The Hole in the Safety Net

(Reclaimed from Bubblews, where this "Bubble" appeared on 8.20.14.  Topic credit: Thebluesprite posted www.bubblews.com/news/5653167-nowhere-to-go , which reminded me of something I wrote for Associated Content many years ago. This was a shorter update of that article. Yardman-at-work image from KConnors at Morguefile: http://mrg.bz/sFsE0I.)

In the United States, for at least seventy years, we've been talking about our "welfare safety net." Unfortunately the talk always seems to be about fixing the "safety net" by throwing more money at it, allowing some people to work the system for years as welfare cheats, rather than reforming the rules to keep people who really need help from falling through the holes in the safety net.

After spending several years in Washington, D.C., where this kind of story is rare, I initially thought the story of a man in my mother's neighborhood in Kingsport, Tennessee, was unique. I'd never heard of such a thing and worried that by publishing the story of "Joe Eastman" I'd violated his family's privacy. No such luck. There were lots of families like that in Kingsport.

"Joe" had got one of those coveted steady full-time jobs at the Eastman Chemical Company. He'd even bought one of the nice little houses on the less overpriced side of the neighborhood people retired into. Nobody in Kingsport even remembered him as an alcoholic who'd been married to an addict. The addict had kept the children, and Joe had to pay child support, but he and his wife could afford that.

Then an accident at the factory damaged Joe's spine. For some time there was real concern that he might never be able to walk again. Around the time the corporate disability compensation fund ran out, a doctor determined that Joe could walk, and could do some kinds of work, but not the heavy labor he'd been doing. He was trying to get a job he could still do when some troublemaker noticed that he'd missed a few child support payments. According to Tennessee law, if a non-custodial parent misses child support payments s/he loses his/her driver's license. Joe continued job hunting, but according to Kingsport custom, if a person is seen walking the person is presumed to be unfit for employment. Joe fell behind on other payments. Utilities were disconnected. The house became an uncomfortable place to live. Joe's wife left.

Neighbors tried to help by hiring Joe to work as a yardman. Although this was not enough to pay all the late fees and put Joe's economic life together, seeing how hard he was working eventually brought his wife back. However, Joe still was not allowed to reclaim his driver's license and his place in local society. He lost the house. I was at Mother's house for Thanksgiving when Joe came around to say goodbye. He was worried that, by losing his home in Kingsport, he'd have to go back to the neighborhood where the friends and relatives who would take him in would be alcoholics.

I was worried about that, too. I made some indignant phone calls because I didn't want to believe that this was the way the system was set up. Yes, it was. The welfare system is not set up to reward poor people for working hard and trying to lead decent lives. Joe would have to "hit bottom" as an alcoholic again before the system could do anything for him. This had happened and was happening to a lot of people.

Well, in that particular case, the man didn't have to fall all the way to the "bottom" of alcoholism again. His wife kept them afloat long enough for Joe to be awarded a disability pension. Now, all this time, Joe had been walking around the neighborhood, mowing yards and raking leaves. He could have gone on doing that. He could have been keeping a store, driving a taxi, or making deliveries--although in Kingsport those jobs mostly seem to be done by women. But nobody was paying him enough for doing those things for him to keep his home. So the case could be made that he really was disabled. Anyway, he stopped working and moved into a low-income housing project.

Long story short...there are people in the U.S. welfare system who don't want the system to work that way, but that is the way it works. And that's why I think real compassion for people in real need does not mean throwing more money at the welfare system. It may mean keeping the welfare system, and in the long run it may even mean keeping the system at its current level of funding, but it does demand massive reforms to a system that forces people to become paupers when it would have been cheaper and easier to help them stay in the upper middle class.

The Perfect Online Match, LOL

(Reclaimed from Bubblews, where this "Bubble" appeared on 1.13.14. Nothing has changed,)

Who could resist the suggestion from Lyoness913 to share the list of criteria for our ideal online future mate, even if we already have one... 

(Hers are at www.bubblews.com/news/2030517-deal-breakers-for-your-potential-relationship.)

I have, of course, thought about my list from time to time, and every time I've come up with a slightly different Top Ten List. This list reflects the influence of having just read Lyoness's:

1. No drugs, including marijuana, tobacco, alcohol, prescription antidepressants, prescription painkillers, or any new prescription medication of any kind. (I've seen a few mild cases of "Prozac Dementia" and don't ever want to be around a bad case.)

2. Must like cats, and my cats must like him.

3. No human beings amongst his "baggage." If a parent, long-divorced first wife even after both lived with other people, problem child, or problem foster child has a prior claim on him, he must take care of that obligation before he gets to move in with me.

4. Nobody born later than the early 1960s (in real life I'd specify a day). Too many guys have used the "poor, sick, older wife" line, even of a wife who was just one week older than they...I want nothing to do with younger men.

5. Obviously, no contagious diseases.

6. OK to enjoy watching sports during unavoidable down time (when ill, visiting friends, etc.) or if a member of the immediate family is playing, but I like men who prefer actually doing sports. Hiking, cycling, rowing, tennis, basketball, cricket, even shuffleboard...anything where he's a player not a spectator.

7. And it's a plus if he prefers doing useful work to playing sports, too.

8. Must be intelligent. Does not need to have ever taken a college course, but does need to be comfortable around people who earned high grades at big-name colleges--I did. Nor do any number of degrees make up for it if someone chooses stupidity by refusing to learn new things...and that kind of person won't like me anyway.

9. Must have enough money to support me in the style to which he's accustomed. I doubt that anybody else wants to live in the style to which I've become accustomed as a widow, and for sure I can't afford to support anyone whose lifestyle is more expensive than mine...and this is probably the deal breaker for 99% of the eligible men in America.

10. Must have demonstrated the ability to maintain his own home, but not be too attached to it to move into mine. (It needs work. That's why God gave men all that wonderful upper body strength. He should enjoy doing at least some of that work.)

Before you say "There is no such man"...I've found him, actually, and before realizing I'd found him I even thought he looked good. When tired of waiting for certain problems to be resolved I've talked to other available men, and fear it not, just talking to them has been enough. 

Ten Things About Me

(Reclaimed from Bubblews, where this "Bubble" appeared on 10.13.14. Topic credit: BeaShe , a.k.a. +Protecto Shell , responded to a prompt shared by NicholasE : http://www.bubblews.com/news/8818853-ten-things-about-me .Image credit: Openopin at Morguefile: http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/912855.)

1. I think I did something similar to this, last winter, but this one's a different prompt calling for snappy answers.

2. I'm a registered Independent, though currently represented in our government by three Republicans, who I think are doing a good job, and three Democrats, two of whom I think are doing a very bad job.

3. I've earned $150 here and have yet to see either that the charity of my choice got the first $50 or that I've received the other $100.

4. I'm posting from a computer center thirty miles from my home.

5. I would like to do my Internet writing within comfortable walking distance from my home.

6. I have an e-friend who describes himself on Google + as a philanthropist, a Significant Other with the rare gift of being able to make a living in my part of the world even though he wasn't born here, and some relatives who are still millionaires (even since the oil bust, although they can wail about The Economy with the best of us)...all of whom have been making vague encouraging noises about the computer center I want, for years now, and none of whom trusts the others, or trusts me, enough to put down any money. (Yikes. Is this National Long Sentence Day? No, when I write without thinking I usually write long sentences. No editing. Keep going.)

7. I'm wearing a blue cotton dress from Talbot's.

8. Most days I wear suits and dresses from Talbot's, Eddie Bauer, L.L. Bean, Lands End, and similar. Sometimes Laura Ashley, occasionally Saks. Anyway...

9. I've never actually bought a new garment in any of those stores. I bought them all from charity stores, in aid of good causes, located close to the stores that sold them for $100, $200, or more. The most I've paid for one off-the-rack dress in my life has been $5.

10. Not sure whether this is "about me," but anyway what comes to mind is that I'm looking out a window, at white pine trees, which are currently being upstaged by a bright red-orange maple tree behind them. Right. Something readers should know about me is that I'm interested in trees, flowers, birds, butterflies, weather and so on. When I started blogging I started each day with a Phenology Post. (Phenology is the scientific study of people's day-to-day nature notes.) I still do the occasional Phenology Post, although I've not remembered to do one every day.

Fix Facts First, Feelings Follow

(Reclaimed from Bubblews, where this "Bubble" appeared on 2.20.14.)

Thanks to Sleepy-eye for prompting this post with this article:
www.bubblews.com/news/2388656-anger-managementhow-do-you-handle

When I was a child, teenager, even a young student, I felt bad about lots of things. I felt bad about how often I felt bad. I was always having some sort of emotional mood, usually not a pleasant one, and being scolded for having one, and being accused of having one when I actually felt relatively healthy and wanted to settle down and do something. 

Then I finally achieved adult status, and I no longer felt bad, because society finally allowed me to discover the secret of emotional well-being:

FIX FACTS FIRST: FEELINGS FOLLOW.

This does not mean that I feel "happy" all the time. Most of the time, like most people, I don't have any emotional feeling to any noticeable degree. What am I feeling right now? Well, I'm sitting on a cushioned chair, my feet feel like feet that walked seven miles this morning, the heat pump is humming in the computer center, now that I think about it I could use a good leg stretch...my emotional level is "baseline." If "happy" is going to mean anything, it has to mean "better than baseline." Therefore what I'm feeling right now is not "happy." Neither is it "unhappy." I'm most conscious of what I'm writing, which is the state of consciousness in which I seem to thrive on spending about eight or ten hours a day. Like most people, I could choose to focus on things in my life that are reliable sources of feelings of satisfaction, or pleasant nostalgia, or grief, or anxiety. Like most adults, I've learned that spending a lot of time thinking about those things is less useful, and in the long run less of a source of satisfaction, than thinking about doing something useful.

It does mean that as an adult, having located my emotional baseline of "normal, healthy, productive," I can identify sources of discontent in my life. We can't fix all the sources of discontent in our lives but most of us can fix enough of them to spend a fair amount of time in the normal-healthy-productive baseline mode of existence. We can stop eating food that disagrees with us, rid our homes of fungi and chemicals that make us ill, choose jobs that give us real satisfaction, spend more time with people who share our passions and less time with bores who interfere with them, and most of us can even get active about the social and political issues that affect us if we so choose. 

"Decluttering" in the sense of throwing away clothes and other objects for which you paid good money last year, and which you're going to replace next year, makes very little sense to me. (I see it as a marketing gimmick.) Decluttering our social lives makes sense to me. I don't want to spend much time talking to people who would rather flounder around in emotions than either change something in their lives or leave it as it is. I can empathize with this way of wasting time when the emotions involved are very pleasant to the person feeling them ("And then s/he smiled, not a huge smile but a real smile, as if s/he was really pleased to see me, and then s/he said 'Good morning'..."). Probably nobody else needs to hear this unless the object of infatuation and this person become a couple, but at least the person with the crush is enjoying his or her crush. 

What if the emotions are unpleasant? ("S/He is the most incredibly annoying person...do you know what s/he did today?") Sometimes it is useful to talk about exactly how someone or something makes us angry. If, after double-checking and making sure that he did in fact cheat you out of money, that's something other people need to know. If there's no room for reasonable doubt that she's trying to kill somebody, that's not something to sit around emoting about--get up and stop her! If he's just posting comments that sound to you like the words of an overbearing bore, or she's just shamelessly throwing herself at your mate, it might be useful to think about why you feel so threatened by these things. Some people lack personal charm even (or especially) on the Internet! Some people are desperate for attention! So what!

In one of her early novels Anne McCaffrey had an older character say to a teenager, "You want things badly at your age, girl. When you're my age you've learned how to plan." 
For some men (and a very few women) anger management can be part of managing a physical disease condition. For most people between about ages 15 and 30, I think anger management is more likely to be about learning how to plan. Don't agonize--strategize.

Happy Post: Knitting Socks

(Reclaimed from Bubblews, where this "Bubble" originally appeared on 9.2.14.)

Although I'm a pattern hoarder, I've decided I'm almost ready to part with Betty Christiansen's Knitting for Peace. This pattern book contains more words in praise of various charities than actual knitting patterns; the type is hard for my "young" eyes to read and will probably be impossible for me to read if and whenever I get completely through midlife, so I might as well hand this book down.

So I've been knitting the socks from the pattern supplied by the Peace Fleece company. This is not your typical wool company. In the 1980s, their mission was to try to promote the idea of an alliance between the U.S. and the big bad old U.S.S.R. by getting artisans in both countries to collaborate to produce something people in both countries would like: knitting wool. The yarn has always been marketed with color names like "Baikal Blue" and "Antarctic White." The company survived, and thrived, as the U.S.S.R. broke into separate countries several of which have been, to some extent, allies with the U.S. You can still buy their beautiful wool and "Tajik Mohair" yarns at peacefleece.com.

I did not make the financial commitment to support world peace by buying Peace Fleece just to make socks. I'm using up leftover yarn. The yarn I'm using for the two smaller-size socks is royal blue and white--team colors for the Gate City Blue Devils. Yay team.

Anyway, for a few years now people have asked about the hand-knitted socks, and this year I will have socks for sale. The price of the socks is US$10. The price of shipping knitwear and/or books and/or anything else to online purchasers is $5 per reasonable-sized package sent to the same place at the same time--you could get several books or pairs of socks into a $5 box.

I don't usually knit socks, but as of today, the fact that I'm making socks instead of another hat, sweater, or blanket is still enough of a novelty to make me happy.

[Update: I've sold the team-colors socks, all but the pair I knitted to fit my own particular legs, which are not for sale. These are heavy socks, with seams, that work better as slippers or bed socks than as socks to wear inside shoes, and yes, they can be made to fit precisely, and for people with special sock needs they can even be trussed to a waistband instead of having to cling to the legs...but that'll cost more than $10. The book? It really is a sweet, goodhearted book, full of extremely easy patterns that beg the experienced knitter to invent variations that use up all the leftovers in her or his stash; I can sell it whenever anybody wants to buy it, the usual $5 + $5 shipping out of which Betty Christiansen or one of her favorite charities gets $1.]

Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia

(Reclaimed from Bubblews. Several of the "Bubbles" I posted last year have moved to this site and been posted on the date when they originally appeared, in 2014. The remaining Bubbles that migrate over here will be posted as if they were new, with an explanation of when and where they were previously published: i.e. this post originally appeared on 2/18/14.)

This one goes out to Almost2 , who commented on this post: 
www.bubblews.com/news/2313877-eeek-a-glitch

that my slow writing is due to "dyslexia, not dysphagia... but I'm sure your mistake is due to the dyslexia too so don't worry too much about it."

Dyslexia (brain glitches while reading), dysphasia (while speaking), dysgraphia (while writing), and dyscalculia (while processing numbers), are obviously related learning challenges. (Dysphagia would be difficulty in swallowing food, which is probably unrelated to these things.) Some professionals do refer to all of them as dyslexia. I don't find that useful because I don't noticeably have dyslexia. I was the child prodigy who sounded out the words and read medical journals aloud at age four (don't ask me what they were about). But I do tend to say things like "white as a crow" if I talk fast, and write them, or even more often type things like "hwtie as a corw," if I try to write fast...and I make similar stupid mistakes when doing arithmetic at any speed. 
More severe conditions--alexia, aphasia, etc.--that completely prevent people from reading, speaking, or whatever are caused by severe brain injuries. Logically it seems as if minor impairments that make it just a little harder to read, speak, etc., than it might otherwise have been, might be caused by minor brain injuries. They don't go away, but those of us who got through school without special help have obviously developed ways to work around them and don't need a great deal of special consideration in adult life, except when offering excuses for doing things slowly.

Book Review: Little Town at the Crossroads

A Fair Trade Book

Title: Little Town at the Crossroads

        
Author: Maria D. Wilkes

        
Date: 1997

        
Publisher: Harper Collins

        
ISBN: 0-06-440651-2

        
Length: 343 pages

        
Quote: “Before Laura Ingalls Wilder ever penned the Little House books, she wrote to her aunt Martha Quiner Carpenter, asking her to ‘tell the story of those days’ when she and Laura’s mother, Caroline, were growing up in Brookfield, Wisconsin.”

        
And this is the book Maria D. Wilkes made out of the story Aunt Martha told. Laura Ingalls’ mother and sister make friends with a German immigrant girl who spells English words correctly but pronounces the letters “Ah-bay-tsay-day-ay,” and so on, so she can’t be given credit in spelling bees. Laura’s Uncle Henry brings in passenger pigeons to cook into pigeon pies. Woodchucks attack the garden just in time to win the children the right to keep a dog, even though their widowed mother hasn’t felt able to afford to feed a dog.

For me the Little House series ends with On the Way Home; although they were novelized, the Little House books have the credibility of memoirs, and the subsequent tie-ins are mere fiction. For readers who don't make this distinction, they may all seem like nice historical stories for children, with a focus on the kind of thing children really did in the nineteenth century. Considering how much Rose and Laura actually fictionalized, that's probably the more realistic view to take.

        

Apart from being illustrated by Dan Andreasen rather than Garth Williams, this book is much like the original Little House books, with memories of how people used to do everyday work told as vividly as memories of special events. Elementary school readers should be able to enjoy it; if they’re interested in old crafts and old songs, they may enjoy rereading it every year.

As usual: if you buy it here, $5 for the book + $5 for shipping, and Maria DiVencenzo "Wilkes" (this site explains why the publisher wanted her to use the name "Wilkes") gets $1. Or a charity of her choice gets $1. Other online retailers may offer a cheaper price but, so far as I know, this is the only site that pays living writers when we sell secondhand books. Besides, if you buy more than one small book here, you might be able to get enough books in the same $5 package to make the total price lower than you'd pay those other sellers. 

Book Review: From These Comes Music

Title: From These Comes Music         Author: Hope Stoddard         Date: 1952         Publisher: Thomas Y. Crowell         ISBN: none (click here to see the Amazon page)         Length: 246 pages         Illustrations: line drawings         Quote: “The harp’s for angels, so they say, / And yet it’s devilish hard to play.”         From These Comes Music is a serious music lover’s guide to the orchestra and beyond. It includes chapters on solo instruments as well as on the symphony standbys.         While writing each chapter, Stoddard says, she interviewed a recognized expert on the instrument and took “a few lessons.” This gives From These Comes Music an inside edge most children’s guides to the orchestra don’t have. Some of the consultants’ names are still familiar; Andrés Segovia for the guitar chapter, Bill Bell for the tuba chapter, William Kincaid for the flute chapter, Samuel G. Krauss for the trumpet chapter...(Pleasant exercise for music teachers: type each consultant's name into a search engine and see how many recordings you find.)         Stoddard, however, deserves full credit for the rhymes and anecdotes in each chapter.         Another thing that makes From These Comes Music easy to like is its freedom from the ignorance camouflaged as snobbery that dominated some books about music written in the early twentieth century. Stoddard resisted any temptation to write as if only the clichés of the symphony orchestra needed recognition as instruments. The guitar chapter gives brief consideration to other stringed instruments found in folk and country bands; if rock music had been invented, it would have mentioned electric guitars too. The section on wind instruments mentions obsolete specimens like the serpent and ophicleide. Stoddard discusses the mutant form of each of the standard symphony instruments that developed for extra-symphonic purposes—bugles, sousaphones, contrabassoons, recorders—and offers a separate chapter on saxophones.         It’s fair to describe From These Comes Music as a book written by serious adult musicians, for serious young musicians, who are not overly impressed by the cash outlay required to produce certain forms of music, but are simply interested in the different ways music is made.         Of course, no book can contain everything: “The bombardo, the tromba marina, the lyre, the oxhorn, Pan’s pipes are not with us because they do not meet our needs,” Stoddard laments. She does not anticipate that, later in the twentieth century, folk musicians would revive some but not all of the traditional instruments that had been buried in museums in 1952. There’s no premonition here that in the 1980s serious musicians would fall in love with the hammer dulcimer, which had developed an image problem as “lumberjacks’ pianos” in the 1930s and been buried under beds in the 1950s, nor that at the turn of the century Europeans and Americans would discover the didgeridoo. Nor, for that matter, that an early 1970s effort to restore interest in the shawm would not generate a major musical fad.         And there’s no anticipation of the late twentieth century’s obsession with electronic instruments. It’s hard to imagine what Stoddard would have said if a time traveller could have told her that, in the late twentieth century, the capacity of electronic instruments to produce ethereal “heavenly” melodies would be overlooked, that instruments designed to produce precise harmonies would be used mostly to produce monotonous banging and twanging noises that seem to express the frustration late-twentieth-century Americans feel with our crowded and polluted lifestyles.         There’s not even a suggestion of the sad fate that awaited the accordion. Why did the not unpleasing sound of accordions go so suddenly and completely out of style? Who knows? In the early twentieth century accordions were the most popular folk instruments, even featured in some orchestra pieces as a novelty. In the late twentieth century, Michael Kennedy sold one album of concertina music, and Bryan Bowers sold two or three albums featuring the autoharp, but nobody seemed to like the accordion any more.         The surprising thing, despite this evidence of its age, is that From These Comes Music is still surprisingly current. None of the music Stoddard describes is “top forty hits,” but, for that reason, recordings of it are still available. Not only can readers get recordings of most of the compositions mentioned in the book; they’ll probably find recordings of some of the individual performers. Schirmer ought to have complete sheet music for those who want to try playing these compositions, too.         From These Comes Music is recommended to all music lovers of all ages. It has a sixth grade vocabulary (and won’t seem juvenile if you’re reading it for the first time as an adult), but I’ve seen third and fourth grade students reading the chapters that interested them. A web search reveals that a lot of younger people called Hope Stoddard are still active; I found no links for the author of this book, so, unless notified otherwise, I'll assume that Stoddard has no use for the Fair Trade Books program. To buy this book from salolianigodagewi @ yahoo.com, send us $5 for the book + $5 shipping. You can probably find a better deal, and Stoddard probably won't mind.

Link Log for February 21 (#1)

More snow is falling. I waited for one of the resident humans to get in before leaving the Dog Sanctuary last night, fell asleep on an armchair and am procrastinating before walking home in the snow. Not many e-friends are online this morning (I'd prefer not to be online myself!) so here are just a few links in the categories: A Grandmother's Plea, Animals, Food, Local Market, Mental Health, Music, Scams, Weather.

A Grandmother's Plea 

Nancy Hardin asks readers to share and post this everywhere:

http://allthingsoflife.com/?p=67

Animals 

The big attraction to this promotion for a nature trail is the cute wild pony pictures. Should that be "mane attraction"? (Ouch! Stop throwing things at me!)

http://rootsrated.com/stories/a-winter-hike-to-the-top-of-virginia

How hungry would you have to be to consider eating a pangolin?

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/world-on-a-plate/2015/feb/20/critically-endangered-pangolins-rescued-then-sold-as-food?

Lots of cute pet pictures on Tsu of course...today's included kangaroos!

Food 

Some would say +Coral Levang 's "chili meal" is a different thing from Real Chili, which, according to purists, is a meat dish served beside the beans and the corn or cornbread. Fine. This "chili meal" is a balanced serving of protein, carbohydrate, and fiber, cooked in one pot. And it'll taste good.

http://www.personapaper.com/article/24467-quick-and-easy-chili-meal

I plussed one of +Coral Levang 's posts that asked for suggestions on using up frozen puff pastry dough, so thought I'd plus this one in which she used it up. Something strange happened at Google + though. The actual article displays three pictures of yummy-looking sweet and savory pies. The "plus" post displays what looks like an animal rummaging around garbage cans! Wotthe...

http://personapaper.com/article/24357-puff-pastry-no-longer-a-freezer-mystery

Here's the one that may inspire somebody to do all their frugal home cooking for the week this weekend. (Good idea for local lurkers. Cook, and warm up the kitchen, while you have electricity...with the Big Wet Snow falling, we may not have electricity next week, but we are likely to have a natural freezer for a few days.)

http://personapaper.com/article/24534-cooking-quickly-for-one-or-for-many

And, for vegans, one of the classic Granola Green vegan recipes:

http://personapaper.com/article/24580-once-upon-a-time-i-was-a-vegetarian

And here, for variation's sake, is a frugal comfort food recipe not posted by Coral Levang:

http://warnerwords.weebly.com/food-therapy/leek-and-potato-soup-time

Local Market 

I can't believe this market's trying to open today. Bitter cold, icy roads, piled-up snow and more snow falling on top of it. If I were shopping in Abingdon I'd go in and buy stuff just to show respect. (That's a hint, Abingdon readers. So far the worst thing that's happened at the Dog Sanctuary is that one dog took one horrified look at the deep falling snow and made a puddle on the porch...in the snow that had blown in.)

http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=c9b3fb0bfb5a7fded483296f8&id=cf5d3898ba

Especially alpaca yarn. If you could crossbreed sheep, goats, and camels, the result would be alpacas--cute, fluffy pets who need to have their hair combed and cut in spring, and whose surplus hair can be spun into delightful soft yarn. Some say alpaca yarn is less itchy than wool or mohair, and it's less likely to shrink if it gets wet.

http://www.dreamlandalpacas.com/store/

Mental Health 

At least as much truth as comedy here:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-study-finds-therapy-antidepressants-equally-ef,38026/?

(Feeling depressed this morning? Go and clear the snow off a disabled person's paths. If you can't, if you are the disabled person, you're not the person I'm trying to goad here. If you do, and it doesn't make you feel less depressed, call a medical doctor.)

Music 

ABBA: Swedish for Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn, and Annifrid, a pop quartet of my youth. Paul Rance has a fan site here:

http://www.booksmusicfilmstv.com/Abba.htm

And a page for the singer best known as Cat Stevens, a.k.a. Stephen Georgiou, a.k.a. Yusuf Islam.

http://www.booksmusicfilmstv.com/CatStevensYusufIslam.html

This fun fact about the Beatles was news to me. Now I want to hear their version of "My Bonnie."

http://personapaper.com/article/24530-the-most-important-beatles-song-is-the-most-forgotten

Scams 

Thanks to Jonah Goldberg to sharing this denunciation of what some are calling a fraud in the Tea Party's name. (Duh...anybody can be a Tea Party so you know a few of "us" are scammers. But nobody hates a bogus conservative charity as much as a real conservative.)

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/05/exclusive-pro-troop-charity-pays-off-tea-party-cronies-instead.html

And, while we're here: I bought and read all of C.S. Lewis's books during Walter Hooper's lifetime; I don't think the political columns Lewis wrote in the 1940s precisely translate to any position on current political issues, but he certainly said some things applicable to the "progressive" totalitarian movement we're seeing today, and I would have been interested in reading them. Unfortunately, when I finally found the online time to open http://libertyalliance.com/c-s-lewis-mere-liberty-evils-statism/, a nasty little Facebook pop-up prevented me from even opening the actual page from which the opening paragraph and picture seemed to have been ganked. Attention Liberty Alliance--if people hate you and your Tea Party, it's not necessarily even about your politics, because a page as bad as that one doesn't reveal anything about your stated political position. It's because you're spamming people with e-mail teases that promise interesting content and deliver nasty spyware that fouls up their computers. And if you continue doing that kind of thing, you deserve to be hated. Liberty Alliance hasn't done that in the past. Some terribly clever person evidently thought it was a terribly clever idea. Well, it's not clever, only terrible. You are being e-spanked, and further e-mails from you are being routed directly to the Bacon Folder.

Weather 

Today's news is weather. And weather damage. We'll probably be seeing more of this kind of news:

http://www.wjhl.com/story/28165464/crews-on-scene-of-water-main-break-in-jonesborough

My part of the world doesn't get as much star-gazing weather as it once did...one of the ways I knew I was Highly Sensory-Perceptive was that, as a child, I did see six Pleiades. The ancient Greeks saw seven, named them Seven Sisters, and imagined them all running away from the giant bully Orion. The Hebrews don't seem to have had that story (though Moses met his wife by defending seven sisters from a gang of male bullies), but Orion and the Pleiades are mentioned in the Bible. They are two of the easiest constellations to recognize and tend to catch the attention of people who don't know any star names and stories. +Protecto Shell shares a telescope image: like most of the constellations we see, the Pleiades include several stars we don't see:

http://stargazers-guide.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-pleiades-in-formation.html

Right. The snow has finally stopped falling. I think I'll try to find some wheel ruts before the melted snow freezes into ice, walk home, and see whether I still have electricity. The odds are against it, but then what are the odds of a Big Deep Freeze and a Big Wet Snow occurring back-to-back like this?

The cats, unfortunately, have probably been eating well. Many little creatures have succumbed to the cold, and some of them have probably tried to seek shelter in the cellar, where four cats (and a raccoon, and a possum) were waiting for them. This of course does not mean the cats won't want just as much kibble. And a fire.

I Was a Victim of Legal and Legitimate "Discrimination" (Edited)

(This post has been edited to remove un-auntly language.)

First the apology: This post cites a comment that, although justification for blocking a troll from my Google + page, made me laugh. The troll had referred to a florist refusing to create bouquets for a same-sex wedding as the "crime" of "discrimination." Since I can remember genuine discrimination (jobs closed to women, schools closed to students with physical disabilities, homosexuality as grounds for involuntary institutionalization and suspected homosexuality as a barrier to employment, and worse things were illegal but still going on when I was a child) I find this ludicrous, and said so. The troll then said "You were a victim of discrimination but you still support discrimination?"

And then he worked himself up into a real hatespew and got himself blocked from my Google + page. Like I'm so sorry about the hypertensive headache he's probably brought on himself. Not.

Actually I'm even wondering, since I've contacted Google repeatedly about blocking a rich and famous hater from my page, whether the troll was deliberately invented as a little tutorial about how to block trolls. Is it really that easy to push real trolls completely over the edge? Without even trying?

But here's the story, in case any real people want it.

I've been a victim of genuine discrimination that did me harm, yes; most recently ageist bigotry in hiring, and there was also one memorable weekend in Washington when I was refused taxi service on the Saturday night for being White and then cursed, long and loudly, on the Sunday afternoon for not being White. I wouldn't call that sort of thing a crime to be compared with the crime of letting a patient die from loss of blood because he was the "wrong" color for the only hospital within a hundred miles. I laughed at it, at the time. But I don't like it or support it, at all.

I've also been a victim of the kind of social rejection the troll had in mind. It's even documented on this web site, at greater length than I now think it deserved:

http://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2012/07/olivers-was-hijacked.html

There were sequels; the jerk Thomas was quite a character during his short time in my town, good for more drama and gossip even than Two-Dollar Mary. He approached and quarrelled with the town's most visible left-winger, who is not-my-brother-I-don't-know-some-sort-of-cousin and who has been threatened with violence for uttering liberal views on homosexuality in public. He sank a lot of money in a store, created an extravagant window display that wasn't for sale, and lost his entire investment. He got into a screaming rage with the older lady who had taken him on as a partner and, when his clamor attracted attention, threw a large metal sign at another storekeeper--I was an eyewitness when the police arrived. He was easily the most gossip-worthy topic in town before the great car chase, and I'm not sure of any reason to doubt anything that was said about him, except the other rumor that linked my name with his. It is not true that I ever said that Thomas would look good tied to the back of a truck. I can imagine no circumstances whatsoever under which Thomas would look good.

In any case, you will perceive, much more hate coming from a homosexual man (making a bid to take over someone else's store) than from a Christian woman (doing what she believes to be her duty to tell a couple of younger women she believes they're doing something wrong). More violence. More harm to others as well as the self.

And, yes, I think that kind of social "discrimination" is well within the constitutional rights of individual freedom of speech. Thomas was stupid and self-destructive and obnoxious. But nobody else has the ability to change that; the Creator gave Thomas a certain right to be stupid, self-destructive, and obnoxious--at least as much right as the Creator gave Thomas to feel whatever he felt toward his late lamented boyfriend.

Everybody does not like everybody else in this world. Some people do not have the mental capacity to appreciate us. Some people actually do us less harm by expressing their hostility to us, openly, than they might do if they were forced to deny it (or were mentally sophisticated enough to conceal it). So long as their hostility is limited to verbal or social demonstrations that hurt our feelings, as distinct from doing us any material harm, they have a right to be as hostile as they are. By and large that's their loss not ours.

For the more emotional, melodramatic, and immature among us, anyway, it's possible that some people aren't even hostile to us, but sincerely want the best for us when they say things we don't want to hear. I don't believe that two women who want to claim to be married to each other are doing the best thing for each other. I believe they are supporting a view of marriage that is inherently discriminatory to people--almost certainly including one of them--and unbiblical and un-American, and nobody should support that view of marriage. I know of no reason why anyone would imagine that a meddling older woman in a flower shop, refusing to make a bouquet for them, would change their view of marriage or their intentions toward each other. The woman's meddling can reasonably be described as stupid. But I'm hard pressed to imagine any rational basis for describing it as criminal; even if the couple weren't able to buy a floral bouquet across the street, has anyone ever suffered any material harm from not having a floral bouquet?

There's no way to keep people from having emotional feelings about each other, for any reason or none, based on a rational objective consideration of someone's public behavior or based on a hallucination or whatever else. Someone who's not already taking my money is entitled to say, purely because he's insane, that he doesn't want my patronage for his business. In fact, even someone who has taken my money to do a job is entitled to return the money and reject the job--as it might be a dentist who insisted, twenty-five years ago, that my wisdom tooth was beyond his capacity to treat and had to be surgically removed by a specialist. In fact, much as I didn't like having to suffer with that wisdom tooth until the specialist could deal with it, I actually prefer that that dentist "discriminate against" my teeth, rather than try to do something he wasn't qualified to do, do it wrong, and do real harm to me. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that kind of "discrimination."

There is something profoundly wrong with comparisons between social "discrimination" and the kind of oppression of which "discrimination" against some groups of people has been a part. The problem was not that Hitler looked at the ugly old Jew and felt revulsion, as Hitler described in Mein Kampf; the problem was that Hitler later ordered the murder of millions of Jews. The problem was not that John Adams feared that "on the day women are our equals, they will be our masters"; the problem was that women weren't allowed to vote, own property, attend schools, or practice trades. The problem was not that ancient British writers defined ugliness in terms of typically West African physical traits; the problem was that people of West African descent were enslaved. That rich White male homosexuals have the gall to compare people's refusal to celebrate their weddings to the Holocaust or the Trail of Tears is obviously not a problem of the magnitude of the Holocaust or the Trail of Tears, but neither is it something society ought to tolerate.

So yes, trolls, if you really think you want to call social rejection "discrimination," I've been a victim of "discrimination" that was legitimate and legal. And I'm glad. Nyah nyah nyah. And, by the way, I reserve the right to discriminate against trolls. And, as mentioned on my Google + page...people who confuse social rejection with material harm annoy me; my web site hereby defines those people as trolls, and reserves the right to treat them as such.

Phenology: Freezing While Frugal

Why do bloggers post some of the things we do? It may not be the best strategy for a business blog, but once in a while we post things that answer questions we've heard in real life.

On Wednesday, Sydney's Junior Human had asked whether I'd fed the dogs and let them out, the day before. Well, no points for guessing--Sydney had demanded more than the usual amount of lower back massages, Mini didn't go out in the snow, I'd even heard some sick-dog noises although nobody was actually sick; the snow was obviously not showing enough aesthetic damage. Hence the photos of Sydney frolicking in the snow. By now the snow's been packed down enough for Mini to venture out onto humans' and bigger dogs' footprints, and they seem to be feeling better.

Those who remembered last year's "Frostbitten" post had noticed the potential for a rerun. Once again, the space heater in my warm room died, apparently around 2 a.m. on a cold night--early Monday morning. This was Day 96 of the heater's active life. The night hadn't been too cold for me to spend the rest of it in the warm room, shivering under hand-knitted blankets and shawls, until daylight, when I rushed into town. A neighbor, guessing that I might be hot-footing it into town in search of a heater, kindly lent me a spare one. In no hurry to get frostbitten by walking in single-digit-Fahrenheit temperatures again, I put off the visit to Wal-Mart until Thursday. Once again, Wal-Mart had nothing left in the way of heating devices during a record cold snap. Once again, all the heating devices had been cleared out to make room for an idiotic summertime fantasy in the hardware department. The main difference between this year's visit to Wal-Mart and last year's visit for similar reasons was that this time I reached the store, by car pool, around 7 p.m. and the store was crowded and the staff were downright rude.

And temperatures dropped below zero Fahrenheit, and stayed in the single digits from Wednesday evening until this morning. My water line froze hard, despite dripping water and heat in the kitchen. A pipe cracked. I went into the kitchen early this morning and cooked, just in order to get a fire going, and although a big bottle of water that had been sitting on the floor in a plastic bag was still pourable, it actually began to freeze as I poured it out and formed a mound of slush ice in the measure; during my second look the slush began to crack and crystallize. It took 35 minutes for that water to boil on the electric stove. The cats, of course, wanted to be indoors, and I let them, though only Ivy was so kittenish and shameless as to lie at the base of the wood stove and purr when the fire got going.

A lot of little woodland creatures who weren't expecting it to be so cold died on Wednesday and Thursday. For once a cat was able to eat a songbird with impunity, finding a healthy bird frozen in the snow.

On Wednesday, Twitter friends may remember that I was concerned about Gunner. That's the name of a dog who lives along the road between the Cat Sanctuary and the Dog Sanctuary. (For the record, although that's the nickname I've given the home of Sydney and Mini and other dogs, this Dog Sanctuary is not currently accepting new dogs. All dog fosterers and rescuers in Scott County, Virginia, have been burdened since the fire destroyed the county dog pound.) Gunner is a watchdog, not a house pet; he's mostly hound, with long legs that suggest a possible distant relationship to another neighbor's Great Dane. Not especially smart or nice; not especially stupid or mean. I'm pretty sure he recognizes me as a visitor who's sat on his humans' porch and petted him. I usually hear his commotion as saying "Where have you been? Where are you going? Can I go along? Why not? It's not faaair."

On Wednesday Gunner's barking sounded more like "Please help! Don't leave me alone!" I looked, and sure enough all the tracks in the snow around the doghouse were his. There was a fresh trail of human footprints that went around the house, started through the back yard toward the doghouse, and then broke off, as if somebody had slipped and given up the effort to take food and water to Gunner...and no humans were in the house. I tried to locate Gunner's humans online, and failed. Luckily for Gunner, his humans had come home and taken care of him before I went home.

And, just in case anybody's wondering...I still own the dreaded heavy-rubber boots that stiffen up and feel like cement in cold weather. I did not have to wear them this week, though, because a few years ago a taller friend bought some very fashionable big-name-designer suede boots. Real leather boots give you a choice, if they ever get wet: you can wear them until they're completely warm and dry again, or you can pick a smaller friend who will be able to wear them next year. Since these were fashionable boots, wearing them for hours was not an option. Barely worn, they still show the mark of their original size, #10, but by now it's a lie. This year they fit me with room for a thick pair of socks inside, which means their real size would be #8. With luck they may still be #7s, and fit me with room for nylon knee-highs inside, for another big snowstorm before they're ready to move on down the line to someone who normally buys a #5 or #4. I had a pair of glossy black leather boots just like that about twenty years ago.

I don't usually wear secondhand shoes, or recommend that other people do. Shoes that someone else has worn may not work for your individual feet even if they're the right size...and even if you know that that person didn't have any nasty foot or nail diseases. However, I did have that information about this person, and the boots haven't been worn enough to affect the soles and heels. I will say this much on the subject of boots. I don't like shoes made of man-made material, but considering how expensive boots are, and how many people it takes to get even a fraction of a reasonable amount of wear out of real leather boots, I think my next pair of boots will be pure plastic.

But these are fashionable boots. Anyone who remembers the angle of the private road below the Cat Sanctuary may now be wondering how the stiff, slick, thin soles of fashionable women's footwear got me up and down the road through powdery snow. Everyone knows that a person wearing fashionable women's boots is likely to slide across a level floor.

Reenter the Shillelagh, or the Cheap American Imitation of a Real Shillelagh. (A proper Irish shillelagh is similar to a cane but much more solid, made of blackthorn wood, either carved or just naturally gnarled, and heavy enough to serve as a weapon if necessary.) Years ago, during a pleasant afternoon cutting brush, my Significant Other noticed a particular branch of some overgrown privet we were pruning and called it to my attention. "Look at that one...it looks like a snake carved around the end...it looks just your size, try it and see...it looks like Tennessee ironwood."

Tennessee ironwood, also known as hornbeam, is a sort of tree whose wood is so hard and heavy as to be almost useless. Nobody would even try to make a shillelagh out of Tennessee ironwood because nobody would want to carry one. Privet wood is neither hard nor heavy, but people aren't used to seeing it grow thick enough to make a shillelagh, so mine does invite a second look.

Well, it was a souvenir, at the time. The next summer, when I twisted the ankle and really strained the hip, the shillelagh was a tremendous help. Since then it's mostly been a souvenir...but I keep it handy, in winter, to stop myself sliding on ice or snow.

My water froze on Tuesday.The water at the Dog Sanctuary froze on Thursday. Sometimes I get spoiled, living at the Cat Sanctuary, and forget how gruesome it is not to have running water in a house that has only twentieth-century water-flush toilets. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind the local readers that although I am not, have never been, and don't plan to become a plumber, one of the few construction jobs for which being small is an asset is replacing indoor water pipes. I've done my own, all by myself, every time we've had a deep freeze for several years now, and can furnish references. I've already started a list.

Nobody really likes this unnatural, un-Virginian weather, but T. Quillin's Hardware Store should be able to enjoy the recovery cycle if and whenever a real February Thaw occurs, and I look forward to earning enough money replacing indoor water pipes to pay whatever T. Quillin's is charging for space heaters these days.

Link Log for February 20

Categories: Animals & Plants, Chortles, Education, Food, Fun Facts, Politics, Weather, Writing

Animals 

Especially recommended to the Bubbler known as Jabo: Raymond Barlow shares a close-up of a pair of hummingbirds photographed in Ecuador:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+RaymondBarlowphotography/albums/6020103359830570657/6118017252761107762?pid=6118017252761107762&oid=112400934564866517730

+Jasmine Ann Marie has photos of a bird and a flower:

http://diaryofwildgarden.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-last-snow-of-year-first-snowdrop.html

That AC link so many readers enjoyed is permanently broken, but the Decorah eagle family are back in the news...this time Liz Klimas has videos.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/02/19/the-video-of-a-bald-eagle-thats-gotten-over-300-million-views-america-in-an-eggshell/?

Beating the Odds 

A little over eighty years ago, every doctor in Oklahoma agreed that the baby now known to cyberspace as Grandma Bonnie Peters could not have a normal life. If born, it would be "a vegetable." That's how GBP came to be born in Kansas...her mother kept telling her father and sister, "We're going to another doctor." Obviously all those doctors were using crystal balls, and were using the "see-and-say" reading method to decipher what they found there. GBP is still working...but for about half of her life she has been a vegetarian. (Oh, by the way, it's now considered normal for diabetic mothers to give birth to healthy children. In 1934 that was considered a miracle.)

Will little Ellis Rodriguez astonish the medical world, too?

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/02/20/doctors-said-this-babys-condition-was-incompatible-with-life-but-when-they-removed-her-ventilator-something-miraculous-happened/?

Chortles 

I didn't merely chortle at +Coral Levang 's post. I laughed out loud!

http://www.personapaper.com/article/24416-the-pot-did-not-clean-itself

Education 

Karen Bracken shares the most informative 11 minutes from what was actually a 90-minute phone conversation about federal education law.

https://soundcloud.com/alice-linahan/anita-hoge-on-the-women-on-the-wall-conference-call-page-552-eseanclb

Now, about personal education...I belong to Postloop, and somebody on a Postloop forum asked for information about "speed reading," an education fad of my youth. Although I've been called a natural "speed reader," I enjoy slow reading more and also agree with the (semi-discredited) Bates Method school of vision preservation that speed reading is harder on the eyes. However, Liz Klimas shares a (flashy, potentially not browser-friendly) video that...well, doesn't work for this computer at all, but she thinks it may interest some people.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/02/20/can-you-keep-up-see-how-fast-you-can-read-using-this-technique/

Food 

How can you tell when a Tea Partier is going overboard with the politics? When s/he doesn't love Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Fortunately for me their new U.S. flavor contains wheat, which helps protect me from going too far with Opus's dictum, "With ice cream ye shall be a pig." U.S. readers, would you drive up to Canada to check out the "million flavors" pint?

http://www.benjerry.com/whats-new/world-flavors?

Frugal 

Years ago, my husband stopped complaining about my yarn stash when he noticed how well boxes of yarn along the north wall kept drafts from making the floor in our cool den too chilly in winter. Currently, as my yarn stash diminishes, I have stacks and shelves of books along the north wall of my warm room at home...

https://wendywelchbigstonegap.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/heating-with-books/

Fun Facts 

When ancient Greek artists painted Amazon warrioresses, were they just fantasizing, or painting something someone had actually reported seeing? Elizabeth Barrette was interested enough to collect several links to web pages supporting the theory that the captions on Greek pottery may have translated real names...or nicknames. (PG-13 advisory: some of the names sound raunchy.)

http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/3574486.html

Haters 

"Be careful of stones that you throw"...Arlene from Israel reports on what can happen when a stupid kid prank causes a motor vehicle accident. (The prank that caused young Adelle Biton to suffer for two years before she died was motivated by hate. In view of the weather here, I find myself thinking of stupid things like driving unnecessarily, or letting a dog chase a car, or calling somebody on a car phone...this is the kind of day when those things could kill a child too.)

http://noisyroom.net/blog/2015/02/19/the-stuff-of-heartbreak/

Challenge to those who don't hate widows, who don't hate Christians, or who do support freedom of speech, belief, and thought: Make the hateful, obnoxious jerks here aware of a backlash effect, without becoming haters or targeting all same-sex couples. (This web site actually supports people's right to be part of same-sex couples, or trios, or whatever else they want to be, in peace, as long as they don't abuse other people; just as this web site, on Wednesday, supported Muslims' right to live and even evangelize in the U.S., as long as they don't try to enforce Sharia law or raise money for active enemies of the U.S.) Censorship is hate. Censorship of one person's opinions in the name of another person's feelings does much more harm to all of us than could possibly be done to the subjective feelings of one of us.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/02/19/judge-rules-that-elderly-christian-florist-violated

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/02/19/ex-atlanta-fire-chief-who-ignited-controversy

Politics 

Where to meet Publius Huldah in real life:

https://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/2015/02/19/art-v-convention-event-in-asheville-nc-on-feb-26/

Where to get material for fresh Obama jokes:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/02/20/obama-mocks-republicans-singles-out-rand-paul-with-condescending-tone/?

Where to find my politics-related interactions and links:

http://connect.freedomworks.org/node/195382

Weather 

Running water doesn't freeze as easily as water that's standing still, and so, although most of the Northeast is iced over by now and even Niagara Falls has plenty of ice...

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/02/20/has-niagara-falls-really-frozen-over-no-it-hasnt/?

Icequakes?

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/02/19/dozens-report-hearing-mysterious-loud-booms-in-small-tennessee-city-it-shook-my-house/?

Writing

+Theresa Wiza on how to write a how-to article:

http://www.writingcreatively.org/2015/02/how-to-write-how-to-articles-and-how.html

(This how-to article looks like the product of hard experience:

http://ntlconsulting.blogspot.com/2015/02/house-buying-fixing-tips.html)

Tim Kaine on War Against ISIL (a.k.a. ISIS)

From U.S. Senator Tim Kaine:

"For more than seven months, I have been making the case that Congress has a key role to play in authorizing U.S. military action against ISIL under the guiding principle that we should not be asking servicemembers to risk their lives without doing the hard work to reach a political consensus that the mission is in our national interest. Even though U.S.-led airstrikes against the brutal terrorist group have been underway since last August, Congress has yet to give its approval for this mission – a mission that goes well beyond the intent of existing authorizations of force from 2001 and 2002.

That’s why I’m pleased that President Obama has decided to seek Congressional authorization and, earlier this month, took the important step of submitting a written proposal to Congress. Now we can have a proper debate and the full House and Senate can finally vote on authorizing our fight against ISIL.

While the President’s draft Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) reflects consultations I’ve had with administration officials and includes many provisions I support – such as the repeal of an obsolete, yet still existing Iraq authorization from 2002, and a sunset clause that would require Congress to reassess the mission after three years – I am concerned about the breadth and vagueness of language regarding U.S. ground troops. As we prepare to take up the draft in the Foreign Relations Committee, I look forward to a robust debate, along with amendments and votes, and will seek to clarify this important language to ensure the U.S. is vigorously assisting nations willing to battle their own terrorist threats rather than carrying the unsustainable burden of policing a region that won't police itself."

Mark Warner on Saving Obamacare

Sigh...This web site does in fact appreciate Senator Mark Warner. And his thoughtful replies to various petitions I've signed. And his role in the U.S. Senate as the sort of moderate Democrat who can represent our minority party without totally misrepresenting our majority. But he still thinks Obamacare can be fixed; he still thinks more enrollment in insurance gambling schemes is a good thing. Below is the text of his letter.

"Our country spends more on health care than any other industrialized nation, yet on average produces worse outcomes in important quality measurements. In addition, far too many Americans go without affordable health coverage. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare, while not perfect, was passed into law in 2010 and has brought about needed reforms to broken aspects of our health care system by slowing the increase in health care costs, increasing access to care and using private sector innovation and competition to improve quality and value for patients. Some of the reforms that have already taken effect include important consumer protections such as prohibitions on cancelling, or denying, coverage for those with preexisting conditions, an end to lifetime caps on coverage benefits, an end to charging women more for coverage simply because they are women, and other generally increased coverage options. Many of the reforms went into effect at the beginning of 2014. To date, over 7 million Americans have signed up for coverage in the marketplaces.

 

Since the law was enacted, Medicare beneficiaries in Virginia who hit the "donut hole" have saved over $197 million on covered prescription drugs. Furthermore, 66,000 young adults in Virginia have gained insurance coverage as a result of a provision that allows parents to keep their children under age 26 without job-based coverage on their family coverage. More than 1.5 million Virginians with private health insurance have gained preventive service coverage without cost sharing.

 

While I do think the law was a good step in the right direction to fixing our health care system, I have always recognized that we would need to revisit this legislation to fix problems as they arose during implementation. I am against repealing the law in its entirety because that would add an estimated $109 billion to the deficit over the next ten years, as well as reinstate unfair insurance practices, while reversing delivery system reforms that are critical to increasing quality and lowering costs. It is critical that we put in place innovative and financially responsible policies to fix what is wrong, improve the things that could be better, and incorporate incentives to make the system more patient-centered.

 

However, I do believe that it is important to start fixing the law now. In March, I laid out some common-sense legislative fixes that I believe will strengthen the law by improving and modifying a variety of provisions, ensuring that it works better for Virginia families, employers and employees. I joined five of my colleagues in outlining some of these ideas in an op-ed, a copy which is attached for your convenience.

 

During the 113 th Congress , I  cosponsor ed the Consumer Choice Act,  which would create a new choice of health plan option for consumers. One that is a lower-cost, higher-deductible option for consumers, while also covering the essential health benefits and consumer protections required of all health plans offered through the ACA. Outside analysis done by  Avalere has shown that the addition of such a new metal tier could decrease the premiums in the market by as much as 17%.

 

I also introduced the Commonsense Competition and Access  to Health Insurance Act , which borrows a good concept I hear a lot of my Republican colleagues talk about – working to help create pathways for the selling of insurance across state lines. This legislation would help identify and eliminate any regulatory and administrative barriers and direct state insurance commissioners to work together to design an open, transparent and effective system that allows insurers to offer coverage across state boundaries while maintaining current consumer protections. Lastly, the bill would build on the idea of interstate compacts – or efforts to let states join together to have bigger pooling mechanisms – to allow small businesses to participate in those compacts.

 

We can also work to provide assistance to the many businesses that are and want to continue doing the right thing – but are overwhelmed by the amount of information they have to share. For months now, I have been urging the Administration to ease the reporting burden on employers and to streamline any reporting with other already-in place systems. Over the last 6 months I sent two letters urging them to streamline the requirements. However, the Administration's final regulations did not provide the necessary streamlining, and instead places an additional burden on employers. That is why I have introduced the Commonsense Re porting Act , which directs the Department of Health & Human Services and the Treasury Department to design a more workable and less burdensome system for employers to report the hours worked by their employees.

 

I have heard from a number of Virginians who are unhappy that some insurers have decided to alter or discontinue individual policies. In general, health insurance plans are 12-month contracts, and insurers are free to decide whether or not to renew particular  plans every year. Under the ACA, there are new requirements for what coverage must be provided and other new rules that insurers must follow. Many insurers have decided to not renew a variety of these previous plans because they did not meet these requirements.

 

In December 2013, I asked the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary to further clarify efforts to help those individuals whose previous plans were cancelled, and who were unable to find an affordable option on the exchange. The Administration agreed these individuals should have access to additional options: now, if your plan has been cancelled and you are unable to afford a Marketplace plan to replace it, you will be automatically approved for a hardship exemption which allows you to purchase a lower-cost, "bare bones" catastrophic plan. Additionally, the Department of Health and Human Services has given state insurance commissioners the option to allow consumers to keep their existing plans for two additional years. However, Virginia law had prohibited the Commonwealth's insurance commissioner from allowing this change. That is why I pushed for the General Assembly to pass bipartisan legislation this summer which would have allowed Virginia to join many other states, including North Carolina, in adopting this policy. However, the General Assembly chose not to act on that bill in a timely manner, and only passed the legislation once insurance companies had already offered their plan options for 2015.

 

Virginia chose to let the federal government run the health care exchange in the Commonwealth, rather than establishing a Virginia-specific exchange. As of today, nine different insurers are offering hundreds of plans to individuals across Virginia. While not all insurers offer products in every region, all Virginia consumers now have a choice of plan options. For the first time, individuals will be able to compare plans and understand what is and is not covered. Furthermore, many Virginians are finding they are eligible for tax credits to reduce the cost of monthly premiums.

 

In addition to coverage through the exchange, more than 400,000 uninsured Virginians could become eligible for Medicaid under the ACA. Virginians from across the political spectrum support providing expanded coverage because they understand that getting more people into the system will help us lower costs for everyone in the long run. Otherwise, many individuals will continue to access health care through the emergency room, which is the most expensive and inefficient way to access health care and drives up the cost for everyone.

 

I recognize that health care coverage is an issue that is very personal. Please know that I am committed to fixing the parts of the ACA that need fixing and making sure that we have a health care system that is affordable and fair. Please continue to be in touch with your opinions and concerns. For further information or to sign up for my newsletter please visit my website at  http://warner.senate.gov ."