John the Baptist at the Nowhere Bar

The hits just keep on comin, here in DeMint country! At left: anti-immigrant demonstrator in downtown Greenville on Saturday. Photo by my talented radio show consigliere, Gregg Jocoy. (More photos here.)







I forgot all about the right-wing demonstration on Saturday (I'm glad Gregg didn't), but ended up downtown in the early evening anyway, to grab a bite to eat after the Randall Bramblett show (see below). By that time (as I said on our show yesterday), only one brave sign-carrying protester remained. Since she was yelling and gesticulating at the traffic all by her lonesome, I thought she was there individually--all by herself--which always makes one look somewhat unbalanced. (I never do it; although I WILL pass out leaflets by myself.) She was yelling about "the hostile invasion" (i.e. immigration) when I passed her and shook my head in an exaggerated, theatrical fashion, "What a loony tune!" was the body-language message I hoped I was sending.

And you know, I won't lie to you: I was momentarily pleased I got a chance to do this to the right-wingers for a change; they are usually the ones doing it to US. In these parts, Occupiers were regarded as either 1) dangerous deluded wackos, or, 2) an interesting sideshow. At least in the case of #2, there was the opportunity to strike up some conversations, maybe win over some hearts and minds.

It was just as I was nostalgically remembering our belated Season of OCCUPY, that the intrepid sign-carrying lady started RUNNING AFTER ME, loudly demanding to know if I was in favor of amnesty for illegals???!!?.

Oh boy.

I realize the proper and nuanced answer is, "What about amnesty for their employers? Why are THEY never arrested?"--but I did not want to hang around and argue with this person, I wanted to eat at the Mellow Mushroom.

At this point, we were right in front of the Carolina Ale House, which has the popular advertising/commercial slogan, "Ale Yeah!"... this catchy phrase is even engraved into the planters out in front of the restaurant. Consequently, all I could think of was, ALE NO!

ALE NO, I do not want to talk to this person.

So I answered quickly, "I think it's a great idea!" I blurted out.

She was ready with a reply, "Do you want the United States to become like a European country?!"

I turned and said very distinctly and loudly, ABSOLUTELY!

That shut her up. Stunned her too. "Umm," she fell back and stopped following me at that point, undoubtedly deciding I was some insane leftist in favor of universal health care. "That's... interesting..." and she then went over and accosted some other poor soul who was trying to decide where to eat.

Jesus H Christ, where do these people come from?! The good news (see linked video) is that they were mostly older white people, the demographic you would expect. No teenagers or twenty-somethings out there.

As I've said here before, the young folks want to date and marry the newcomers, not send them back.

~*~

At left: Randall Bramblett at Bohemian Cafe on Saturday. GREAT SHOW! I also bought his new CD, The Bright Spots.






TMI update: my evil ganglion cyst seems to have shrunk to a pinpoint, which I attribute to my feverish consumption of both kombucha and turmeric. It could also be that the steroid shot of a couple of months ago (directly into my finger! aiyeee!) took some additional time to do the job. In any event, in the last couple of weeks, it has become smaller than it's ever been (over the last few years) and stopped swelling up, hurting or (most importantly) bursting open with nasty goo. Perhaps that was all the nasty goo it had? Whatever the reason, when I went in to get it removed, the doctor took a look and said there was no reason for an invasive procedure (and subsequent risk of infection) at this juncture. He said he saw no reason to "dig around in there for it" (Good God Almighty!), for which I thanked heaven profusely.

I was ecstatic, especially when I saw the size of the needle he was getting ready to use on me. Holy shit.

I doubt my fingernail will ever look okay, but that is a small price to pay for a dormant ganglion cyst. Let's hope it stays dormant, and pass the kombucha.

Serving suggestion: It's really great over ice in the summertime! In addition to Synergy, my favorite, let me also recommend Reed's Culture Club brand, especially the Lemon Ginger Raspberry... also dynamite over ice!

~*~

Hope your week is going well. Me and Double A are going to attempt the radio show today BY OURSELVES, without our trusted and capable consigliere... which as you know, is no way for a consigliere to behave, but there it is. Family obligations have intervened, and we must GO FORTH AND DO IT... and I know I don't have to tell you, I am a nervous wreck. Luckily, I can chatter on like nobody's business, so hopefully, nobody will be able to tell that I am freaked out.

Jonathan, our wonderful and insightful engineer, will probably have to bail us out... but that's what engineers are FOR!

~*~

Check out the cool song. I just loved it. Athens folks, of course, know that the Nowhere Bar is in Athens, Georgia.

I can totally imagine John the Baptist sitting there; so it's where we get today's blog post title.

John the Baptist - Randall Bramblett



Hope your week is going well, too. And don't let your consigliere, whoever it is, out of your sight for a minute!

CHAOS REIGNS without a consigliere to maintain order... just ask anybody.

Snake handlers, finger surgery eve, and talk radio updates

You never know what you'll see in downtown Greenville. This past Sunday, in what used to be called Bergamo Plaza (apparently they are in the process of naming it something else, to go with the fancy new ONE building) I saw this snake-handling lady. She didn't mind me taking her picture.

Just another day in the neighborhood.

~*~

Well peeps, as mentioned previously, the surgery on my ganglion cyst is tomorrow morning. I confess to being a nervous wreck. Not really about the surgery itself, but about the anesthesia-shots (administered with a BIG ASS needle) I'm getting on either side of my finger. I've already had one shot--right in the cyst--and it wasn't fun. This promises to be far worse. Argh.

And the idea of my index-finger-joint being (aiyeee) scraped, is just SUCH AN UNPLEASANT CONCEPT. (Can't they use some other word?)

I hope I can type, but probably won't be able to for a couple of days, so this is the official SURGERY EVE update.

Luckily, I can still run my mouth, you lucky folks. I will be broadcasting as usual. Hopefully, I won't be on so many drugs that I make no sense... but when has THAT ever stopped me?

~*~

This week's OCCUPY THE MICROPHONE shows--

Monday: The Zimmerman verdict, with local activists Traci Fant and Efia Nwangaza.

Tuesday: Zimmerman trial juror #B37's interview with Anderson Cooper, excerpts and analysis. Much fulminating from your humble narrator, echoing the points in my last blog post (and even quoting some of the comments).

Wednesday: Stevie Wonder boycotts Florida, and an interview with Green Shadow Cabinet member Ben Manski, author of a popular statement about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden titled, Liberty is hunted around the globe: What Snowden taught us about American freedom.

Going on in a half-hour, and we'll be talking about one of the best rightwingnuts available for sheer comedy relief, TED NUGENT! (Shooting fish in a barrel, my friends!)

Check us out, yall; if you wanna join us LIVE AT FIVE, here is the WOLI-AM livestream link. Have a listen! Also, podcasts available at the website.

~*~

Hope all is well with you, have a great weekend... and take care of your joints!

~*~

UPDATE/EDIT 7/21: Surgery postponed until Thursday... so I can obsess and worry for another whole week. Argh.

Name that car!

Another old car, for you antique-car fans who sometimes drop by (((waves at car-photo lurkers))) ... and I profusely apologize that I don't know what kind of Ford this is. Falling down on the job. (ashamed)

My late father, proud UAW-member and GM-assembly-line worker, would chuckle at that and say Fords are not worth remembering, so don't sweat it. (However, he WOULD know the make and model just the same, which makes me jealous.)

He would then add that Ford stands for "Found On Road Dead."

I did dutifully read the name of the car when I first spotted it on Laurens Rd (and you can SEE the name next to "500"--but so hard to read, even when you click to enlarge) ... and I told myself that of course, I would remember it when it came time to blog it. Weeks later, having forgotten totally about the cool car, I also forgot the name of it. (embarrassed)

I have done some random sleuthing, to no avail. Although it would certainly help if I knew the year too! I have NO idea what it is, but if you do, speak up! I love CHERRY RED and I love this vehicle, although it was not in the best condition, I still enjoyed the ancient steering wheel, radio, and general AMERICAN GRAFFITIesque interior.

~*~

We have been doing a bunch of radio shows about the NSA and Edward Snowden, in case anyone thought I had been noticeably delinquent on the subject. I assure you, I have been doing my share of fulminating, and probably your share too. Other recent radio shows:

[] The trial of our radio consigliere Gregg Jocoy, for carrying a sign that was officially TOO BIG (really). Yes, he was found guilty in a jury trial and had to pay $55.

[] An interview with Richard McIntyre, the US Trade Representative for the Green Shadow Cabinet, discussing the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement.

[] An interview with the redoubtable Rev. Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping. Great inspiration for activism and street theatre, you can find the Church HERE.

YALL TUNE IN, we are on every day, LIVE AT FIVE ... you can listen to us on the radio-livestream HERE. (Podcasts are HERE.) Yesterday, I had to do without my usual opening music and I sailed through it like a pro. Only a few months ago, I would have had a nervous breakdown. (There IS something to be said for 'practice makes perfect' and getting fairly good at it... that 10,000 hour rule and alla that.) As we get better, we cut down on DEAD AIR lapses (we all think its pretty damn funny that my blog was named this YEARS before I started in radio); have almost stopped interrupting each other... and have nearly eliminated the dreaded brain-fart, during which *whatever* you were thinking (and had planned to say) just EVAPORATES into the ether... as you stare at the radio mike in front of you: DUH!

We are also getting fairly good at rescuing each other when this happens.

~*~

In a couple of weeks, I am having finger surgery, which I realize sounds mildly ridiculous. But really.

I figure something incredibly blog-worthy will happen around that time, and I will want to type and find it impossible. So, I am making up for it now and apologizing for not using my fingers for GOOD whilst I have the chance.

I briefly mentioned HERE (another car post!) that I had this thing on my finger, which turns out to be a mucous cyst ganglion. As time goes on, it gets angrier and angrier, and has started rupturing with regularity. GROSS STUFF (which looks remarkably like vaseline) pops out, which at least makes the nasty swelling go down. For awhile. And then it starts all over again. (sigh)

At the current rate, its been popping open (spewing its gross vaselinesque material) every week or so. Although I have had this thing for years now, it is only currently causing problems beyond the general warping of my fingernail. Since it stays 'open' (sorry for the TMI, yall), it is an active infection risk... and this could quickly morph into a JOINT infection, not just a lil ole fingernail/cuticle infection. Apparently, it has something to do with having osteoarthritis. (sigh again)

Ah, aging, the fun just never ends. From Web MD:

Mucous cyst ganglions usually occur when osteoarthritis symptoms develop, at middle age or older. This type of ganglion is more common in women than men.

Mucous cyst ganglions are found at the joint nearest the fingernail (distal interphalangeal [DIP] joint). The ganglion is firm and does not easily move under the skin. These ganglions may be painful and may break open, increasing the risk of infection. The fingernail may grow irregularly or be misshapen because the ganglion is near the growth cells for the fingernail.

Because of the risk of infection, a mucous cyst ganglion should not be broken open on purpose. Occasionally a ganglion opens on its own. Home treatment may be all that is needed.

Treatment measures include removing the ganglion fluid with a needle (aspiration) to temporarily shrink the cyst, injecting the cyst with hydrocortisone to reduce inflammation and possibly lower the chance that it will return, or removing the ganglion with surgery. The ganglion may return after treatment. Bone spurs (small, bony growths that form along a joint) are often present in the joint next to a mucous cyst, and removing the bone spurs makes it less likely that the cyst will return.

I've had the cortisone shot into my finger already (certainly not pleasant, but not nearly as bad as the thing itself, if you can believe it) which did shrink it for awhile, but it regrouped and planned its next massive assault with a real vengeance.

I'd even suggest it got MAD that it got a shot and decided it would show me whose boss. And so it has.

I am soon getting the joint and bone spurs scraped, as well as the cyst removed. I'm sure it sounds like lots more fun that it is!

I will keep you posted. (For those of you who have missed my periodic gross TMI posts, you should be in for a real treat, whenever it heals enough for me to type!)

~*~

One of my ALL TIME favorite trees is currently blooming! It is called Calliandra surinamensis and is also known as Surinamese Stickpea, Pink Tassel-Flower and Pink Powderpuff. I used to call them "bottle brush trees" because the bloom looks just like an old-style bottle-brush. My daughter finally looked it up at the library (long before there was the internet) and found the name for me. (Thus, I also associate it with her childhood.)

These beautiful trees are all over the upstate, and I took the photos below while hiking the Swamp Rabbit Trail. (you can click to enlarge)



So purty!


~*~

I now have a very lax and anemic TUMBLR of my own. I mostly did it to keep up with the various SJW-wars that have broken out online, and to lend my name to the truth-tellers who are sick of dopey, politically-correct excesses (as well as the attempted wholesale silencing of opinion). After dealing with THIS LATEST DEBACLE (see comments for gory details) -- I wanted to vent with others of a like mind, and decided to START A TUMBLR, God help me, even after declaring the place a total sewer. NOTE: I still think it is, but then, I used to contribute to DIGG and other sewers, so I am not above mucking about in the sewer... I mean, I'M BLOGGING, right? (I have declared Reddit a bridge too far, and although I've looked at it from time to time, try not to make a habit of it.)

The gangpiling, which I used to put up with as the price of admission to Blogdonia, has lately reached the level of patent insanity. In fact, TUMBLR would seem to be ONE LONG EXERCISE in gangpiling and dumping verbal abuse on people you simply disagree with... and usually the disagreements are not very serious or profound. Nonetheless, the stakes are raised immediately by issuing countless fatwas and edicts declaring that various bloggers are evil/genocidal/fascist and what-all. Thus, when something truly IS evil/genocidal/fascist and what-all (i.e. the prison-torture of Bradley Manning, the calls for the prosecution of Edward Snowden for being a saint, the shooting of Trayvon Martin by a vigilante-wannabe, etc etc) the 'social justice warriors' (not) are already bored by their own overwrought-language-feuds and therefore... DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

In fact, they don't even seem to have any opinions about these incidents, they are too busy honing their victim status and obsessing about themselves and their 'otherkin'. Real activism (even just writing about it), local political issues that need addressing and in general, real life, does not enter into their little just-so stories.

For this reason, I often find myself wondering if they are real or just decided to take on certain 'oppressed identities' to have something to whine about.

I would like to collectively paddle all of their spoiled asses and send them to Time-Out. I can't, so I have climbed onto the Tumblr soapbox to join the choruses making fun of them instead.

I mean, what else can you do?

~*~

In happy news, our beautiful FALLS PARK here in Greenville, was just voted one of the top 10 parks in the country (includes the big cities, peeps! WOO HOO!) by TripAdvisor, whatever that is.

We already knew that. :)

Yes, I trashed my L-Carnitine

Currently having an existential crisis over my stash of L-Carnitine, a supplement I have used off and on for about 10 years. I am now being loudly informed it can cause heart disease. Oh, such fabulous news!

The reason I started taking it, was because I learned it was an amino acid mostly concentrated in red meat and dairy... and as a vegetarian I assumed (there's that word, ASSUME) that any nutrient I would be missing out on (by eliminating meat from my diet), must somehow be necessary. That is so WESTERN of me; it certainly never occurred to me that one basic reason vegetarians have lower rates of heart disease might be due to the actual CARNITINE ITSELF, duh! (who knew?)

Apparently, it is. From HuffPo comes the following report, emailed to me simultaneously by three different people:

Two years ago, [cardiology researcher Dr. Stanley] Hazen and his research team discovered that microorganisms in the intestines can convert substances found in choline, a common dietary fat, to a by-product known as TMAO, trimethylamine-N-oxide.

This new study looked at l-carnitine, which has a similar chemical structure to choline.

Carnitine is a nutrient found at high levels in red meat, but fish, poultry, milk and other dairy products are also good food sources of it. Carnitine is also a popular over-the-counter diet supplement, often billed as helping to boost energy and bulk up muscle. It's found in some energy drinks and muscle milks.

The researchers looked at fasting levels of blood carnitine in nearly 2,600 men and women. The findings showed that carnitine levels could quite strongly predict participant's risk of existing coronary artery disease, as well as the risk of having a major cardiac event, such as heart attack, stroke, or death over a three-year period, but only in adults who had high blood levels of TMAO.

Hazen's group also compared mice fed their normal chow, which is basically a vegetarian diet, with mice whose food was supplemented with carnitine.

"We saw that carnitine supplements doubled the rates of atherosclerosis in the mice," Hazen said. It did this by dramatically increasing levels of TMAO, which is produced by gut bacteria that metabolize l-carnitine.

As for how carnitine in red meat may be linked with heart disease, Hazen explained that chronic ingestion of carnitine fundamentally shifts the metabolism of cholesterol. "It's changing it in a way that will make you more prone to heart disease," he said. Eating carnitine causes more cholesterol to be deposited onto artery walls, and less to be eliminated from the body.

Italics mine.

My existential crisis also comes from the fact that I have counseled approximately 40,000 (give or take) people to use it, also. (sigh) It was my job, remember? (sigh again) I even talked to a vegetarian cardiologist from India who told me he believed heart-conduction disorders in vegans might be related to a general lack of carnitine in vegan/vegetarian diets. He believed this because heart-conduction issues are more common in India (he said) than in the West, although coronary artery disease is more common in the West than in India. (Maybe they are both right? Is there NO WAY to win?)

And now, of course, you know what's happening... I am worrying about all of my other supplements. Good God. Its the domino effect! (I refuse to relinquish my beloved Ashwagandha, but I am now skeptical of other amino acids, such as L-Arginine... even though I really like its effects!)

In any event, I figured I would try to undue some of the damage by sharing this disturbing health information. I guess the vegetarian impact on my karma is intact (which is comforting), but the health effects? Probably a wash, at this point. Since carnitine is expensive (and I guess that will quickly change!), I have often gone without it for long periods. I have usually picked it up again because I noticed an energy boost from it... perhaps this mimics the energy boost from red meat? I assumed (there's that word again) that this meant it was a good thing, since ENERGY = GOOD. Again, Western stupidity writ large, yes? I mean, meth gives you energy too, and we all recognize that its not the good kind.

(sigh)

Yes, I trashed my L-Carnitine, and so should you.

On the radio

Today was our second OCCUPY THE MICROPHONE show in our new radio digs. (At left: my talented radio co-hosts, Double A and Gorgeous Gregg.)







Last week was our first show at WOLT-FM (103.3 FM on your radio dial in Greenville, SC), so I deliberately did not link it, because it was a bit frenzied and I was not at my best. In fact, I was a nervous wreck. We are now broadcasting to a much larger audience; you can hear us in most of the upstate.

Unfortunately, I missed my cue today and started out with "Now?" (sigh) I carried on though, and overall it was a pretty good show. We interviewed Christopher Williams, author of The Killer Job and friend of the old Daisy Deadhead Show on WFIS-AM. We hope you will give us a listen.

I'd also like to give a shout-out for the RAISIN KANE benefit for young Kane DeGeorgis at the Handlebar, tomorrow night at 8pm, featuring my very favorite local band, Mac Arnold and Plate Full O' Blues. Other local artists participating include: Benton Blount, Craig Sorrells, Greg Payne (of The Piedmont Boys), Chuck Beattie, Caesar, Taylor Moore, JJ Woolbright, George Grady, Stacy Bruns, Cynthia Brashier, Jim Peterman, Tez Sherard, Scram, Teresa DeGeer, Gene Brashier, Tom Peterson, Greg Hodges, Jeff Holland and possibly even more. Your $10 ticket goes to a very good cause. Kane has Batten disease, which is so rare that in all my years of medical transcription, I cannot recall typing up a single case. (It occurs in an estimated 2 to 4 out of every 100,000 births in the United States.)

We wish Kane and his family all the very best.

If you'd like to advertise with us, contact Gorgeous Gregg at OccupyTheMicrophone@Yahoo.com.

Vegetarian intestinal distress leads to insightful thinking

I have discovered an excellent reason to stay vegetarian.

After a decade and a half, if you inadvertently eat anything made with meat, you barf your guts out.

I have been sick for several days... and my husband, who ate the same thing (and is not vegetarian) is just fine. It was not food poisoning... or rather, IT WAS, but not the usual kind.

For ME it was.

I guess there is no going back!

The item was already-prepared "chicken-fried tofu"--which I assumed (and you know what they say about that) was not actually fried in chicken. (After all, as Mr Daisy said, frying it in actual chicken fat kinda defeats the whole purpose of eating tofu in the first place, doesn't it?) It seems I have eaten it before (although hardly ever) and did not have this cataclysmic, days-long reaction... but I did eat a significant amount on this occasion. It has been horrific. I am genuinely surprised at my body's response.

It could also be that the person frying it, in this particular instance, went ahead and actually chicken-fried it and didn't consider trying to make it vegetarian. I have often tasted Chinese and other foods, duly advertised as technically "vegetarian" (as in, no meat in the actual recipe) but tasted suspiciously as if possibly dumped into the same wok as the chicken-fried rice, made earlier in the day... after a long time without meat, it jumps right out at you. But imitation-meat flavors are, admittedly, much harder to gauge... the whole focus of the flavor profile is the imitation-meat flavor.

I am not a purist, and I have eaten imitation-bacon-flavored potato chips and so forth, with no negative reactions. I read labels! (Of course, with prepared hot-bar foods, you can't do that.) A "flavor" is usually a chemical, and real meat is not the same as chemically-enhanced "meat-flavor" and never the twain shall meet. So, I assumed I was eating the equivalent of tofu fried in chicken flavors.

Wrong. My ailing intestines and tummy say otherwise.

As I said, sick for days. I even recorded my radio show while still suffering (the show must go on, and all that), so my pissed-off ranting came much easier than usual. Have a listen!

And pity the poor vegetarian who no longer has the 'choice,' as one always likes to think one does.

Perhaps this is a lesson about all such choices: after a certain point, you can't undo that choice, it is permanent. It is not simply a choice of the mind; the body, the life, is irreparably marked with it.

~*~

I have been reading Susan Sontag's diaries... and I am just so jealous of her brilliance. Her one-and-two-sentence observations, just while she is sitting on a beach or whatever, are far more brilliant, incisive, and genius than anyone else's (even as they congratulate themselves for their limited brilliance and clarity). My goodness, how I miss her. I always idolized her, and now I know why: this is the kind of public female intellectual that simply does not exist anymore. She was a pure product of her time.

One thing I did, was trot out to buy a little notebook and resolve to scribble my own (decidedly non-brilliant) observations in it. I can see that she would write lines that later ended up in her other books; ideas that would later direct her thoughts and passions. I can't tell you all how many times I have tried to remember what I was thinking back on Tuesday, only to forget all about it... one thing I have liked about blogging is how it is an accurate, uncensored record of our thoughts and feelings. I have decided keeping a notebook, even of one and two line-passages, is a way to make that even more detailed, more comprehensive, more precise.

~*~


Whilst recovering from my epicurean disaster, I watched TLC network, and although its hard to avoid the constant commercials for Honey Boo Boo (saints preserve us), I was very interested in the new show about conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel. The TLC documentaries about their lives were well-received and popular, and I watched them a couple of times; this show is not surprising. They are extremely likable, smart, capable... and they don't seem at all disturbed that other people are disturbed by them.

In a very real sense, their lack of being disturbed is part of their unique condition: they are together. They are not alone. A person defined as "a freak" by our society, left all alone and gawked at unmercifully (i.e. the Elephant Man), tugs at our heartstrings in an almost-excruciating way. That poor soul, we think, nobody will ever understand him. But Abby and Brittany have each other, and they understand what the other is experiencing. Their very difference itself, makes them strong together. They murmur to each other, they make inaudible one-word remarks and grin. They are able to make fun of us right back. Therefore, they plow onward, unperturbed and undaunted. You can't help but be drawn to them.

And you know, the fact is, it is going to be hard for these girls to make a living in the regular ways. It isn't like they are going to get hired for the local Burger King or Dairy Queen. They are very logical and realistic young women, and at some point, I can see them sitting down for the cost-benefit analysis: okay, how are we going to make money? The Salon article I linked above, asks the obvious question, IS THIS A FREAK SHOW?--but forgets an obvious historic reality: people went into freak shows to be able to eat and find a warm place to sleep. Many of the people in the shows took the proverbial bull by the horns and started running their own shows and were able to retire in relative comfort. Others were exploited by ruthless circus-ringmasters. It was not always obvious which was which, simply by looking.

To me, as in the prostitution business, the question is: who is making the money? The fact is the exploitation, not necessarily the "freak show" aspect. After all, people surround these girls everywhere they go. They might as well start charging. How to do that in a civilized fashion? Reality TV seems to be the ticket. After this TV-series, people will surround them as celebrities, not (only) as 'freaks'. Also, people will have heard of them. They will know who they are and not drop their iced tea in the mall, and start following them around to be sure they saw what they thought they saw, as some reporter did some years ago in Minnesota's Mall of America. (And then, writing a really rude, gee-whiz-guess-what-I-saw article about them, that of course, I cannot readily locate now to properly link.)

Instead, they might actually get some respect, since Reality-TV celebrity is one of the few ways physically-different people can get some respect these days.

And may I also say: Its also very nice to see a whole Reality-TV show in which so many young women are portrayed as decent for a change, instead of the usual nasty, mean-girl bitches. It is heartening to see Abby and Brittany's female support network; when the gawkers descend, they close ranks around them and don't allow them to take unauthorized pictures and videos.

Now, that's something to be proud of, too:

[The TLC show] is unrelentingly positive, and at times flatout heartwarming. In the documentary about them at 16, their mother explained just how protective their friends were, closing ranks whenever anyone would stare at them. In college, the twins seem to have duplicated this kind of sheltered social environment. Unlike so many TV shows — reality and otherwise — “Abby & Brittany” is a kind of soothing ode to the niceness of 20-year-olds, and especially of 20-year-old girls. The women who live with Abby and Brittany [in their college dorm] are normal in that explicitly Midwestern way, which is to say, normal to the point of notability, grounded, smiley, well-adjusted, well-behaved, just like Abby and Brittany. The roommates are a sort of Greek chorus, supplying the audience with the information it needs — about the girls’ physiological differences, how much tuition they pay (one and a half) and the differences in their personalities — and also expressing their endless, genuinely heartfelt admiration of the two and their astounding simpatico.

I won't be able to stay away from the show, and ain't ashamed to say so.

Note: In keeping with the disability-rights concept that disability is a social construct, as I believe it is, I am tagging this blog entry with "disability"--although it is pertinent to note that Abby and Brittany are not "disabled"--as dwarves also are not. But their man-made environment (car seats, college desks, etc) DOES disable them, as it does very small people. People are "disabled" by environments and their minority status, even if they are in perfect health. (i.e. Severely scarred individuals are disabled by other people's reactions to them, not usually by the actual scars.) Just wanted to do a quick commercial for this radical perspective, since Abby and Brittany are a perfect example of it.

~*~

Other links inspired by my new notebook habit:

The Death of Sun Ming Sheu: A Government Sponsored Assassination? Thanks to Onyx Lynx!

William Gibson on Punk Rock, Internet Memes, and ‘Gangnam Style’ Required reading!


As regular readers know, I am fascinated by the multitude of changes wrought by our relatively new internet culture. And so is Gibson:

WIRED: In your essay in the new book Punk: An Aesthetic, you write that punk was the last pre-digital counterculture. That’s a really interesting thought. Can you expand on that?

GIBSON: It was pre-digital in the sense that in 1977, there were no punk websites [laughs]. There was no web to put them on. It was 1977, pre-digital. None of that stuff was there. So you got your punk music on vinyl, or on cassettes. There were no mp3s. There was no way for this thing to propagate. The kind of verbal element of that counterculture spread on mostly photo-offset fanzines that people pasted up at home and picked up at a print shop. And then they mailed it to people or sold it in those little record shops that sold the vinyl records or the tapes. It was pre-digital; it had no internet to spread on, and consequently it spread quickly but relatively more slowly.

I suspect — and I don’t think this is nostalgia — but it may have been able to become kind of a richer sauce, initially. It wasn’t able to instantly go from London to Toronto at the speed of light. Somebody had to carry it back to Toronto or wherever, in their backpack and show it, physically show it to another human. Which is what happened. And compared to the way that news of something new spreads today, it was totally stone age. Totally stone age! There’s something remarkable about it that’s probably not going to be that evident to people looking at it in the future. That the 1977 experience was qualitatively different, in a way, than the 2007 experience, say.

WIRED: What if punk emerged today, instead of in 1977? How do you think it would be different?

GIBSON: You’d pull it up on YouTube, as soon as it was played. It would go up on YouTube among the kazillion other things that went up on YouTube that day. And then how would you find it? How would it become a thing, as we used to say? I think that’s one of the ways in which things are really different today. How can you distinguish your communal new thing — how can that happen? Bohemia used to be self-imposed backwaters of a sort. They were other countries within the landscape of Western industrial civilization. They were countries that most people would never see — mysterious places. You’d pay a price, potentially, for going there. That’s always cool and exciting. Now, where are they? Where can you do that? How are people transacting that today? I am pretty sure that they are, but I don’t have that much firsthand experience of it. But they have to do it in a different way.

He's totally nailed it... and I think this explains why I am so startled by the lack of "loyalty"--the lack of "investment"--that young people have in the ideas and lifestyles they adopt today.

That's because they ran across it on the internet, exactly as if they were leafing through a catalog.

I realize now, this is what is behind my constant requests for "cred" in young internet-denizens who challenge me... their challenges are just another fun thing to do, whereas I take them very seriously as challenges to my self. That's because I take such aspects of MY SELF seriously; I sweat for my ideas and experience. I didn't just thumb through some catalog and decide, "I believe/like this; its cool, so its me."

This may also be the reason they rarely ACT on their political ideas, since no ACT was required to gain the knowledge, other than sitting and clicking. Back in the day, you had to work hard for your counter-cultural knowledge, and thus, for some inexplicable reason, you therefore felt obligated to act.

Yes, I know, this whole post is "tl/dr"--as the kids say. (stands for "too long/didn't read"--you didn't expect them to read anything LONG, did you? Is it longer than a soundbite? Fuhgeddaboudit!)

The protracted length is precisely because: I didn't really write it for them. ;)

Years added to Daisy's life!

The health care act has been UPHELD by the US Supreme Court. I did not expect this and thought I would faint.

More:

Actual text of decision (San Francisco Chronicle)

Key Quotes from Ruling (Politico)

Obama health-care law: Supreme Court upholds it in entirety (Christian Science Monitor)

Supreme Court upholds health care mandate (CBS News)

Obama wins big in Supreme Court health care ruling (Politico)

Ginsburg: "Congress Followed Massachusetts' Lead" (Mother Jones)

Legal Scholars React: 'Many People Were Stunned' (NPR)

Why The Individual Mandate Is Not A ‘Massive Tax Hike’ On The Middle Class (Think Progress)

Conservatives Freak Out Over Health Care Decision (Mother Jones)

PHOTO: John Roberts’ Wikipedia Page Vandalized: ‘Chief Traitor (Talking Points Memo)

Obama praises Supreme Court health care ruling (Politico)

It's enough to make you sick

Last evening, Occupy Greenville sponsored a Teach-In featuring a showing of Sick Around the World, followed by a spirited and lively discussion. There were maybe a dozen of us in attendance.

This follows our showing of Sick Around America last week--both shows produced by PBS Frontline.

It's a depressing situation: how did this country's health care system get so messed up? Can we fix it? Will 'Obamacare' make it better or stretch our existing makeshift solutions to the breaking point?

Sick Around the World profiled five rich, capitalist, Western countries, and how they have managed health care for their citizens: Taiwan, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, and the UK. All systems are far superior to ours, and running on less.

From the transcript of "Sick Around the World"--some highlights:

T.R. REID: [voice-over] Here's something else that's different. Japanese patients have much longer hospital stays than Americans, and they love technology, like scans. They have nearly twice as many MRIs per capita as Americans, eight times as many as the Brits.

So how do they keep costs under control? Well, it turns out the Japanese health ministry tightly controls the price of health care, right down to the smallest detail. Every two years, the physicians and the health ministry negotiate a fixed price for every single procedure and drug. Like the items in this sushi bar, everything from open heart surgery to a routine check-up has a standard price, and this price is the same everywhere in Japan.

If a doctor tries to boost his income by increasing the number of procedures, well, then, guess what? At the next negotiation, the government lowers the price. That's what happened with MRIs, which are incredibly cheap in Japan. I asked the country's top health economist, Professor Naoki Ikegami, to tell us how that happened.

[on camera] In Denver, where I live, if you get an MRI of your neck region, it's $1,200, and the doctor we visited in Japan says he gets $98 for an MRI. So how do you do that?

Prof. NAOKI IKEGAMI, School of Medicine, Keio Univ.: Well, in 2002, the government says that the MRIs, "We are paying too much. So in order to be within the total budget, we will cut them by 35 percent."

T.R. REID: So, if I'm a doctor, why don't I say, "Well, I'm not going to do them, then. It's not enough money"?

Prof. NAOKI IKEGAMI: You forgot that we have only one payment system. So if you want to do your MRIs, unless you can get private-pay patients, which is almost impossible in Japan, you go out of business.

T.R. REID: [voice-over] So that shafts the medical device makers and must limit innovation, right? Well, no. Japanese manufacturers of scanning equipment, like Toshiba, found ways to make inexpensive machines they could sell to doctors. And guess what? Now they're exporting those machines all over the world.

The whole show was like this, a series of PRICE REGULATING realizations that blew my little mind. (Why do we accept the AMA's flimsy-ass excuses for everything?)

In Taiwan, everybody must opt into the system, and they issue a standard government health care card that you just pop into a slot, like paying to park: Zip. All I could think, watching them flip that wonderful little card in and out of various slots, was how these rabidly-anti-government guys around here (waves to my radio-show callers!) would never go along with something like that: galdurnit, I won't get a guvmint ID card! I can hear it now--echoes of last week's Ron Paul rally dancing in my head.

What is interesting is that once they finally get it established, even conservatives in these countries appreciate (and want to continue) universal health care for all of their citizens. And at that point, it becomes another political football, as liberal politicians threaten the populace that conservatives want to cut benefits. (Could that actually happen here?)

In Switzerland, their system was a wreck as late as 1994. It took a lot of political will to change it. Their administrative costs are now 5% of their medical budget, compared to our whopping 22%. From the transcript:

[on camera] One of the problems we have in America is that many people -- it's a huge number of people -- go bankrupt because of medical bills. Some studies say 700,000 people a year. How many people in Switzerland go bankrupt because of medical bills?

President PASCAL COUCHEPIN: Nobody. It doesn't happen. It would be a huge scandal if it happens.

T.R. REID: [voice-over] But here's Switzerland's challenge. Having achieved universal health care, it has to decide how much citizens are willing to pay. Today, an average monthly premium for a Swiss family is about $750. But there's pressure to raise the premiums. And it's already the second most expensive health care system in the world, although still much cheaper than ours.

What's interesting about Switzerland is that after LAMal's success, people in this proud capitalist country see limits now to the free market.

[on camera] Could a 100 percent free market system work in health care?

Pres. PASCAL COUCHEPIN: No, I don't think that. If you do that, you will lose solidarity and equal access for everybody.

In conclusion, there appears to be three major factors to make universal health care work:

These capitalist countries don't trust health care entirely to the free market. They all impose limits.

There are three big ones. First, insurance companies must accept everyone and can't make a profit on basic care. Second, everybody's mandated to buy insurance, and the government pays the premium for the poor. Third, doctors and hospitals have to accept one standard set of fixed prices.

Can Americans accept ideas like that?

Well, the fact is these foreign health care ideas aren't really so foreign to us. For American veterans, health care is just like Britain's NHS. For seniors on Medicare, we're Taiwan. For working Americans with insurance, we're Germany. And for the tens of million without health insurance, we're just another poor country.

But almost all of us can agree that this fragmented health care mess cannot be ignored. The longer we leave it, the sicker it becomes, and the more expensive the cure.

I'll repeat the question here: Can Americans accept these ideas, do you think?

~*~

Update: Walkupy's recent bust in Madison County, Georgia, did not dim the hardy spirits of our Occupiers! We tweeted news of the arrest to the world and the Madison County Sheriff's Office was bombarded with phone calls from all manner of lefty busybodies such as your humble narrator. The Powers-That-Be responded by setting them free with all charges dropped--WOOT! Very happy about that, as one of our local Greenville Occupiers has joined up with Walkupy for a stint. (We love you, Lynne!)

From the Anderson Independent Mail, here are some very nice pictures of Walkupy on the roads.

~*~

At left: Daisy and the dangerous sign-carrier. (Would this man hit anybody with a sign?)



Speaking of busts, the official consiglieri/producer of the DAISY DEADHEAD SHOW, Gregg Jocoy, was cited for having a sign that was TOO BIG, outside the federal courthouse last week, during the Occupy the Courts action. Yes, there is some dopey Greenville County ordinance about the size of signs.

And what about Newt's enormous signs all over the county (that still haven't been taken down by his lazy supporters)? Well, they don't count, since it's a PICKETING ordinance! Big signs are okay, but not if you are walking around with it... I guess he might hit somebody with it? He'll poke his eye out!

So, an expensive citation, which I suspect was really because he was out there yelling about the courts. Occupy the Courts was a national succcess, if (as usual) receiving little media coverage.

I love seeing the Occupy movement stretch out in all directions!

Odds and Sods - Aries 2011 edition

Happy Aries and happy April. Hope all is well in Blogdonia!

As for me, I am doing much better than, say, Ashley Judd, who started a controversy with this quote from her recent book:

"As far as I'm concerned, most rap and hip-hop music -- with its rape culture and insanely abusive lyrics and depictions of girls and women as 'ho's' -- is the contemporary soundtrack of misogyny."

And now everybody is mad at her. (sigh)

See yesterday's post. This is why the current discourse remains at kindergarten level, because public figures are chronically afraid of "offending" someone by offering an honest opinion. As Ta-Nehisi Coates writes at the above link, Judd is already backpedaling and trying to minimize the impact of her statement.

~*~

By way of Suzan, here is the always-amazing truth-teller Chris Hedges:

Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the “Texas Miracle,” is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating.

Passing bubble tests celebrates and rewards a peculiar form of analytical intelligence. This kind of intelligence is prized by money managers and corporations. They don’t want employees to ask uncomfortable questions or examine existing structures and assumptions. They want them to serve the system. These tests produce men and women who are just literate and numerate enough to perform basic functions and service jobs. The tests elevate those with the financial means to prepare for them. They reward those who obey the rules, memorize the formulas and pay deference to authority. Rebels, artists, independent thinkers, eccentrics and iconoclasts—those who march to the beat of their own drum—are weeded out.

Amen, amen! Preach it!

(And my kindest, most loving thoughts go out to my favorite teacher, whom I hope is reading.)

~*~

If you eat fish or even take fish oil supplements, please read this account from TIME magazine, titled How My Mercury Level Hit Double the Safety Limit:

But here's what I want to know: How was I exposed to mercury? I don't exactly handle the metal in my job, so I probably wouldn't be directly exposed to it. But I do eat seafood — a lot. I probably have a tuna sandwich twice a week for lunch, and I eat sushi — a habit I picked up during my reporting stint in Japan — almost as often. I always thought those choices were healthy — and indeed, fish like tuna are a valuable source of protein and omega-3 fatty acids, which are good for the heart. But those same fish can have high mercury levels.

~*~

This post is a MUST READ work of art, hands down. Thanks to the intrepid Mr Daisy for forcing me to read it. The graphic alone is worth an award!

Money quote:

I’ve spent the last month helping my neighbors deal with their current health care crisis. She’s not really my neighbor, as she and her sister live next to my parents down the street, but when you live in a town of 300, everyone is your neighbor. They’ve lived next to my folks since I was thirteen. The elder sister (76) was married to an American, and they fled Beirut to America in 1983. Her husband died, so now it is just her and her sister (70.) Her sister had been having some problems, so they went to a doctor, then went to an endocrinologist, and long story short, it appears that she has a thyroid tumor the size of a canned ham in her chest. If she does not have it removed, it will continue to grow and kill her. We don’t know if it is cancerous, and there is no real way to know for sure, as it is so big that any biopsy of one area may not show anything, but cancer may exist elsewhere. Over the past few weeks, we have been to ENT doctors, cardiologists, thoracic surgeons, general practitioners, we’ve had biopsy, nuclear stress tests, cat scans, EKG’s, EEG’s, the works. In a couple weeks, she will have life-saving surgery, and she is healthy as a horse and will probably live for another twenty years.

Why am I telling you this? Because Medicare is paying for it. You, me, and everyone else who pays taxes is keeping this woman alive, and I am here to tell you it is worth every penny. She’s a wonderful, witty, charming woman with a lot to give the world. Without medicare, and under the Ryan “plan,” there is no chance she would be able to afford insurance, no one would insure a woman of her age with this health problem (just like it was before there was no medicare), no chance she would be able to afford the work that has and will be done, no one to provide the care she will need after surgery, and this tumor would be a death sentence. Her options would be… to die.

~*~

Sometimes, you think they must be making this stuff up. For instance: GOP Marks Oil Spill Anniversary With Drilling Push. Are they joking with that?

Nope.

We're one week away from the first anniversary of the worst oil spill in the nation's history, and to commemorate it, House Republicans spent Wednesday marking up a trio of bills that would dramatically increase drilling in the US.

The bills, all from Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, would open new areas for drilling in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans, as well as Alaska's Bristol Bay. They would also speed up the process of approving drilling permits; after 60 days permits will be considered approved regardless of whether an environmental review is complete.

(((screams)))

~*~

And when I read stuff like the following, I just shake my head, stunned... see, in these parts, the dispute would be that someone did NOT want to say the Pledge of Allegiance:

Town wrestles with Pledge of Allegiance

BROOKLINE, Mass., April 13 (UPI) -- A Boston suburb is embroiled in a dispute about saying the Pledge of Allegiance in its public schools.

The policy approved last week by the Brookline School Committee requires the recitation of the pledge once a week in all K-8 schools. School officials said they were trying to find a policy that would meet both the state mandate on the pledge and court rulings banning students or staff members from being forced to say it, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday.

The school committee specifically said no student is required to join in, but those who do not must maintain a respectful silence. At the same time, the committee said children who do recite the pledge must not make fun of or harass those who do not.

The pledge became an issue when Gerardo Martinez, principal of Devotion School, one of the eight K-8 schools, sent parents a letter in December. He said the Pledge of Allegiance, which had not been recited at Devotion for about five years, would be said voluntarily once a week.

Brookline, a liberal enclave in one of the most liberal states and the hometown of former Gov. Michael Dukakis, who was accused of lack of patriotism when he ran for president in 1988, became a target on conservative blogs.

Parents and other residents have lined up on both sides. Katie Tagliavia said she found it "horrifying" that most of the girls in her Scout troop did not know the pledge, while Martin Rosenthal, a former selectman and father of a Devotion student, said he does not see any educational value in reciting it.

It's like news from another country.

Maybe it is. After all, for four years, this WAS another country, called the Confederate States of America. I hope to address the Civil War nostalgia of the moment (150th anniversary of the war) in a later post. Simply put, I believe the election of a black president has brought the nostalgia to a rather noxious boiling point. Ugh.

~*~

And finally... your much-delayed dose of cute: Harley and Daisy endure necessary housing repairs!

This would very much upset my (quite spoiled and overprotected) kitties, so I think they are doing GREAT! I hope everything is back to normal in your home soon, Harley and Daisy! :)

Stalemate and ADD

I keep drawing the Two of Swords, which I can't figure out. I've never drawn it for myself until lately. The problem with attempting to read one's own tarot (or be one's own therapist!) is that you simply can't figure out this stuff for yourself, just as we can't always figure out we don't look good in certain clothes we love anyway. No objectivity!

And it doesn't help that many of the tarot-experts and sources can't agree on the card's meanings. Hm.

I choose the meaning I think is most likely: Stalemate. I am stalemated. At least I know that much.

However, if I am indeed lying to myself (one of the meanings of the Two of Swords), how could I know what the card means? Obviously, I am already in denial, and that means I don't have a clue.

She really needs to take off the blindfold!

~*~

Speaking of blindfolds (how's that for a segue?), Chaos is Normal posted FTY: Students, which included an excerpt from a bang-up interview (by Amy Goodman) of one Canadian Dr Gabor Maté. This incisive excerpt sent me over to Democracy Now to listen to the whole show, titled Dr. Gabor Maté on the Stress-Disease Connection, Addiction, Attention Deficit Disorder and the Destruction of American Childhood. Highly recommended!

I hear about ADD every day, as my customer-parents attempt to deal, often buying supplements for their children. I hear all about the endless "symptoms"--which so often to me, sound like, well, just being a child. When did simple childhood become a disease?

I didn't grow up hearing about ADD, which also fascinates me. Is this some "new and improved" diagnosis, in that case? If so, is our culture to blame for stigmatizing certain behaviors? And as with autism, are those same behaviors possibly 'rewarded' elsewhere? (i.e. the preponderance of autism in the Silicon Valley) Dr Gabor Maté believes actual brain development in children has markedly changed over the last generation or so, due to our radical changes in culture. (I have often believed this about addiction, so when somebody with smarts comes out and backs me up, I am thrilled.)

Quotes from Dr Maté I found especially pertinent:

In the United States right now, there are three million children receiving stimulant medications for ADHD... Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. And there are about half-a-million kids in this country receiving heavy-duty anti-psychotic medications, medications such as are usually given to adult schizophrenics to regulate their hallucinations. But in this case, children are getting it to control their behavior. So what we have is a massive social experiment of the chemical control of children’s behavior, with no idea of the long-term consequences of these heavy-duty anti-psychotics on kids.

And I know that Canadians statistics just last week showed that within last five years, 43—there’s been a 43 percent increase in the rate of dispensing of stimulant prescriptions for ADD or ADHD, and most of these are going to boys. In other words, what we’re seeing is an unprecedented burgeoning of the diagnosis. And I should say, really, I’m talking about, more broadly speaking, what I would call the destruction of American childhood, because ADD is just a template, or it’s just an example of what’s going on. In fact, according to a recent study published in the States, nearly half of American adolescents now meet some criteria or criteria for mental health disorders. So we’re talking about a massive impact on our children of something in our culture that’s just not being recognized.

...

The normal basis for child development has always been the clan, the tribe, the community, the neighborhood, the extended family. Essentially, post-industrial capitalism has completely destroyed those conditions. People no longer live in communities which are still connected to one another. People don’t work where they live. They don’t shop where they live. The kids don’t go to school, necessarily, where they live. The parents are away most of the day. For the first time in history, children are not spending most of their time around the nurturing adults in their lives. And they’re spending their lives away from the nurturing adults, which is what they need for healthy brain development.

...

In ADD, there’s an essential brain chemical, which is necessary for incentive and motivation, that seems to be lacking. That’s called dopamine. And dopamine is simply an essential life chemical. Without it, there’s no life. Mice in a laboratory who have no dopamine will starve themselves to death, because they have no incentive to eat. Even though they’re hungry, and even though their life is in danger, they will not eat, because there’s no motivation or incentive. So, partly, one way to look at ADD is a massive problem of motivation, because the dopamine is lacking in the brain. Now, the stimulant medications elevate dopamine levels, and these kids are now more motivated. They can focus and pay attention.

However, the assumption underneath giving these kids medications is that what we’re dealing with here is a genetic disorder, and the only way to deal with it is pharmacologically. And if you actually look at how the dopamine levels in a brain develop, if you look at infant monkeys and you measure their dopamine levels, and they’re normal when they’re with their mothers, and when you separate them from mothers, the dopamine levels go down within two or three days.

So, in other words, what we’re doing is we’re correcting a massive social problem that has to do with disconnection in a society and the loss of nurturing, non-stressed parenting, and we’re replacing that chemically. Now, the drugs—the stimulant drugs do seem to work, and a lot of kids are helped by it. The problem is not so much whether they should be used or not; the problem is that 80 percent of the time a kid is prescribed a medication, that’s all that happens. Nobody talks to the family about the family environment. The school makes no attempt to change the school environment. Nobody connects with these kids emotionally. In other words, it’s seen simply as a medical or a behavioral problem, but not as a problem of development.

Daisy pauses to scream a hearty YES!

You see, now, if your spouse or partner, adult spouse or partner, came home from work and didn’t give you the time of day and got on the phone and talked with other people all the time and spent all their time on email talking to other people, your friends wouldn’t say, "You’ve got a behavioral problem. You should try tough love." They’d say you’ve got a relationship problem. But when children act in these ways, we think we have a behavioral problem, we try and control the behaviors. In fact, what they’re showing us is that—my children showed this, as well—is that I had a relationship problem with them. They weren’t connected enough with me and too connected to the peer group. So that’s why they wanted to spend all their time with their peer group. And now we’ve given kids the technology to do that with.

...

...human beings are shaped very early by what happens to them in life. As a matter of fact, they’re shaped already by what happens in uterus. After 9/11, after the World Trade disasters in those terrorist attacks, some women who were pregnant suffered PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. And depending on what stage of pregnancy they suffered the PTSD, when they measured their children’s cortisol levels—cortisol being a body stress hormone—at one year of age, those kids had abnormal cortisol levels. In other words, their stress apparatus had been negatively affected by the mother’s stress during pregnancy. Similarly, for example, when I looked at the stress hormone levels of the children of Holocaust survivors with PTSD, the greater the degree of PTSD of the parent, the higher the stress hormone level of the child.

So, how we see the world, whether the world is a hostile or friendly place, whether we have to always do for ourselves and look after others or whether we can actually expect and receive help from the world, whether or not the world is hostile or friendly, and indeed our stress physiology, is very much shaped by those early experiences.

Listen to/read the whole thing; Dr Maté has an overall approach you probably haven't heard before. And I think it helps immeasurably that Dr Maté has ADD himself, and has the necessary inside-understanding to talk about the issues.

His newest book is titled In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, which I have just ordered from AMAZON.

(Thanks Chaos!)

Nikki Haley begins terrorizing the poor and disabled of South Carolina

The mainstream press can't stay away from the story of the first woman governor of a deep-south state, born to immigrants. Nikki Haley is the lady of the hour, much as she was during the summer, when she won the primary and made the cover of Newsweek.

Needless to say, all this press-adulation undoubtedly translates into political capital:

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley says she won a huge victory as the budget board unanimously accepted her choice to run the agency that oversees the state's finances and bureacracy.

The five-member Budget and Control Board on Thursday approved Eleanor Kitzman as executive director.

Unanimous votes are rare on the board led by the governor. For eight years, former Gov. Mark Sanford fought with the board's legislative leaders.

Haley says she hopes the vote is a sign of things to come.

I'm sure it is.

It is notable that Haley is appointing a lot of women to state positions. Not my favorite women, but women nonetheless. (It's a mama grizzly thing, I wouldn't understand). From WIS-TV:

Haley nominated attorney and former prosecutor Lillian Koller to take over as head of South Carolina's Department of Social Services. "She brings a true amount of experience in a time where South Carolina needs it," said Governor Haley, "She brings a lot of reform and conservatism at a time where South Carolina wants it."

Koller promises to cut more services.

Which services are those? I wasn't aware we had any social services left, but I'm sure they'll find something to take away from us.

And guess what? LET THE GAMES BEGIN! Lawsuits Follow New DSS Director Lillian Koller To SC:

In November of 2010, a lawsuit was filed claiming the state of Hawaii was falling behind on handing out food stamps to families in need. Federal guidelines require food stamp applications to be processed within 30 days.

Documents in the suit filed against the state of Hawaii and director Koller say that only 78 percent of applications were processed on time. During that same time, the departments staff was cut and the state lowered the eligibility requirements for food stamps, encouraging more to apply.

If the federal government finds that states don't distribute 80 percent of the benefits in a month there could be fines. So far, Hawaii hasn't been fined.

South Carolina gets Hawaii's cast-offs! Oh goodie.

And today, Haley outlines cuts of just more than $110 million:

Gov. Nikki Haley will propose cutting payments to doctors and hospitals for treating poor patients in a state-run health care program; requiring the use of generic cancer, HIV/AIDS and mental health drugs; and eliminating state funding of South Carolina ETV and the state Arts Commission in her State of the State speech tonight, according to an Associated Press interview.

...

The largest savings would come from reducing what doctors and hospitals are paid to treat patients in Medicaid, the state-run health insurance program for the poor and disabled. For each percentage point reduction, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services, the state could save about $10 million. Lawmakers previously have barred the agency from cutting the rates that the state pays doctors and hospitals.

Allen Stalvey, vice president of advocacy and communications for the S.C. Hospital Association, said hospitals have been preparing for this news.

...

Hospitals are working on alternatives to a rate cut, Stalvey said, including increasing the $264 million in taxes that they pay to the state each year.

Still, Stalvey said, health care providers will be impacted.

“The small rural hospitals,” he said, “it could be disastrous for them.”

Ken May, executive director of the S.C. Arts Commission, said losing $2 million in state funding would shutter that commission's doors.

The commission, formed in 1967, supports South Carolina's arts community through arts education programs that bring authors, artists and dancers into schools, grants to individual artists, and operating money given to local arts organizations.

Much of the commission's state funding is matched by federal dollars.

"Cutting our funding means leaving federal dollars on the table and doing serious damage to the arts statewide," May said, adding a thriving arts community helps attract new industry and an educated workforce to the state.

"Everybody who talks about the world economy realizes that, if we are going to succeed, it must be through creativity and innovation. It's not going to be through blue-collar jobs or cheap labor. That's all gone overseas. If we're going to attract the people who work in those emerging industries, we have to offer a quality of life that attracts them," he said.

Eliminating the state portion of ETV’s budget would save $9.5 million.

Requiring poor patients on Medicaid and mental health patients to use generic cancer, HIV/AIDS and other drugs would save $991,000 a year, Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Jeff Stensland said.

Good thing I can get North Carolina public TV from here. Good thing I have medical insurance.

And those are the only good things I can think of in response to this horrific bullshit right now.

Disabled sue South Carolina over Medicaid cuts

Because my local newspaper is attempting to make me pay for news (((laughs ruefully!))), it has been far more difficult than usual to get the required information to blog decently about this sordid state of affairs, but hopefully, this is complete enough for now.

I got this from the Myrtle Beach Sun--although it was originally published in the Greenville News. (cheapskates! greedheads!)

Disabled sue state over Medicaid cuts
By Eric Connor
The Greenville News

Lawyers for a group of disabled people are suing the state over its move to cut benefits for those who rely on government-funded home care, a decision they say violates the patients' civil rights and threatens to force people into institutions who don't belong in them.

On Tuesday, lawyers for the group and for the state will argue in U.S. District Court in Greenville over whether a preliminary injunction should be granted preventing state agencies from limiting the federal Medicaid funding the patients receive for community-based care.

The agencies responsible for administering the care - the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Disabilities and Special Needs - argue that tough economic times require cuts in services and that other options to prevent institutionalization are available.

Several Upstate residents with mental disabilities have sued the governor and two state agencies in Greenville federal court over controversial cuts to their in-home care, claiming the devastating reductions are forcing people into institutions in violation of federal law.

The residents, identified by first name and last initial, allege in the suit that Gov. Mark Sanford and the state Department of Disabilities and Special Needs, as well as the agency that administers its Medicaid programs, have discriminated against them by cutting off their social life and causing their isolation in residential facilities that will ultimately cost more taxpayer money.
DDSN spokeswoman Lois Park Mole and Sanford spokesman Ben Fox said they couldn't comment on pending litigation.

A North Carolina advocacy group argues a state agency's plans with personal care service benefits would violate the rights of patients and discourage them from independent living.

Disability Rights North Carolina wrote to federal Medicaid regulators asking them to reject proposals by the state Department of Health and Human Services and to the U.S. Justice Department asking it ensure the state complies with federal law.

A plan approved by the Legislature directs health officials to replace programs that give recipients living at home help bathing, cooking and other needs. Group executive director Vicki Smith wrote last week more than 20,000 patients could lose their services without appeals

Families of the disabled across South Carolina are carrying an added burden, facing with considerable fear the prospect that lifelines they have come to depend on will be cut in state government's deep reduction in services.

And they are concerned about government secrecy and that the agency largely responsible for controlling how they live their lives goes through an open process of deliberation with full transparency.

"There are a lot of us that are going to be right on top of them constantly to make sure that these things get out in public," said Greenville resident Leanne Hopkins, who has a son with cerebral palsy.

Scores of people convicted of crimes such as rape, elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon are permitted to care for some of California's most vulnerable residents as part of the government's home health aide program.

Data provided by state officials show that at least 210 workers and applicants flagged by investigators as unsuitable to work in the program will nonetheless be allowed to keep their jobs or begin employment.

State and county investigators have not reported many whose backgrounds include violent crimes because the rules of the program, as interpreted by a judge earlier this year, permit felons to work as home care aides. Thousands of current workers have had no background checks.

The state's troubled mental health system faced another setback Monday when an advocate for the mentally ill named last week to run the agency withdrew from the post due to a flap over some tax problems at the group he ran.

John Tote, who until recently was the executive director of the Mental Health Association in North Carolina, and Health and Human Services Secretary Lanier Cansler announced that he won't become the next state mental health director. Tote's departure came on the same day he was slated to report to work for the state. Cansler and Tote said public discussion about payroll tax issues was too distracting at a time when the focus needs to be on helping patients and their families.

Gov. Mark Sanford has also been sued, but he has argued that he doesn't have direct control over the allocation of funds.

In court filings, the three Upstate plaintiffs allege that the DDSN claimed to suffer budget shortfalls but in fact had a $7.8 million "excess funds" account and used $2.6 million to buy real estate for support agencies in West Columbia and in Beaufort and Horry counties.

In addition, plaintiffs' attorney Patricia Harrison argues in court filings that talks about cutting services first occurred in 2008, when a budget crisis existed.

However, the federal government in February 2009 provided more than $195 million in stimulus funding to prop up Medicaid services, Harrison wrote, and when the decision to cut home-care services was made the DDSN was holding $34 million in stimulus funds and paid $30 million of it into a "rainy day" fund."

Also, Harrison wrote, the cost of providing home care to disabled people costs less than putting their care in the hands of an institution - $320 per day in an institution, $138 per day for home care.

The cuts - which are manifested in the form of a cap on the number of hours of home care a person can receive - will result in four times the amount of home-care patients being admitted into institutions, she wrote.

A lawyer for the state agencies, Kenneth Woodington, told a judge in court filings that lawyers didn't intend to file a response to the plaintiffs' "vast majority of new claims" but would do so if the judge wanted in relation to the injunction.

U.S. Magistrate Bruce Hendricks ordered that the hearing should particularly focus on whether the plaintiffs could suffer irreparable harm if services are cut.

One man in the original complaint against the agencies suffers from cerebral palsy and can only move by way of a wheelchair operated by his mouth, according to court filings.

On a given day, it can take from 8 a.m. until noon to get him out of bed, groomed and prepared to move, according to court filings.

The federal government's Medicaid program allows for a waiver so that funds that would have been used to care for a disabled person in an institution can be applied to caring for the person in a home or community setting, according to court filings.

The state is responsible for determining, through medical professionals, whether a person would benefit more from being cared for from home, according to filings.

A cut in services, Harrison wrote in her motion, would likely have the man leave behind a life as a productive member of the community and instead have him "forced to sit in an assigned seat around a table in a SCDDSN workshop with persons who have mental retardation, where the revenue from his labor will be paid to SCDDSN."

The man "lives in absolute terror of his worst nightmare coming true - being forced out of his home and moved into a congregate residence in order to receive the care he requires," Harrison wrote.

The services the man has been receiving during 2010 cost about $39,424, Harrison wrote, while institution-based services would cost about $116,000 a year.

In another case, a woman suffering from severe mental retardation is unable to speak and is subject to outbursts that put pressure on caregivers who aren't accustomed to her behavior, Harrison wrote.

The woman was once housed in an institution in Laurens County but was removed after she received unexplainable physical injuries, Harrison wrote.

The federal government's American with Disabilities Act requires that disabled people not be discriminated against and segregated from society, Harrison wrote.

"The right of persons who have mental retardation and related disabilities to live, work and play alongside their non-disabled neighbors, friends and family is no less important a civil right than the right of children of all races to attend integrated public schools," she wrote.

Attorneys for the agencies argue that the plaintiffs haven't proven that they would have to enter institutions with some cuts in their home services and in fact have other options they haven't explored.

"These plaintiffs argue that if they are not offered the richest items on the menu, they will starve," Woodington wrote. "In fact, however, there are many other possible services that could fill any gaps left by the reductions in their services, which are relatively minor in any event."

In court filings, Woodington argues that states are in compliance with the ADA if individual considerations could hurt the care of a larger population.

"The immediate relief for the plaintiffs would be inequitable," he wrote, "given the responsibility the state has undertaken for the care and treatment of a large and diverse population of persons with mental disabilities."

This is a pretty shoddy situation and I am curious what our new Wonder-Gal, the Governor-in-Waiting, Nikki Haley, has to say about it.

(Never mind, I can guess.)