She Skates

Heading to Colorado

We're heading to Estes Park tomorrow.  I love going in July because that's the peak of wildflower season.  Ted got his new derotation brace today, but he won't be doing much hiking.  He's been out of commission for several months after his bad right knee gave out several times.  Nothing torn on the MRI so it's joint damage and stretched ligaments from the injury he incurred when he was in the Air Force.  Sparring with a Special Forces guy twice his size.  It finally gave out completely and he had an ACL rebuild 14 years ago, but there's a big difference between a 25 year old body and a 60 year old.  That's why when I see the young skaters incurring all these horrendous injuries I feel so badly, knowing what they have to expect as they age.  Still, one can't sit on the sidelines like a pumpkin.  I may not go very fast but many people think I'm nuts to be out on skates trying to go very fast at all.  Ted's many sports injuries (I've not mentioned the others....) have just caught up to him all at once.  Still, the right attitude in every situation is gratitude.  It changes the way your brain functions, and improves your attitude.  I've got some painful health problems myself, "just" chronic pain, but I'm going to keep going.   Time to kick the bucket later.

Immoral

To me there's something inherently immoral about putting health care into the hands of profit making entities.  I've just written my two work at home decisions for the day.  One was for a 52 year old Blue Cross claims adjustor who is disabled due to the stress of her job.  She's even had electroshock treatment and the judge said in her notes that she looked (in essences like a zombie) at the hearing.  The other was a residential care home administrator, again caught between the demands of the parties involved in running her facility, not the least of which the constant fights with insurance companies.  There have been many polls taken of doctors, who complain of constant fights with insurance companies to get the care their patients need.  I constantly read in my own files of the delays by the Worker's Compensation carriers.  I don't know how many times I've seen claimants who waited and waited to get approved for surgery.  But they had permanent nerve damage that affected their arms, legs, etc. because they had to wait so long.  No one, absolutely no one, who is sick is in a position to "shop around for the best deal for medical care" as we are so constantly told by the managed care companies.  What, are you going to choose the cheapest surgeon to do your knee replacement? (Ted's apparently looking at another knee surgery, thank goodness we have my BCBS PPO so we can go to our choice of an orthopedic surgeon).

The drug companies are obscene in their profits.  "Rolling Stone" did a long article a few months ago about how they brought Zyprexa to the market under misleading pretenses.  It's an anti-psychotic that causes huge weight gain, as do many of the psychotropic medications.  The drug companies have been pushing it for treatment of minors :( :(  Again, I've read this over and over in my case files.  The drug companies managed to get Bush to pass that Medicare drug benefit allowing them to charge WHATEVER THEY WANT WITHOUT ANY OVERSIGHT!!  Apparently capitalism doesn't apply to people who make big donations to political campaigns.

I could go on and on.  Michael Moore's "Sick" pretty much summed it up.  Thank goodness we still have some investigative journalists and filmmakers left in the current melt down of traditional news outlets.  The Republicans (is there anything good to say about those people?) vehemently oppose a single payer system...i.e. a government run program like those in every other industrialized country in world.  The insurance and drug companies know who their friends are.  They, like any organism, will fight for their lives.  And us?  We'll go on paying more than anyone else in the world and 55 millions Americans, including Adam and Gillian when she leaves the state, will have no coverage.  And do you know?  The people who are charged the most at emergency rooms etc. are those without insurance coverage.

Is there any one out there?  Am I just raving to myself?  Jo have you moved to Southern California? 

Victory by murder

The anti-abortion foes are doubtless rejoicing (behind closed doors if not in public).  The assassination of Dr. George Tiller closed his abortion clinic for good, a goal they were not able to attain by legal means. Not that the same proponents of "Pro Life" hadn't used violence earlier.  Dr. Tiller was shot in both arms in 1994, his clinic bombed several times.  The Kansas attorney general brought charges against him last year for "failing to properly obtain second medical opinions as required by law" on 19 counts.  A local jury acquitted him of all charges.  Five other abortion providers have been assassinated in the years since Roe v. Wade was passed. Not a single "Pro Life" proponent has been killed or wounded, or had their organizations attacked.

Pres. Obama has called for dialog and civil discourse on this contentious subject.  My take is that this is like calling on the Taliban for reasoned discourse and adherence to the rule of law. The Muslim convert who killed a military recruiter in Little Rock, Arkansas, felt justified by the actions of the U.S. in the Middle East. What you have here are religious extremists, and those on the outer fringe of the debate that take their cues from their less violence inclined proponents. The rhetoric of the  conservative right has prevailed in all cases shaping the abortion debate to date.  It's "baby murder" pure and simple, likely to call down the wrath of God.  Framed in those terms there is no room for rational discussion.  

I was for many years deeply opposed to abortion, especially when I belonged to more conservative religious groups.  Like most people I still have strong reservations, based primarily on the moral implications.  However, I've come to believe that this is a decision made at a personal level.  Each one of us is responsible for the decisions we make, and none but God knows the cost and consequences.  That's not for us to judge.  A woman has a right to control her body, not the body politic to hold her hostage to their beliefs.  If we care so deeply for babies let us vote a tax increase to provide appropriate medical care for those children, and their families.  Get involved in the local public schools and vote to fund them appropriately.  Get involved in dysfunctional communities where children grow up without role models or hope.  The list goes on and on.  The cheap shot, literally, is to decry the choice to abort the fetus but to ignore the very real needs of the children and families here right now.  Decrying abortion is the easy way out that allows the Pro Life-er to avoid the hard choices of real people in real time.  On this issue the abstract trumps the concrete.  

Gillian has worked at anabortion clinic for a year. It has changed her in many ways, most profoundly by creating in her a deep empathy and compassion for the lives of her patients.  She gives parenting resources to anyone who is unsure of this choice, she urges them to think carefully.  She holds hands, lifts hearts, works hard for a measly $12 an hour and realizes that there are as many stories and reasons as there are people. Compassion is the quality missing from this debate on both sides.  I think we could all benefit from a bit of humility and compassion on this and other issues.  And tell that to all the violent extremists around the world.  

The wheel comes around

I was pregnant when we got married.  Today that elicits a "ho hum" but 42 years ago it was a huge scandal and the worst fear of every mother.  I had a miscarriage 2 weeks after we were privately married and Mom did everything she could to talk me into an annulment.  I was having none of it,  'cause I was married to the  boy I luved :)  Needless to say Ted started off on the wrong foot in our family as I did in his.  But there were many personal characteristics about Ted that were the antithesis of what Mom hoped for and expected in a son-in-law.  She was civil, gave nice presents, and on a number of occasions almost had herself convinced she liked Ted, but...well, that and the alcoholism and ranting telephone calls put an end to any contact on his part after we moved to California.  My Mother-in-law used to cut out Dear Abby clipping about unwed mothers etc. and give them to my young sister-in-law with the comment, "You don't want to turn out like your sister-in-law do you?"  No Susie didn't!  She turned out to be a lesbian!  (On the irony, but she suffered in silence until she was 40). 

Now it's Gillian's Brenton who dislikes us.  He reminds me of Ted and I at that age, and through that I can see how arrogant and judgmental I was for so many years. The shoe is on the other foot now and I'm coming to see my Mom and Mother-in-Law through different eyes.  Instead of the hurtful things they said over the years, I see how many times they must have bit their tongues.  Instead of what they didn't do (want any real relationship with their grandchildren for example) I see what they did do.  My MIL was a given crafts-person and needlewoman.  She make tons of clothes for me, including many maternity clothes.  She made many of the children's clothes and her last project was Gillian's First Holy Communion dress (not at all what I sent as a pattern, but...hey).  She made them both beautiful handmade quilts.  So many things.  My Mom was always generous with nice gifts, let Adam and I live with her for a month on one of our moves, and left me 1/3 of her estate instead of leaving everything to my brother.  She even left her IRA of $70,000 to Adam, which he surely needed these last few years in his job and personal losses.  These days when it's me on the other side of the fence I'm recollecting the good things about these women, and trying to forget the decades of hurt.   Nobody is perfect.  Be careful what you dislike, and reject.  It just possibly may be the next step in your own soul improvement project.

Gitanjali

Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali poet and musician, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.  In the English speaking world this was largely on weight of his collected song poems entitled "Gitanjali."  The book was out of print for many years, but that New Age guru Deepak Chopra read them aloud on a cassette recording in 1993. I've almost worn the tapes out and sadly Chopra doesn't appear to have transfered this to CD. The poems deal with the search for God.  God as Love, God as, well....God.  They are achingly beautiful, even missing the nuances and internal structure that my Bengali friends tell me are missing in English.  I've been listening to my tapes in the Miata....I'd really like to get rid of the intro by poet William Butler Yates and just cut to the beautiful chase.  Tagore writes of the love and longing for God in a way that put the purile emoting of the West to shame.  The visual images are almost tactile, and the last selection sums up in a way that you will never seen on the Big Screen the true meaning of love.  You can find a paperback edition on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  It's a slim book, but worth every golden minute spent in the presence of a Master.