable behavior was a reaction. As an adult I need even more time to be able to read a piece of paper that's been thrust into my hands, but society now expects and allows me to stall politely for as much time as I need...
Fast-forward: Although I don't own a set, sometimes at friends' houses I watch television. A show that some people I know find entertaining is the Spike reality series about the "World's Worst Tenants." In some episodes the team who deliver complaints and eviction notices have seemed reasonably respectful of tenants and have even taken the tenants' side, but in one recent show I wondered whether there was a conscious intention of showing how those hired to deliver bad news can make their job more unpleasant than it should be.
In one hour, we watched the team confront (1) an ordinary eviction of a squatter who presented blatantly bogus cheques as evidence that he'd been paying rent, (2) what seemed to be an ordinary eviction until the renter got mad and destroyed the owner's car, (3) the foreign family participating in an unauthorized home exchange, (4) a Santeria group, (5) a taxi service that had sublet their building to an adult service, and (6) what were reported as illegal dogs but turned out to be human renters playing werewolves.
In each encounter, the tough-guy character, Todd, got louder and more belligerent. Maybe the idea was that thinking about the renter who'd destroyed the owner's car made him angry, and his week just went downhill from there. He spoke first to the next four groups of tenants, and in each house someone threatened him; someone pulled a knife, and one of the "werewolves" physically attacked him.
Of course this show is being reenacted for Spike, so each scene is supposed to be stripped down and speeded up, but I found myself disliking Tough Guy Todd as this informative (about landlord-tenant laws in California) and often funny show played on. Noticeably taller and heavier than anyone else on the show, Todd barged into houses and yards too fast, talked too fast and too loud, got too close and literally loomed up over people, interrupted, tried to hurry people through confrontations that seemed to be completely unexpected by them, and generally seemed to be turning a stressful job into a way to look for fights.
By the scene where the team realized that the tenant who wasn't making it easy for the landlord to display the property was operating an adult service in the building, I found myself rooting for the madam...now that's how you know you're watching the character with the legitimate job doing his job really badly.
Barking orders while people are trying to process what you've said may fit into some people's dominance fantasies. It does work well with dogs. It may even work with some humans; humans with extroversion have always reminded me of dogs. It does not work with humans who don't enjoy being bullied. It generates resistance, sometimes even violence.
When Todd approached the house where the exchange was taking place, a young man came to the door and summoned his parents. Todd barged inside while the older people came to meet him. As the young man tried to translate what he understood Todd to say for his parents' benefit, Todd seemed to fall into the really stupid mistake of imagining that everyone in the world can understand your version of English if you shout loudly enough. Instead of politely straightening out a misunderstanding, everyone was yelling and screaming.
Somebody really ought to tell guys like Todd: Don't open your mouth until the other person has finished speaking. Listening provides information you need.
When Todd approached one of the other houses (the team visited both the werewolves and the Santeria group twice), nobody answered the front door, so Todd barged on into the back yard. Not too surprisingly, somebody waved a serious-looking knife and yelled at him to get off the property.
Somebody really ought to tell guys like Todd: Back off. If you're trying to communicate with people in a situation that could become hostile, be extremely respectful. Never get even close enough to shake hands until you've made sure that the other person is willing to shake hands with you.
And I'm not sure about the law in California, but in any place where I've lived as an adult, if you're (a) on someone's property, (b) unexpectedly, (c) yelling and acting angry, you're likely to be shot. In real life, even police officers aren't supposed to act the way Todd was acting.
No, the surprise was that, even in view of Todd's manners, several of the tenants seemed to hear him say "I'm working for the owner" and give him a chance to produce evidence that he was. In real life, people often fail to hear words that are spoken in a loud, aggressive manner. When people feel threatened, their attention shifts from listening to words to defending themselves. If Todd popped up in my yard, having some sort of legitimate business there--e.g. hand-delivering a message--but acting the way he was acting on TV, would I hear him explain his business? Of course not. I wouldn't even bother to tell him I was calling the police. I'd lock myself into the office and do it.
Somebody really ought to tell guys like Todd: If you can't be calm and peaceable when approaching someone you don't know well, fade back and let someone else talk. Even if you're notifying people that some distant acquaintance died without an heir and left them a fortune, they don't hear the words when you're yelling.
When people really understand even one other person's body language, the "psychic bond" between them will seem conspicuous and even supernatural. Most of us are doing well to identify a few of the common elements between our body language and those of other people. However, demographic factors can sometimes help us decode other people's body language.
One thing that was well portrayed on this TV show was that panicky body language doesn't indicate guilt so much as it indicates surprise. The house swappers, who weren't doing anything immoral and had no reason to think they were even doing something objectionable, panicked because they were suddenly confronted by a large angry man screaming in a foreign language. Who wouldn't? The madam, who had obviously researched local laws to find a place where what she was doing wouldn't get her straight into jail, didn't panic because she expected hostility and was prepared to deal with it.
One thing that's unlikely to be portrayed on this particular TV show was how the expectations people have, based on their social status, shape their body language. Even the werewolves were much more tolerant of Todd's bad manners, because they were renters, than anyone could reasonably expect property owners to be.
On the other hand children, who have no rights to speak of, would also be likely to react to a loud, bullying manner in a completely different way than the renters did. I remember, as a child, being told "Just ignore the pests and they will stop pestering you." For years I couldn't seem to convince pests that I was ignoring them, and then, it seems to me now, I suddenly got the hang of it and was able to lock down almost any reaction at all, becoming so motionless and expressionless that I could even intimidate a few timid people who hadn't been pestering me. I wonder whether that's what's going on when children who may have had learning or personal problems, but have seemed normal up to age ten or twelve, are suddenly mislabelled autistic. Whether these children see and hear as much as they ever did, but are really focussing on their success in not cooperating in what they perceive as bullying in any way. ("But these are adults..." Children feel bullied by adults too.)
Why do people use the counterproductive body language Todd was using? Because, in the first scene, it worked. The squatter, who had no rights and knew it, used the human equivalent of underdog body language in response to Todd's top-dog body language. Unfortunately, for the rest of the hour we watched the body language that had worked with the squatter failing to work with other people. Even more unfortunately, when we don't take time to think through our behavior choices, we behave like pigeons in a cage: If something works for us only one time out of ten, we'll wear ourselves out repeating the behavior in the hope that the next time will be one of the times when it works.
In real life, domineering over someone else may feel good; for some people it even seems to be addictive. The only trouble is that, for those who become addicted to loud, angry, aggressive communication, maintaining relationships where that kind of behavior is tolerated tends to demand a lot of violence and cruelty. On the TV show Todd and his wife seem to be satisfied with their relationship, but in real life men like Todd often feel that they can only enjoy the relationships they have with their wives or children...because those relationships are abusive. They have to act civil at work, so they compensate by falsely accusing and beating up some family member at home.
If I sent this complaint to Spike headquarters, no doubt the response would be, "It's supposed to appeal to young men only, so what are old aunts and grandparents like youall doing, even watching this show? You're supposed to hate it." Well, too bad...nobody who was watching this show hated it. Everyone who was watching it agreed that it was funny. But it was funny because it was unrealistic; in real life guys who act like Todd don't live to be as old as Todd looks. An addiction to angry, stressful communication and bullying relationships is part of a deadly physical disease.
In real life, guys who act like Todd--or want to--may appreciate the support of other men in learning more effective ways to communicate. Real police officers and FBI agents get this kind of training at work. If you don't want a career in law enforcement but do want to be able to maintain real control of a situation by not appearing to be a bully, here are two web sites maintained by mature men who may be able to help:
http://adrr.com/
http://www.angerbusters.com/
Should Marines Hold Umbrellas?
There are plenty of legitimate complaints to be made about the current administration, but some of Liz Klimas' correspondents seem desperate...
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/17/was-it-against-uniform-protocol-for-the-marine-to-hold-obamas-umbrella/
Should a U.S. Marine hold an umbrella over a President, a visiting dignitary, or any person who's not dressed for wet weather? What about holding a door for the person walking behind them? What about waiting at the red light, while in the car closest to the intersection, for someone with an obvious "mobility impairment" to hobble across the street? What about passing a pitcher of water or a saltshaker down the table? Duh. Marines are still human beings.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/17/was-it-against-uniform-protocol-for-the-marine-to-hold-obamas-umbrella/
Should a U.S. Marine hold an umbrella over a President, a visiting dignitary, or any person who's not dressed for wet weather? What about holding a door for the person walking behind them? What about waiting at the red light, while in the car closest to the intersection, for someone with an obvious "mobility impairment" to hobble across the street? What about passing a pitcher of water or a saltshaker down the table? Duh. Marines are still human beings.
Realtors Against "Smart Growth"
Although no members of this web site are realtors, some readers may be. Or you might want to add your favorite realtor to this network...
From Heather Gass:
" If you are a realtor please join this Facebook site and help get the real estate world aware of the dangers of Smart Growth and Agenda21!
From Heather Gass:
" If you are a realtor please join this Facebook site and help get the real estate world aware of the dangers of Smart Growth and Agenda21!
Heather Gass
telephone: (510)-220-0603
Better Homes and Gardens
430 San Ramon Valley Blvd
Danville, Ca 94526"
Phenology: Flower and Butterfly Pictures
I wanted to share some flower and butterfly images, and instead of waiting for somebody to send this web site exclusive digital pictures, I went to Morguefile and ganked a few pictures that look like the flowers and butterflies I saw on the way to the computer center this morning.
White clover has been blooming for several days...
...and today I saw the first red clover bloom...
These pictures, courtesy of www.morguefile.com, may be misleading about the size difference in these plants and their blooms. On the computer I'm using, the red clover and the smaller, more distant white clover blossoms look about life-size; the one that's too close to the camera, and looks blurry, looks magnified to me.
The Zebra Swallowtail who's been flitting about the Cat Sanctuary is still here; while some moths live only a day or a week after emerging from their cocoons, swallowtail butterflies live about six weeks...
The Morguefile user who posted this image, which could have been our Zebra sitting on the gravel road but isn't, identified it as "Strange Butterfly." Zebra Swallowtails are strange; they're the only North American representative of a tropical family called Kite Swallowtails. They're a little smaller than our other Swallowtails, and have different body shapes. They usually start out with equally long "tails" on each hind wing, but the function of the "tails" is to break off when grabbed by birds.
We also have our first generation of Tiger Swallowtails:
Either male or female Tigers can look like the picture above, but some females look like this:
Although the black-winged female gets some survival advantage from looking like other kinds of Swallowtails that taste bad to birds, the male can recognize her by size (she's as big as he is) and scent. If these two butterflies mate, their offspring will resemble one parent or the other. They do not, as folklore suggests, produce this distinctive (and smaller) species:
I grew up calling dark female Tigers "Black Swallowtails" and the smaller species "Royal Swallowtails," and believing that they were hybrids between Black and Tiger Swallowtails. This is erroneous. The smaller swallowtails with the bands of yellow spots are one of two Swallowtails found in Europe--the darker species--and are officially known as Black Swallowtails, although some female Tiger Swallowtails are blacker. Baby Black Swallowtails are also called Parsley Caterpillars because, although they naturally eat weeds, they enjoy parsley when they can get it. (Baby Tiger Swallowtails usually eat leaves found at the tops of tall trees; we seldom see them.)
At the Cat Sanctuary this year we've also seen Spring Azures...
...and this small, common species...
Today's the first time I've seen one of these sulphur butterflies this spring:
Finally, although I didn't look for anything similar on Morguefile...our yellow iris is in full bloom, and how it is blooming this year. As if the plants had resolved not to be outdone by the "giant iris" when and if it gets around to blooming, this year the yellow iris blooms, which are normally about two feet tall, are shooting up three and four feet tall. In a way it's alarming. I don't know whether it means the plant is thriving on this year's weather, or sending up one last bloom before it dies. All I know for sure is that I didn't have to bend over to sniff this morning's new iris blossom.
White clover has been blooming for several days...
...and today I saw the first red clover bloom...
These pictures, courtesy of www.morguefile.com, may be misleading about the size difference in these plants and their blooms. On the computer I'm using, the red clover and the smaller, more distant white clover blossoms look about life-size; the one that's too close to the camera, and looks blurry, looks magnified to me.
The Zebra Swallowtail who's been flitting about the Cat Sanctuary is still here; while some moths live only a day or a week after emerging from their cocoons, swallowtail butterflies live about six weeks...
The Morguefile user who posted this image, which could have been our Zebra sitting on the gravel road but isn't, identified it as "Strange Butterfly." Zebra Swallowtails are strange; they're the only North American representative of a tropical family called Kite Swallowtails. They're a little smaller than our other Swallowtails, and have different body shapes. They usually start out with equally long "tails" on each hind wing, but the function of the "tails" is to break off when grabbed by birds.
We also have our first generation of Tiger Swallowtails:
Either male or female Tigers can look like the picture above, but some females look like this:
Although the black-winged female gets some survival advantage from looking like other kinds of Swallowtails that taste bad to birds, the male can recognize her by size (she's as big as he is) and scent. If these two butterflies mate, their offspring will resemble one parent or the other. They do not, as folklore suggests, produce this distinctive (and smaller) species:
I grew up calling dark female Tigers "Black Swallowtails" and the smaller species "Royal Swallowtails," and believing that they were hybrids between Black and Tiger Swallowtails. This is erroneous. The smaller swallowtails with the bands of yellow spots are one of two Swallowtails found in Europe--the darker species--and are officially known as Black Swallowtails, although some female Tiger Swallowtails are blacker. Baby Black Swallowtails are also called Parsley Caterpillars because, although they naturally eat weeds, they enjoy parsley when they can get it. (Baby Tiger Swallowtails usually eat leaves found at the tops of tall trees; we seldom see them.)
At the Cat Sanctuary this year we've also seen Spring Azures...
...and this small, common species...
And Skippers. Here, below the dwarf iris blossom, is a Silver-Spotted Skipper, holding its wings straight up above its back as they often do. I suspect this photo was posed by a human. I've seen far more Silver-Spotted Skippers on garbage than on flowers.
Today's the first time I've seen one of these sulphur butterflies this spring:
Finally, although I didn't look for anything similar on Morguefile...our yellow iris is in full bloom, and how it is blooming this year. As if the plants had resolved not to be outdone by the "giant iris" when and if it gets around to blooming, this year the yellow iris blooms, which are normally about two feet tall, are shooting up three and four feet tall. In a way it's alarming. I don't know whether it means the plant is thriving on this year's weather, or sending up one last bloom before it dies. All I know for sure is that I didn't have to bend over to sniff this morning's new iris blossom.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
A Serious Alternative to Obamacare
First the disclaimer: This is a theoretical plan. I don't have access to all the numbers that need to be crunched, and I'm not the ideal person to crunch them. I am a word nerd. Well, in cyberspace a math geek is never very far away. I hope math geeks, legal eagles, and political junkies will all do their thing with this proposed alternative to Obamacare.
Next a procedural suggestion: I'm typing this post, which isn't what I'd planned to post today, in response to a Blaze article: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/15/no-trust-how-does-the-irs-inquisition-impact-obamacare/. Blaze comments on this topic range from snarky to hostile. That's all very well for The Blaze but the people who need to be convinced that this alternative is viable are the ones who really want some sort of national medical care plan. Well, I think we should have something for elderly, disabled, and overwhelmingly disadvantaged people too; it's the idea of being forced to buy into the insurance racket that bothers me. I recommend that youall at least recognize that some Democrats are sincerely concerned about poor people...and that insurance companies are concerned about boosting their own profits at the expense of both doctors and patients.
Here's the basic plan:
1. Require all medical care providers to offer treatments to patients who pay the actual cost of treatment within a year from the time treatment is provided, in cash if possible, and on an anonymous basis if they pay in advance.
2. Allow medical care providers to collect private donations to maintain funds that partly subsidize treatments for people below a certain income level. (This should not be the main source of funding for medical care, but it might keep some smaller providers afloat during the time allowed for patients to pay their own medical bills.)
3. Allow a minimum of one year for patients to pay their own medical bills. Don't involve the federal government in tracking payments made within a year...the federal government shouldn't waste its funds on researching things some people prefer not to disclose.
4. After one year, allow patients who have tried to pay their medical bills, and not succeeded, to apply for federal (or state) medical funds. If patients' income has been much lower than it was before they needed treatment, these funds could even be allocated to compensate patients for payments they have made.
That's it. That's all. If you like it, please supply the budgetary details; I know this plan will cost much less than Obamacare, but I leave it to the math people to demonstrate how much, worst-case or best-case.
Next a procedural suggestion: I'm typing this post, which isn't what I'd planned to post today, in response to a Blaze article: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/15/no-trust-how-does-the-irs-inquisition-impact-obamacare/. Blaze comments on this topic range from snarky to hostile. That's all very well for The Blaze but the people who need to be convinced that this alternative is viable are the ones who really want some sort of national medical care plan. Well, I think we should have something for elderly, disabled, and overwhelmingly disadvantaged people too; it's the idea of being forced to buy into the insurance racket that bothers me. I recommend that youall at least recognize that some Democrats are sincerely concerned about poor people...and that insurance companies are concerned about boosting their own profits at the expense of both doctors and patients.
Here's the basic plan:
1. Require all medical care providers to offer treatments to patients who pay the actual cost of treatment within a year from the time treatment is provided, in cash if possible, and on an anonymous basis if they pay in advance.
2. Allow medical care providers to collect private donations to maintain funds that partly subsidize treatments for people below a certain income level. (This should not be the main source of funding for medical care, but it might keep some smaller providers afloat during the time allowed for patients to pay their own medical bills.)
3. Allow a minimum of one year for patients to pay their own medical bills. Don't involve the federal government in tracking payments made within a year...the federal government shouldn't waste its funds on researching things some people prefer not to disclose.
4. After one year, allow patients who have tried to pay their medical bills, and not succeeded, to apply for federal (or state) medical funds. If patients' income has been much lower than it was before they needed treatment, these funds could even be allocated to compensate patients for payments they have made.
That's it. That's all. If you like it, please supply the budgetary details; I know this plan will cost much less than Obamacare, but I leave it to the math people to demonstrate how much, worst-case or best-case.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Why Some People No Longer Rescue Treed Cats
Even if a cat is scared of being stuck in a tree, sometimes being approached by a stranger scares the cat more, and it climbs beyond human reach...
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/14/nypd-officer-gets-stuck-in-tree-while-trying-to-rescue-a-cat/
Happened to me once, while I lived in the city. I got about forty feet up, the cat moved fifty feet up, and the fire department had only a forty-foot ladder, and the firemen were bigger than I was and obviously couldn't have climbed higher even if that had been their policy. So we used a different strategy. One person climbed about thirty feet up holding a tuna sandwich, and the other aimed the garden hose at the cat, to help her remember how to climb down trees. She remembered, all right, and she decided she liked people who shared their tuna sandwiches, and that was how my group house acquired our Patchy Cat.
Of course, a truly feral cat might have stayed in the tree until it fell out and was injured...you never can tell.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/14/nypd-officer-gets-stuck-in-tree-while-trying-to-rescue-a-cat/
Happened to me once, while I lived in the city. I got about forty feet up, the cat moved fifty feet up, and the fire department had only a forty-foot ladder, and the firemen were bigger than I was and obviously couldn't have climbed higher even if that had been their policy. So we used a different strategy. One person climbed about thirty feet up holding a tuna sandwich, and the other aimed the garden hose at the cat, to help her remember how to climb down trees. She remembered, all right, and she decided she liked people who shared their tuna sandwiches, and that was how my group house acquired our Patchy Cat.
Of course, a truly feral cat might have stayed in the tree until it fell out and was injured...you never can tell.
IRS Story > Benghazi Story?
The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza thinks Republicans think the IRS's "targeting" some Tea Parties (the ones who tried to register their political activity group budgets as charities) is a "bigger story" than the Benghazi murder hearings:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/05/14/republican-math-irs-benghazi/
Me? Duh...some days I actually write for this site, some days I merely edit it...I think both of them are big commercial-media stories youall will be reading elsewhere. I'm always underwhelmed when a blogger shares just the fragment s/he feels ethically free to gank from a news story I've already read, so I expect that you would be, too, and try to avoid posting such. I prefer to receive links to the AP, Reuters, Post, Times, Guardian, etc., stories, with your comments, especially if you have something to add (could be a similar situation from another time or place, something you've read, etc., as well as a petition or opinion). When I've posted something about a Big Story that's already getting plenty of coverage elsewhere, it's been something that a correspondent has to add to what the Post has already reported.
(Every time I take a Yougov poll they ask how many newspapers the Cat Sanctuary subscribes to. We don't subscribe to any. We help friends recycle their old newsprint as cat box liners, wood stove lighters, mulch for the orchard, and t.p. for the Sun-Mar toilet, and so we regularly get the Kingsport Times-News, Virginia Star, Kingsport Daily News, and sometimes the Bristol Herald-Courier, usually within a week of the date of publication, which is about as well as the computer center can do with the Washington Post. Newsmax and Post updates come in my e-mail, along with The Blaze, and of course I can look up Reuters, the New York Times, and other newspapers online if necessary.)
But now I'm curious. Do youall think the question of whether the IRS showed political bias is "bigger" or "smaller" than the Benghazi murder hearings? Do you think these two news stories can be compared in terms of size? Why or why not?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/05/14/republican-math-irs-benghazi/
Me? Duh...some days I actually write for this site, some days I merely edit it...I think both of them are big commercial-media stories youall will be reading elsewhere. I'm always underwhelmed when a blogger shares just the fragment s/he feels ethically free to gank from a news story I've already read, so I expect that you would be, too, and try to avoid posting such. I prefer to receive links to the AP, Reuters, Post, Times, Guardian, etc., stories, with your comments, especially if you have something to add (could be a similar situation from another time or place, something you've read, etc., as well as a petition or opinion). When I've posted something about a Big Story that's already getting plenty of coverage elsewhere, it's been something that a correspondent has to add to what the Post has already reported.
(Every time I take a Yougov poll they ask how many newspapers the Cat Sanctuary subscribes to. We don't subscribe to any. We help friends recycle their old newsprint as cat box liners, wood stove lighters, mulch for the orchard, and t.p. for the Sun-Mar toilet, and so we regularly get the Kingsport Times-News, Virginia Star, Kingsport Daily News, and sometimes the Bristol Herald-Courier, usually within a week of the date of publication, which is about as well as the computer center can do with the Washington Post. Newsmax and Post updates come in my e-mail, along with The Blaze, and of course I can look up Reuters, the New York Times, and other newspapers online if necessary.)
But now I'm curious. Do youall think the question of whether the IRS showed political bias is "bigger" or "smaller" than the Benghazi murder hearings? Do you think these two news stories can be compared in terms of size? Why or why not?
Labels!
Yessss! Starting today, this web site will be adding Labels to make it easier for readers to find the contributions of their favorite writers and photographers. Looking for Grandma Bonnie Peters' recipes (or testimonies, as those arrive)? You won't have to scroll through all the political stuff to find them. Looking for more political contributions? You'll be able to find Karen Bracken's, Patricia Evans', Bill Carrico's, Morgan Griffith's, or anyone else's press releases if they're here. More interested in the science and phenology? You can search for "phenology" (mostly my observations) or for links supplied by Steve Milloy, Juniper Russo, or whomever...
It took me a while to figure out how to add labels to batches of old contributions, but now I know (it's easy) and will be labelling batches as fast as I can sort out which posts contain material from or linked to other contributors, as distinct from mere passing mentions of them.
For those who are new to the system...when you open the whole blog at priscillaking.blogspot.com, scroll down past the greeting, and read the latest post, you'll find a line or two of "Labels." Labels are provided by Blogspot and are there to help readers track the topics that interest them. Clicking on a Label should open a page containing only the posts linked to that Label, so you can read down through all the phenology, all the gluten-free recipes, everything about Agenda 21, etc.
It took me a while to figure out how to add labels to batches of old contributions, but now I know (it's easy) and will be labelling batches as fast as I can sort out which posts contain material from or linked to other contributors, as distinct from mere passing mentions of them.
For those who are new to the system...when you open the whole blog at priscillaking.blogspot.com, scroll down past the greeting, and read the latest post, you'll find a line or two of "Labels." Labels are provided by Blogspot and are there to help readers track the topics that interest them. Clicking on a Label should open a page containing only the posts linked to that Label, so you can read down through all the phenology, all the gluten-free recipes, everything about Agenda 21, etc.
Monday, May 13, 2013
Petition to Repeal Obamacare
The following petition doesn't say what I'd prefer for it to say. It says nothing about my sincere desire to maintain a safety-net fund for recovering the actual cost of the actual care of people who can't pay for treatment that has helped them...without allowing the insurance industry to get in the way and inflate the cost of medical care. Nevertheless, as the web site says, if a petition is similar to what you want, it's more effective to sign an existing petition than it is to add a new one. So, if you hate Obamacare, please click here:
http://wh.gov/JNdg
For new readers: The sort of national medical care plan I want is based on a system that's worked for the U.S. Veterans Administration for years. After seeing a doctor and/or receiving treatment, a patient pays what s/he can, then submits documentation of payments and remaining balance to the V.A. to request financial aid (and, in some cases, compensation for payments that the patient already made but the system can afford to cover). Since payments aren't being made by insurance companies, there's no sense on the part of either patients or medical care providers that they're spending the money of far-away corporations that nobody likes very much, thus no incentive to inflate the costs of medical care. Instead, there's an incentive to keep the costs as low as possible, because if total costs exceed anticipated costs, everyone will be out of money for another year while the V.A. recalculates next year's budget. Money spent from the fund is not allowed to exceed the actual need, and although the fund covers minimal administrative expenses, nobody has a chance to profiteer on the system.
Or you can look at it this way, since blogs are supposed to be personal and informal: I don't want to pay somebody in an insurance office to drive a luxury car with the profit s/he is making on failing to take care of my mother, if and when Mother actually becomes retired and/or disabled (she's only seventy-eight). I want any money used to pay for Mother's medical care actually to take care of Mother. But I do want an opportunity to do the decent thing and ensure that Mother can get whatever treatment she may need; I want The Nephews to have an opportunity to do as much for me some day.
http://wh.gov/JNdg
For new readers: The sort of national medical care plan I want is based on a system that's worked for the U.S. Veterans Administration for years. After seeing a doctor and/or receiving treatment, a patient pays what s/he can, then submits documentation of payments and remaining balance to the V.A. to request financial aid (and, in some cases, compensation for payments that the patient already made but the system can afford to cover). Since payments aren't being made by insurance companies, there's no sense on the part of either patients or medical care providers that they're spending the money of far-away corporations that nobody likes very much, thus no incentive to inflate the costs of medical care. Instead, there's an incentive to keep the costs as low as possible, because if total costs exceed anticipated costs, everyone will be out of money for another year while the V.A. recalculates next year's budget. Money spent from the fund is not allowed to exceed the actual need, and although the fund covers minimal administrative expenses, nobody has a chance to profiteer on the system.
Or you can look at it this way, since blogs are supposed to be personal and informal: I don't want to pay somebody in an insurance office to drive a luxury car with the profit s/he is making on failing to take care of my mother, if and when Mother actually becomes retired and/or disabled (she's only seventy-eight). I want any money used to pay for Mother's medical care actually to take care of Mother. But I do want an opportunity to do the decent thing and ensure that Mother can get whatever treatment she may need; I want The Nephews to have an opportunity to do as much for me some day.
Ice Tsunami? (Definite Phenology Overload)
The cold front we got this weekend was, as so often, the edge of something really nasty. Liz Klimas has the video of how the storms created "ice tsunami" effects in Canada and Minnesota:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/13/the-ice-tsunami-videos-out-of-canada-and-minnesota-are-pretty-incredible/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/13/the-ice-tsunami-videos-out-of-canada-and-minnesota-are-pretty-incredible/
Iris from Dave's Garden (Phenology Overload, or What?)
In the front yard at the Cat Sanctuary (where it doesn't get enough sun) there is a pale violet-blue Bearded Iris plant. It doesn't bloom every year, but when it does bloom it looks like this:
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/114752/?utm_source=nl_2013-05-13&utm_medium=email
It bloomed early last year, in time for the kitten Iris to be born almost literally under it; when people stop exclaiming about how the black patches on Iris's face remind them of her Great-Aunt Mogwai, they can see a vague resemblance to a fleur-de-lis pattern. Also, because it's so much taller than the "oldfashioned iris" plants, we call it the Giant Iris, and until she became ill in December Iris was much bigger than her siblings.
Whether it's the cultivar "Mother Mary" or something else, I don't know. It's a souvenir of one of Mother's long-gone geriatric patients. Maybe, at some time before I met her, the patient remembered where she bought the parent plant and what it was called.
Our Giant Iris plant has yet to send up a flower bud this year, but the "oldfashioned" yellow iris, which has been known to bloom in June and July, bloomed yesterday morning.
Anyway, this link to Dave's Garden may interest the readers who have kept coming back to this site for the posts about our irises, or irides.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/114752/?utm_source=nl_2013-05-13&utm_medium=email
It bloomed early last year, in time for the kitten Iris to be born almost literally under it; when people stop exclaiming about how the black patches on Iris's face remind them of her Great-Aunt Mogwai, they can see a vague resemblance to a fleur-de-lis pattern. Also, because it's so much taller than the "oldfashioned iris" plants, we call it the Giant Iris, and until she became ill in December Iris was much bigger than her siblings.
Whether it's the cultivar "Mother Mary" or something else, I don't know. It's a souvenir of one of Mother's long-gone geriatric patients. Maybe, at some time before I met her, the patient remembered where she bought the parent plant and what it was called.
Our Giant Iris plant has yet to send up a flower bud this year, but the "oldfashioned" yellow iris, which has been known to bloom in June and July, bloomed yesterday morning.
Anyway, this link to Dave's Garden may interest the readers who have kept coming back to this site for the posts about our irises, or irides.
More Phenology: The Road to Wise
Once in a while I get the chance to ride up through Wise County, and today I had not only that opportunity but also the opportunity to visit three computer-enhanced libraries. In spring it's interesting to observe how altitude affects the phenology between Gate City, Big Stone Gap, and Wise or Norton.
Temperature: 69 degrees Fahrenheit in Gate City at 2 p.m.; 64 in Big Stone Gap at 5 p.m.; 60 in Wise at 5:30 p.m.
Trees: fully green in Gate City; dogwoods still in bloom in Big Stone Gap; leaves still new and yellow on the crest of the Cumberland Mountain above Wise.
Birds: nesting and feeding young in Gate City, but I saw a (male) cardinal, (male) robin, and blue jay close together, all facing each other in what looked like a boundary discussion, on the lawn of the library in Wise.
Temperature: 69 degrees Fahrenheit in Gate City at 2 p.m.; 64 in Big Stone Gap at 5 p.m.; 60 in Wise at 5:30 p.m.
Trees: fully green in Gate City; dogwoods still in bloom in Big Stone Gap; leaves still new and yellow on the crest of the Cumberland Mountain above Wise.
Birds: nesting and feeding young in Gate City, but I saw a (male) cardinal, (male) robin, and blue jay close together, all facing each other in what looked like a boundary discussion, on the lawn of the library in Wise.
Mark Fitzgibbons on the Right to Farm
From the Southern Virginia Tea Party:
"
Action Alert from Mark Fitzgibbons:
--
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." - Thomas Jefferson Virginia Tea Party Patriots www.virginiateapartypatriots.com Danville Patriots http://danvillepatriots.com/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyqTlje8RxQ "
"
Action Alert from Mark Fitzgibbons:
The “VIRGINIA SMALL FARM AND FOOD FREEDOM RESOLUTION” will be considered by the Republican Party Virginia Resolutions Committee at the 2013 Virginia Republican Convention that will take place May 17 – 18 in Richmond.
Please call and email your Republican District Chairman and email your District’s representative on the Resolution Committee listed below, and ask both to pass this important resolution to protect freedom so that it may be approved by the entire convention delegation. (Chairman Eric Herr of the 1st District has committed already, so no need to contact him.)
Also, email your message “I support the Virginia Small Farm and Food Freedom Resolution” to Resolutions@RPV.org.
We must get farm and food freedom right in the home state of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, George Mason and other great farmer-Founders, or we won’t get it right anywhere in America!
A copy of this important resolution to protect freedom is below the contact information.
2nd District Gary Byler gbyler@garybyler.com 757-331-4400
Chairman
Resolution Jessica Abbott (no email available)
Committee
3rd District Chris Stearns Christopher.stearns@me.com 757-513-8232
Chairman
Resolution Lori Carlson loricarlson@remax.net
Committee
4th District Jack Wilson jack@jackwilsonplc.com 804-796-6813
Chairman
Resolution Judi Lynch (no email available)
Committee
5th District Senator Bill Stanley William.Stanley@birdandstanley.com
Chairman 540-721-6028
Resolution Jim White nelsoncountygop@gmail.com
Committee
6th District Wendell Walker wendellwalker2@yahoo.com 434-944 4008
Chairman
Resolution Georgia Alvis-Long (no email available)
Committee
7th District Linwood Cobb gophenrico@aol.com 804-346-2096
Chairman
Resolution Kristi Way (no email available)
Committee
8th District Mike Ginsberg va8gopchairman@hotmail.com 703-850 5017
Committee
Resolution Evan Draim evandraim13@sssas.org
Committee
9th District Jack Morgan itmatterswithjack@yahoo.com 276-724-6283
Chairman
Resolution Adam Tolbert atolbert@smythgop.org
Committee
10th District John Whitbeck Jwhitbeck@whitbecklegal.com 703-777-1795
Chairman
Resolution Mark Berg berg@comcast.net
Committee
11th District Terry Wear terry@terrywear.org 703 569-0084
Chairman
Resolution Mike Giere mike4chairman11th@gmail.com
Committee
VIRGINIA SMALL FARM AND FOOD FREEDOM RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, farmers, farms and farming have historically played a vital role in the economy, traditions, culture, art and literature of Virginia, and are entitled to protection under the supreme American law guaranteeing certain unalienable rights such as life, liberty and pursuit of happiness; and
WHEREAS, each farmer has the right to determine in his or her own estimation what best constitutes farming, farm life and the best uses of their farm land, and farmers have the right to just remuneration for their labor, capital, ingenuity, services and products so long as they respect their neighbors’ rights; and
WHEREAS, farm life may constitute more than just production agriculture, and farmers have the right of commerce, the right to the pursuit of happiness, the right of quiet enjoyment of their land, the right of peaceable assembly on their private property, the right to exercise religious freedom on their private property, and other rights reserved to all people by America’s supreme law; and
WHEREAS, Virginians deserve access to wholesome and locally produced foods, and small farmers should be able to supply these products without burdensome government regulations; and
WHEREAS, government may not restrict the rights of farmers or their guests from the community, or categorize farmers, farming or farmland in any way that diminishes their freedoms, based simply on the fact that they engage in commerce; and
WHEREAS, government must not use laws or the color of law, regulations, zoning ordinances or the dictates of permits to violate or trespass on the rights of farmers and their guests, and farmers are entitled to fair, reasonable and full remedies from government agencies or subdivisions that violate or trespass on their rights.
Therefore, be it resolved that the Republican Party of Virginia supports repeal of state laws and local ordinances inconsistent with this Resolution;
Be it further resolved that the Republican Party calls upon the General Assembly and the Governor to advance legislation in the 2014 Session of the General Assembly to make the Code of Virginia consistent with the provisions of this Resolution;
And be it further resolved that the Virginia Republican Party immediately publish this Resolution and disseminate it to the Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, members of the State Central Committee, and to the Republican members of the Virginia General Assembly, and post it to the RPV website in a publicly accessible area, with a link to that page on the home page.
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"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." - Thomas Jefferson Virginia Tea Party Patriots www.virginiateapartypatriots.com Danville Patriots http://danvillepatriots.com/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyqTlje8RxQ "
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